Bulbapedia:Manual of style: Difference between revisions

This article is a proposed guideline for Bulbapedia. Please discuss the proposed guideline and suggest possible changes on the article's talk page.

This is the working space for the upcoming refresh of the Manual of Style.

Keeping Continuity with Existing Style

General Style Guidance

This section deals with general style issues across Bulbapedia.

Article Titles

The conventions for titles dictate that all proper nouns are capitalized, as are all locations, and names unless specifically not capitalized. Titles are not written like book titles with most words capitalized (unless the article is about a book); note the title of this page as Manual of style, not Manual of Style.

Uniformity in the titling of pages is much appreciated in that it makes for a much more professional appearance with regards to the public perception of Bulbapedia. Any page title that includes a name should not be stored in a biographical format; i.e., "Gary Oak", not "Oak, Gary" as the page title for Ash's rival. In cases where only a first name (Bill) exists, or where a character is known by a title (such as Professor Oak) more than their proper name, those should be used as the sole title of the page. In the case of Professor Oak, redirects from "Prof. Oak" and "Samuel Oak" may be used.

In most cases, titles referring to a specific group should be kept singular, such as item rather than items. However, some exceptions are allowed when the group name is plural, such as Eevee brothers rather than Eevee brother.

Also, only link to an article once within a given portion of text; if you say "Ash" more than once in a paragraph, only link it the first time. Instances further apart may be linked to more than once, it is up to you how far apart to place repeated links. For consistency, if most elements of a list are links, then link to an article as many times as needed in that list.

Japanese titles should be romanized in titles, but see the following sections for details.

Opening Line

The full name of the subject of an article should appear within the first few words of the article itself. Alternate and popular names may be described later. The name should be given in its original form if it differs from its Anglicized form. Note that a name need not be romanized more than once. Song, episode and movie titles should be translated, not romanized. Also note that names in languages besides Japanese and English should not be included in the opening line, but rather further in the article, preferably in a section titled In other languages near the bottom with only Related articles and External links following after. Some examples follow:

Archaic

Liam Pomfret, better known as Archaic, is the current head of Bulbagarden.

Hirokazu Tanaka

Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka (Japanese: 田中宏和 but usually credited in hiragana only, born December 13, 1957) is a Japanese composer and musician best known for creating or co-creating various video games by Nintendo.

Hiromoto SIN-Ichi

Hiromoto SIN-Ichi (Japanese: ヒロモト森一 Hiromoto Shin'ichi) is a manga artist, born on January 4, 1966.

Professor Oak

Professor Samuel Oak (Japanese: オーキド・ユキナリ博士 Dr. Yukinari Ōkido, Ookido and Orchid are also seen) is a Pokémon Professor and has a home and research lab located in Pallet Town.

Bulbasaur

Bulbasaur (Japanese: フシギダネ Fushigidane) is a Grass/Poison-type Pokémon.

Aim to Be a Pokémon Master

めざせポケモンマスター (Mezase Pokémon Masutā exact, Mezase Pokémon Master is common; English: Aim to Be a Pokémon Master) was the first opening theme song of the Pokémon anime series, ...

Pokémon general style

The é and other special characters

The e-acute (é) is always used in a title where appropriate; pages are titled "Pokémon", not "Pokemon."

With regards to romanized Japanese titles, omit macrons and apostrophes in the title (but create redirects from the accurate romanization if you so desire).

Technical limitations include mandatory capitalization of the first letter of titles and the identical treatment of space, + and _ as spaces. Use {{Wrongtitle}} to make a note of any wrong titles due to technical limitations. Also note that formerly & was not an acceptable character, but now it is acceptable to use up to two ampersands in a title - more than two ampersands in a row will cause problems. Special care must be taken with ?, though usually things will work as expected.

Types

Types themselves are always capitalized.

