Sapphire Wikia:Manual of Style/Technical

The Steven Universe Wiki has a specific set of guidelines regarding the technical aspects in articles. It is recommended to be consistent with such to avoid conflict of interest.

Titles and section headings
Titles and section headings should have the text only and nothing else. This includes italics, bolding, and links. If the name is repeated in the article, modify that instead.

Links
Links should be to the main article itself, rather than to a redirect page. What this means is the article that one wants to link to must be the same name as the one displayed in the URL. For example,  Steven  would link to the character, but since "Steven Universe" is used as the name of the series and more, there needs to be a way to define the target page. As a result,  Steven  is used instead.

For external links, like in reference, the website being linked to should be a redirect or a portal page instead. This is because every user is from a different country and uses a different device. As a result, using portal links that don't have a region or category type appended and prepended in the URL (e.g. http://mobile.twitter.com < https://twitter.com | https://cartoonnetwork.com.uk < http://cartoonnetwork.com) is mandatory.

Lastly, underlines acting as spaces are not allowed within interwiki links.

Piped links
Piped links are links that have different clickable text than what the actual page name is that is being linked to. For example, if the character Steven Universe is linked to, it can be Steven by using  Steven .

Piped links are only necessary for examples like the above. An exception to this is when the word has an apostrophe (such as in possessives) as it is parsed as wikitext. Otherwise, usually for plural words, the pipe is not necessary since it is already highlighted. (e.g. Holo-Pearls = Holo-Pearls)


 *  Incorrect : Lapis Lazuli's (Made with  Lapis Lazuli's )
 *  Correct : Lapis Lazuli's (Made with  Lapis Lazuli's )

It cannot be used to include words that are not included in the page name as that can cause confusion. If such an article title exists, link it by itself without a pipe as long as it is relevant.


 *  Incorrect : Beach City Resort
 *  Correct : Beach City Resort

To avoid confusion with the rule, this only includes page names only. If the page being linked to has a heading that is relevant to the piped text, then it can be added.


 *  Partially correct : Steven's relationship with Connie has blossomed since Season 1.
 *  Correct : Steven's relationship with Connie has blossomed since Season 1.

Overlinking
Links to any specific page should only appear once. This is because linking multiple times is redundant and increases the article size unnecessarily which can be bad for limited data plans.

Another form of overlinking is having unnecessary URL characters (like ). One can use this tool to shorten the link, but it is recommended to experiment with the URL and find the shortest link that works. Link shorteners are forbidden (including YouTube's), so this will not be an option.

Italicizing and bolding
Links to episode articles or just names of episodes should be italicized, links to series articles or just names of series should be bolded, and links to movie articles should be italicized and bolded. All other links should not have any sort of emphasis.

Italics should also be used when mentioning a word or letter or a string of words up to one sentence (The term bubbling is when a character encases an object and puts it into a frozen stasis). This includes scientific words for the names of plants, animals and other organisms at the genus level and below.

Title Case > "Sentence case" in Article Headings
Headings in articles should have every word outside of prepositions and short conjunctions (and) capitalized.

Dashes
There are three types of dashes used commonly. The smallest is the hyphen (-), the medium length is the en dash (–), and the longest is the em dash (—). The em dash is only used for separating quotes and sources and breaking sentences, and because the en dash does the same thing and also indicates span and differentiation, the em-dash will not be used but rather the en dash.

The en dash and hyphen do not substitute each other. The hyphen is used to connect words to form compound words. This is important to know when creating references.

HTML entities
HTML entities are characters or entities that cannot be replicated on the average physical keyboard easily or at all as a symbol when typing. Because of this, it is recommended to never use any whether it is a character (α) or a composition of code for the HTML character to appear (&amp;alpha;). If one has to be used for the sake of omitting ambiguity or for an interesting trivia point (such as a mathematical equation), then it is allowed.


 * Omit ambiguity (The symbol is a capital α in the Greek alphabet)
 *  Incorrect : This Gem symbol looks like an Α symbol.
 *  Correct : This Gem symbol looks like an &amp;alpha; symbol

There is an HTML composition known as a non-breaking space (&amp;nbsp;) that serves to prevent line breaks (line wraps) from occurring anywhere within it. It is desirable because it forces a text segment to appear entirely on a single line‍, which is useful for keeping the integrity of math symbols, units (kg, g, km), natural number words (1,000 billion) or endashes.

It will be used sparingly considering whether the line breaks without it or not and whether the context is appropriate. For example, it is fine to do 12&amp;nbsp;MB when needed, but it may be counterproductive in a table (where the horizontal space makes the line break look better) and not necessary in a short parameter value in the infobox (where a break would never occur anyway).

