Talk: Manual of Style

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Dragon Ball Wiki:Manual of Style page.
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Here it is

For better or for worse, here's the revised MoS I've been adding bits and pieces to over the past weeks. It might be a little unimpressive given how long it took me to get it up here, but it still goes a bit more in-depth than our old draft does. As noted on the top of the page, this is only a proposal, so don't flip out if something doesn't look right — talk about it here and we can fix whatever needs fixing. Please discuss any changes to the policies on the manual before committing those changes to the project page.

As far as the actual policies go, I've tried to keep most of what was in the original draft, even directly copying some of it. In addition, I've added some material based on consensus that has been reached regarding several issues over the past months. (Naming, images, fan works, etc.) There were also some areas on the wiki that have been sources of inconsistency that I just arbitrarily stuck in rules about based on my whims (e.g. article names for planets and a few formatting rules) — feel free to tell me why I made the wrong choices there if you don't like them. Finally, I brought in a few other policies from Wikipedia and other wikis on Wikia that seemed pertinent.

There are also a few remaining issues that we should probably work out before we finalize this. The first is videos. I've noticed several occasions on which users have embedded various video clips into articles. For the most part, these have seemed to be fairly blatant copyright violations that likely would not fall under fair use. We certainly would want to avoid that, and even in the case of non-infringing clips (for example, authorized trailers or the temporary release of Dragon Ball: Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! last winter) it seems to me that external links would be the least distracting way to direct users to those videos. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see much use for embedded videos on the wiki, but that's only my view, so please share yours.

Another issue I was thinking about is anime-only material. There doesn't really seem to be a graceful way to cater to both manga purists and those who accept anime-only material as part of canon. We can either break up the manga-based content and the anime-only content and present them separately, or we can present them together in chronological order. The former way hinders flow, and the latter blurs the line between different levels of canonicity. My thought on a solution was that we could use the latter style, but introduce some sort of special formatting that could signify that a certain paragraph or statement refers to an anime-only subject. For example:

King Kai has a monkey named Bubbles, a motor-mouth grasshopper named Gregory, and owns a 50's-style red Chevrolet Sedan.

(The formatting doesn't necessarily have to look like that, and we can tidy up the code with a template, but you get the idea.) On the wiki's site notice (which is shown at the top of every page on the wiki) we could include an explanation on the formatting, or a link to an explanation. Whole articles or sections that describe an anime-exclusive subject could forgo the formatting and simply have a notice at the top of the page/section. Other ideas on how to address this issue are welcome.

Finally, there's the issue of in-universe (IU) writing vs. out-of-universe (OOU) writing. I've left the old policy pretty much intact, save for some clarifications, but in truth, the articles are currently a bit of a mishmash of IU and OOU styles. For example, many articles follow the IU style by introducing a character as though the writer lives in the DB universe. On the other hand, some articles will introduce their subject as being "a fictional character from the Dragon Ball manga and anime series" — clearly an OOU perspective. Many of the supposedly IU sections also frequently refer to episodes and sagas and other real world references, which contradicts purely IU writing style. We should clarify just how this policy is going to work.

Well that's it for my spiel. Let the deliberations commence. :-P --  talk contr 06:22, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Heya comrade. I wouldn't call this MoS unimpressive. The manual of style seems to be very well thought out. Overall, I'd say I have absolutely no qualms with what's being said here. I agree that videos should be kept out entirely due to copyright violations, we want to avoid infringement in any way possible. I've been removing videos on a monthly basis as members have kept adding them frequently (and many have been non-dragon ball related). About manga and anime differentiation, it seems to be a basic clarification in that regard, but we shouldn't split manga and anime apart, keep it on one page and have everything in chronological order, but note the anime differences on the same article. Canonicity is very important, the fact that we maintain its importance is crucial to sustaining an accurate encyclopedic resource. We're always going to improve the articles. In regards to IU and OOU writing styles, I'm not opposed to either, but feel that we should choose one and stick with it. We should definitely clarify to that end how we need the writer to introduce, refer, and convey the article's message and from what perspective, keeping the article less opinionated and more factual. - User:PrinceZarbon/sig 14:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

This is looking very nice, I agree with it 100%. I'm wondering if there would be any way to possibly send this to all of the wiki's active users once it is completed, or perhaps give a nice clear link to it on the main page so that new users and veteran users alike can view it with ease. What do you think about something like that?

talk contr

17:22, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the manual is quite good, though there are things to be improved. One topic is the IU versus OOU. I tend to prefer OOU, as sometimes it is useful or even necessary to provide a link to, for example, the episode where something happened. I guess it can be done with subtle references linking to the References section, but sometimes it may not be that easy. So usually find OOU is easier to mantain and complete. However, IU is "more fun" most of the time...

Another point is the "Episodes, manga chapters and sagas" body layout. I think there are sections missing. For one, there is usually a "characters" section, at least in the sagas. The sagas also have an episode list. And I think there should also be a layout for movies, which is quite similar to this one, but has more sections (cast, music, and maybe cannonicity).Sega381 02:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestions! I agree with your points regarding the OOU style. (Actually with a completely OOU style we could probably do away with the "Behind the scenes" sections, since most of the information therein could be integrated into the other parts of the article.) I went ahead and adjusted the article layouts section with those suggested sections/article types — make sure and chime in if more refinement is necessary.