• As adjectives, types are "<typename>-type."
  • Example: Squirtle is a Water-type Pokémon.
• As nouns referring to a Pokémon of that type, they are "<typename> type"
  • Example: Squirtle is a Water type.
  • Example: Blaine specializes in Fire types.
• As nouns referring to the types themselves, they are "<typename>" or "the <typename> type."
  • Example: Fire is super effective against Grass-type Pokémon.
  • Example: The Steel type was introduced in Generation II.

Types rendered with a hyphen are adjectives, so should never be pluralized. For example, "Water-types" is never correct. (Anime episode titles may go against the standard, such as The Grass-Type Is Always Greener!.)

Naming and Syntax

Hyphenation

• "Super effective" is never hyphenated. It formatted with a space when used as the object of a conjugation of the verb "to be" ("The attack was super effective"), but is formatted as one word when used adjectivally in front of a noun ("A supereffective attack").
• "Day-Care Couple," "Day-Care Man," "Day-Care Lady," and "Day-Care Checker" are all hyphenated as "Day-Care" is used as an adjective in these phrases. "Pokémon Day Care" and "Day Care," when used as nouns, are not hyphenated.

Plurals

• The plural of "Pokémon" is "Pokémon" and the plural of every Pokémon species is the same as the singular, much like moose or sheep. For example, Those Pikachu are Electric-type Pokémon.
• Note the following special plurals for item names:
  • The plural of "Deep Sea Tooth" is "Deep Sea Teeth".
  • The plural of "Old Gateau" is "Old Gateaux".
  • The plural of "Guard Spec." is "Guard Specs."

Capitalization

• The word Pokémon is always capitalized, as are all nouns starting with "Poké" (such as Pokégear, PokéNav and Poké Flute).
• The names of Pokémon, moves, Abilities, items, and locations are always written in title case.

The names of all people, Pokémon, moves, Abilities, items, Trainer classes, stats (except accuracy and evasion), and villainous teams are also always capitalized, as are officially named locations (places like "Kurt's house" do not count).

All unofficial terms are lowercase by default, with the exception of the names of generations. While the term "generation" is uncapitalized, specific generation names (e.g. Generation II) are.

Definite article

It is not always immediately obvious whether a particular location or concept should use the definite article "the." The below is a list of such cases according to whether the indefinite article should be used.

In the Generation VIII core series games, the summary location makes clear which locations should use "the" and which should not, so they are not listed here.

Opinion

Templates and List Sorting

Sectional Style Guidance

This section will contain links to the Manuals of Style for specific subsections.

Anime

Core Games

TCG

Manga

Side Games

Language

American English should be used rather than Commonwealth English in Bulbapedia articles. This consistent with most English language Pokémon games, as well as much of Pokémon media as a whole.) In general, Bulbapedia follows standard American English style conventions, not all of which are listed here.

• Exceptions to the preference for American English are made if the spelling is officially the Commonwealth one, such as "Catalogue."
• 's should be included at the end of singular possessives ending in s. While it is correct to either omit or include the s after the apostrophe in these cases, Bulbapedia follows the games' convention (for a multitude of reasons, including the games' usage) and appends the s. For example, Iris's should be used, not Iris'.
• The serial comma should be used where applicable (matching the syntax of the Pokémon games).
• Evolutionary levels should be designated as "unevolved," "first evolution," and "second evolution" for Pokémon that have undergone zero, one, and two evolutions respectively during their development. The TCG terminology of "basic Pokémon," "stage 1 Pokémon" and "stage 2 Pokémon" do not apply to other media.
  • For example, in the TCG Pikachu and several other Pokémon are considered Basic Pokémon, but have a pre-evolved form, making them first-evolution Pokémon. This discrepancy typically applies to evolutionary families that include a baby Pokémon.

Japanese

Kanji

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Kanji

Romanization

See Bulbapedia:Manual of style/Romanization

Multimedia and External Content

Addressing images, videos, and content from other websites and sources.

Images

Videos (including YouTube)

Integration of Content from Other Websites