Constructed Worlds Wiki:Manual of Style/Layout


 * This guide has been adapted from English Wikipedia.

This guide presents the typical  of Constructed Worlds Wiki articles, which includes the sections an article usually has, ordering of sections, and formatting styles for various elements of an article. For advice on the use of wiki, see Help:Editing; and for guidance on writing style, see Manual of Style.

Order of article elements
A simple article should have at least a lead section and references. As editors add complexity where required, the elements (such as sections and templates) that are used typically appear in the following order, although they would not all appear in the same article at the same time:
 * 1) Before the lead section
 * 2) Hatnotes
 * 3) Deletion/Protection tags
 * 4) Maintenance / dispute tags
 * 5) Infoboxes
 * 6) Foreign character warning boxes
 * 7) Images
 * 8) Navigational boxes (header navboxes)
 * 9) Body
 * 10) Lead section (also called the introduction)
 * 11) Table of contents
 * 12) Content
 * 13) Appendices
 * 14) Works or publications (for biographies only)
 * 15) See also
 * 16) Notes and references (this can be two sections in some citation systems)
 * 17) Further reading
 * 18) External links
 * 19) Bottom matter
 * 20) Succession boxes and geography boxes
 * 21) Other navigation templates (footer navboxes)
 * 22) Geographical coordinates (if not in Infobox) or coord missing
 * 23) Authority control template
 * 24) featured list, featured article and good article (where appropriate for article status)
 * 25) Defaultsort
 * 26) Categories
 * 27) Stub template

Body sections
Articles longer than a stub are generally divided into sections, and sections over a certain length are generally divided into paragraphs; these divisions enhance the readability of the article. The names and orders of section headings are often determined by the relevant WikiProject, although articles should still follow good organizational and writing principles regarding sections and paragraphs.

Headings and sections
Headings introduce sections and subsections, clarify articles by breaking up text, organize content, and populate the table of contents. Very short or very long sections and subsections in an article look cluttered and inhibit the flow of the prose. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading.

Headings follow a six-level hierarchy, starting at 1 and ending at 6. The level of the heading is defined by the number of equal signs on either side of the title. Heading 1 is automatically generated as the title of the article, and is never appropriate within the body of articles. Sections start at the second level, with subsections at the third level , and additional levels of subsections at the fourth level , fifth level, and sixth level. Sections should be consecutive, such that they do not skip levels from sections to sub-subsections; the exact methodology is part of the Accessibility guideline. Between sections, there should be a single blank line; multiple blank lines in the edit window create too much white space in the article. There is no need to include a blank line between a heading and sub-heading.

Names and orders for section headings
Constructed Worlds Wiki has no general standards or guidelines for what section headings are expected in the bodies of articles or what order they should take, because the diversity of presentation in various constructed worlds and projects is too great. The usual practice is to name and order sections based on the precedent of some article which seems similar. There was no early standard proposed, and there is no general outline to follow. Contributors are advised to follow their instincts in proposing an order for sections in the body then seek community consensus in establishing a final order.

The order of sections in the body of a Constructed Worlds Wiki article may be recommended by a relevant subject or project, or may not exist at all for some topics.

Section templates and summary style
When a section is a summary of another article that provides a full exposition of the section, a link to that article should appear immediately under the section heading. You can use the template to generate a "Main article" link.

If one or more articles provide further information or additional details (rather than a full exposition, see above), references to such articles may be placed immediately after the section heading for that section, provided this does not duplicate a wikilink in the text. These additional references should be grouped along with the template (if there is one), for easy selection by the reader, rather than being scattered throughout the text of a section. You can use one of the following templates to generate these links:
 * – this generates a "For more details on this topic, see" link
 * – this generates a "Further information" link
 * – this generates a "See also" link

For example, to generate a "See also" link to the article on How to edit a page, type, which will generate:

Paragraphs
Sections usually consist of paragraphs of running prose. Between paragraphs—as between sections—there should be a single blank line and the first line of each paragraph is not indented. Bullet points should not be used in the lead of an article, and should not be used in the body unless for breaking up a large, grey mass of text, particularly if the topic requires significant effort on the part of the reader. However, bulleted lists are typical in the reference and further-reading sections towards the end of the article. Bullet points are usually not separated by blank lines, as that causes an accessibility issue (WP:LISTGAP).