&lt;br> vs. &lt;br />
"&lt;br />" is preferred as it has been noted to provide extra compatibility with XHTML and HTML5. "&lt;br> " is considered redundant.

Quotes
When referencing a quote from someone or something, type a portion of the quote that either summarizes or introduces the subject, surround it with the link, then use an en-dash to cite the person or thing the quote was from.  Examples: 
 *  Incorrect : Rebecca Sugar confirms Holly Blue is a Quartz herself.
 *  Correct : Rebecca Sugar confirms Holly Blue is a Quartz herself. – Rebecca Sugar in the CN tweet video
 * (Rebecca Sugar confirms Holly Blue is a Quartz herself.[1] I was just really excited to have a Quartz with her hair up, a sort of librarian type – Rebecca Sugar in the CN tweet video)

Extra details such as the timestamp are only to clarify if the video or text is long or if the reference is difficult to find (e.g. Rebecca Sugar (4:47) / Rebecca Sugar (Paragraph 5. Line 4.).

Blogs, news sources, books and YouTube
The proper way to cite blogs would be to put the author(s) last name and first name (Sugar, Rebecca) and separate them with a semi-colon with multiple authors, put the MDY-formatted date of release in curved brackets ( (March 14, 2015) ), quote and italicize the title in double-quotes ("Steven Universe confirmed new leader"), cite the website it was from in italics (if only the title is available and no authors, etc.) (Crewniverseftw.com), sign the publisher if one exists (Cartoon Network), and then put down the access date (Retrieved August 10, 2017).

These elements are always separated by a period (excluding the date '''(Sugar, Rebecca (March 14, 2015). "Steven Universe confirmed new leader".)) except if the source is on YouTube, Reddit, etc., which then an extra is added where the en-dash includes "via YouTube" (– via YouTube)'''. Another extra is added when a subsite is included (like on Reddit and Tumblr) on the main site (– r/stevenuniverse on Reddit). An exception for citing books is italicizing the title of the book without quotes, cite the website as "via [Amazon]" and adding an ISBN number (ISBN-13 on product details or those that start with 978-) with a link to the Wikipedia article of ISBN and the ISBN number without any hyphens being linked with Special:BookSources. Any other media will follow the previous method of sourcing plus the ISBN number when given.


 * General
 *  Correct : Steven is confirmed to be the leader of the Crystal Gems, only having Garnet take over when he worries too much.
 * Steven is confirmed to be the leader of the Crystal Gems, only having Garnet take over when he worries too much.[2] Sugar, Rebecca (March 14, 2015). "Steven Universe confirmed new leader". Crewniverseftw.com.


 * Via
 *  Correct :
 * [3] IGN (March 11, 2017), Steven Universe: Save the Light Gameplay Reveal – PAX East 2017 – via YouTube. Retrieved March 11, 2017
 *  Correct :
 * [4] "Breaking news - There is NO HAITUS after this ongoing Steven Nuke. Season 4 starts August 18th 2016." – r/stevenuniverse on Reddit. Retrieved July 30, 2016


 * Books
 *  Correct : The Answer is a book that was released on September 6, 2016.
 * The Answer is a book that was released on September 6, 2016.[4] Sugar, Rebecca (September 6, 2016). The Answer. Cartoon Network Books. ISBN 9780399541704 – via Amazon. Retrieved January 7, 2016

Optionally but preferably, if the source is a reputable newspaper site (The Guardian), then the ISSN number can be put at the end of the citation and be linked to www.worldcat.org.

Transcript pages

 * Utilize the TD template to create transcripts.
 * As a rule of thumb, always use Cartoon Network's closed caption's transcription and only fix their spelling and grammatical errors if any. CNs captions override the manual of style's wishes, so if no captions exist, then follow the below dotpoints.
 * Only italicize a word if it is stressed or within a sentence. Yelling does not count thanks to the exclamation mark.
 * Always use italics (along with surrounding quaver [♪] notes) when a character is singing.
 * Bold the italicized phrase and surround it with beamed quaver notes (♫) when two drastically different characters sing a phrase or chorus (e.g. ♫ What's the use of feeling? What's the use of feeling? What's the use of feeling blue? ♫ – Blue and Yellow Pearl singing with Yellow Diamond in "That Will Be All").
 * A character speaks through one template until a major occurrence happens that suits the narrator dialogue. Otherwise, for minor occurrences, such as one clap, surround the action in brackets and bold the word or phrase.