I agree keeping anime and manga material together seems most logical. My main rationale for suggesting some sort of formatting for anime-exclusive material is that there is a fair amount of anime-exclusive material that's mixed in with original manga material, and having to explicitly state when a particular statement is anime-only has always seemed to make the articles flow a little less smoothly, at least to me. (We end up with lots of "in the anime only" or "exclusively in the anime" statements all over the place.) If those don't bother anyone else I can live with them, but I just wanted to mention it while we're settling on policies anyway. --  talk contr 08:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey all I'm new to this wiki, in fact my first edits are today, but I thought I'd present an idea with regard to IU vs OOU. From editing various wikis I have come to like both methods, but I generally prefer IU mainly because I think the encyclopedia's that are written as if they were in the universe are more enjoyable to read. I'm used to referencing using the referencing section and <ref></ref> tags, however, if you would like to stay in-universe but provide an easy link to where the info is from, you could create a cite template which could be placed after the information and would provide a link to the episode/movie/manga where the info came from. For example, if you wanted to reference to the episode "Stop Vegeta Now!" you could have the information, and where you want to reference you would place {{Cite|DBZ|Stop Vegeta Now!}}, and it would look something like:

Vegeta dodged the Spirit Bomb, but Goku had Gohan hit it back at him, sending the Saiyan Prince flying into the distance. (DBZ: "Stop Vegeta Now!")

This is simlar to the Harvard style of referencing and would allow people to quickly see where the info came from. The template would have different variables so that "DBZ" could be "DB" or "Movie" or whatever you want. Anyway that's the idea, not sure how good it is, but I thought I'd put it up :-). Grunny ^(Talk) 10:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that seems to be the style of choice over at Memory Alpha and it's worked well for them. All-in-all, I can see nice things about both styles and could be swayed either way at this point, but I agree with PrinceZarbon in that we really do need to pick one and stick to it. Your point about references seems to resolve the previous issue that was mentioned regarding the IU style. That said, I guess I'm slightly leaning that direction now. Is anyone leaning with me? :-D (It would be nice to not have to introduce most articles as "_____ is a fictional _____ in the Dragon Ball manga and anime series".) --  talk contr 00:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we ultimately do not need to introduce characters in that manner "____ is a fictional ____ in the Dragon Ball", etc. due to the fact that it's obvious that the characters on the wiki will belong to the Db universe, it would accomplish little but state the obvious on the wiki of its very name. The best case scenario here is of course to pick one and stick to it, so we can have consistency on all the articles. But I agree that it would be nice not to mention the obvious so-and-so belongs to the Dragon Ball universe as that much must be clear to anyone on the wiki. - User:PrinceZarbon/sig 00:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

One thing I'm still wondering about is what you guys think is the best way to identify anime-exclusive material. If we go with an IU style we won't be able to say things like "in the anime only" in normal text. Thoughts? --  talk contr 09:41, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Gogorumo

I like your Wikia

A Couple of Recommendations

On the Debut section in the infbox's for the articles I put there manga and anime debuts. Also every Biography should have a section before the saga they debuted in called Early life and tells all information revealed about them that happened before there appearance in the series (Example would be like vegeta where it should tell about vegeta's early life that was in all the flashbacks in the frieza saga). Also Movies should just be part of the biography instead of seperated after the biography due to the fact that some of them actually happen like Dead Zone should be placed just before vegeta saga. Also the Video Games section should be placed lower after Transformations and Techniques. I think a Trivia Section on episode articles is something that should be added so it can explain possible plotholes, dub errors, Early Edits, Ect. - User:Slayer25769.

Trivia sections are part of the generic article layout, so technically every article has a place towards the end of the page for trivia information. I kind of agree with going 100% in chronological order (integrating movies into the overall biography). The only thing that concerns me a little is maintaining the distinction between material that's canon to the series and material that is exclusive to movies. This is similar to the anime-exclusive issue I mentioned above. Any thoughts on how this might be accomplished? --  talk contr 08:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I understand the whole thing about movie stuff but the ones that can fit definitely should go in the main biography. We can put Dead Zone before Saiyan/vegeta Saga, World's Strongest, Tree of Might and Cooler's Revenge in between the Trunks and Android Saga, Broly was confirmed to be in between the 10 days taking place before Cell, Bojack is inbetween Cell Games Saga and Great Saiyaman Saga, Broly Second Coming happens inbetween Great Saiyaman and World Tournament Saga and Wrath of the Dragon and the 2008 OVA is Post Kid Buu Saga. I think that we should seperate Kid Buu and the Post Kid Buu saga that takes place 10 years later if that character is involved in one of those movies. Also Since the 4 Dragon Ball Movies are definitly non canon they should be in their own section because the first 3 sequel each other. This may sound confusing but If you want I can make an example of the format changes. Also One last thing is on the articles for saga's I don't think it is necessary for it to list edited and unedited episodes because the older dub has been replaced and we should stick to uncut episodes only and describe early dub edits in the trivia articles for the episodes. - User:Slayer25769

Saga layout

A small thing I'd change to the Sagas layout is to put the episode list at the end, after the releases, because 1) that's where it is in the current articles, 2) seems better to me, as lists tend to interrupt the article flow, and 3) for consistency with other layouts, which have the Releases section right after the Quotes.--Sega381 17:58, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would seem logical to maintain the lists at the end of each article in order to have consistency on all the saga articles. - User:PrinceZarbon/sig 20:34, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. :) --  talk contr 08:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Another couple points

I was thinking it might also be worthwhile to note that fullscreen (4:3) screenshots are preferred over widescreen (16:9) cropped ones when the original material was fullscreen. I was also wondering if you guys think an (optional) "Production" section might be good to include in the movie layout, and if so where you'd suggest inserting it? --  talk contr 08:43, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be pretty useful. I guess I'd put it before the releases section.--Sega381 00:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)