The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since they can inhibit the flow of the text; by the same token, paragraphs that exceed a certain length become hard to read. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading; in such circumstances, it may be preferable to use bullet points.

Headings
When appendix sections are used, they should appear at the bottom of an article, with, followed by the various footers. When it is useful to sub-divide these sections (for example, to separate a list of magazine articles from a list of books), this should be done using level 3 headings (===Books===) instead of definition list headings (Books), as explained in the accessibility guidelines.

Works or publications
Contents: A bulleted list, usually ordered chronologically, of the works created by the subject of the article.

Title: Many different titles are used, depending on the subject matter. "Works" is preferred when the list includes items that are not written publications (e.g. music, films, paintings, choreography, or architectural designs), or if multiple types of works are included. "Bibliography", "Discography", or "Filmography" are occasionally used where appropriate; however, "Bibliography" is discouraged because it is not clear whether it is limited to the works of the subject of the article. "Works" or "Publications" should be plural, even if it lists only a single item.

"See also" section
Contents: A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links to related Wikipedia articles. Consider using Columns-list or Div col if the list is lengthy. The links in the "See also" section might be only indirectly related to the topic of the article because one purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics.

Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous. For example:


 * Related person – made a similar achievement on April 4, 2005
 * Ischemia – restriction in blood supply

Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic, and should be limited to a reasonable number. It is also not mandatory, as many high-quality and comprehensive articles do not have a "See also" section, although some featured articles like 1740 Batavia massacre and Mary, Queen of Scots include this section.

The "See also" section may link to pages that do not exist (red links) and disambiguation pages. The "See also" section may repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes if it is a significant subject.

Other internal links: Portal links are usually placed in this section.

Title: The most common title for this section is "See also".

Notes and references
Citations and references are not required on the Constructed Worlds Wiki and may be used at the discretion of the writer.

Links to sister projects
Links to sister projects such as Constructed Languages or Alternative History should generally appear in "External links", not under "See also".

Navigation templates
Contents: Navigation templates and footer navboxes, such as succession boxes and geography boxes (for example, ). Most navboxes do not appear in printed versions of Wikipedia articles.

Images
Images should ideally be spread evenly within the article, and relevant to the sections they are located in. All images should also have an explanatory caption. An image that would otherwise overwhelm the available text space on a 800×600 window should be shrunk or formatted as a panorama. It is a good idea to try to maintain visual coherence by aligning the sizes of images and templates on a given page.

When placing images, be careful not to stack too many of them within the lead, or within a single section; if the images in a section spill over into the next section at 1024×768 screen resolution, that may mean that the section is too short or there are too many images in that section. If an article has many images—so many, in fact, that they lengthen the page beyond the length of the text itself—you can use a gallery. Another solution might be to create a page or category combining all of them at Wikimedia Commons and use a relevant template (Commons, Commons category, Commons-inline or Commons category-inline) to link to it instead, so that further images are readily found and available when the article is expanded. Please see WP:IG for further information on the use of galleries.

As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default. If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding in the form. Lead images should usually be no wider than "300px" ("upright=1.35" defaults to that size, but may appear larger or smaller based on the thumbnail width setting in preferences). Larger images should generally be a maximum of 500 pixels tall and 400 pixels wide, so that they can comfortably be displayed on the smallest displays in common use.

Avoid referring to images as being on the left or right. Image placement is different for viewers of the mobile version of Wikia, and is meaningless to people having pages read to them by assistive software. Instead, use captions to identify images.

Horizontal rule
Horizontal rules—a series of hyphens resulting in a straight line—are deprecated; that is, they are no longer used in articles. Rules were once employed to separate multiple meanings of a single article's name, but this task is now accomplished through disambiguation pages.

Rules can be used to provide separation inside certain templates (for example, sidebar derivatives), within discussions, or when needed in some other formats.

Specialized layout

 * Category:WikiProject style advice
 * Stand-alone lists
 * Talk page layout

Other project pages

 * Help:Editing
 * Help:Preferences
 * Help:Section
 * Article titles
 * Disinfoboxes (essay)
 * Talk page guidelines – Shows how to use headings on talk pages