Halopedia:Layout guide

For the writing style guide, see Halopedia:Manual of Style.

Halopedia:Layout Guide is an official guide to laying out a typical basic article. Complicated articles may be best modeled on the layout of an existing article of appropriate structure. Feel free to discuss the Layout Guide on the talk page.

General
Sections listed below are for any type of article. They are optional sections; if they are applicable to the topic of the article, include it in the article.


 * Some subtitles can sometimes appear in only one page, depending on the subject.


 * Sometimes a quote can be added at the start of a section when justified.


 * Sections can feature subsections and are obviously not all used all the time.


 * "Behind the scenes"/"Production notes" is reserved only for development information, such as design evolution, cut content, name change, etc.


 * "Trivia" is for trivial information, such as little details that does not add much to the subject, could even be disregarded, but are fun to know. Pointless and irrelevant trivia will be removed however. Subsections can be included under "Trivia", such as "Easter eggs", "Glitches", "References", and "Miscellaneous". If there is only one trivia entry, no bullet point is needed.


 * The section "List of appearances" must only contain official Halo titles in release date order.

Eras Tag
The Era template should be included in all in-universe articles at the top of the article. The Era tag inserts symbols at the side of the title bar of the article, to indicate which era subject of the article exists in. They may be used to indicate if the article was a featured article in the past.

For usage instructions, see Template:Era.

Article introduction
Like on any wiki, the article must feature a short introduction, starting by the article name in in bold. A game title must be in italics. At least one relevant picture should be at the right side of the article (in the Infobox when there is one).

Article end
After the main contents, the end of an article will include, in this order:


 * Trivia
 * Gallery
 * List of appearances
 * Sources

Gallery
A typical gallery section should include at least two images. To add the gallery feature, simply use, add in your images and close the feature with.


 * Example:

In several circumstances, you may see a special slideshow gallery instead of the regular gallery. The slideshow gallery can be included by adding. Although this is a neat and pretty feature, avoid using it as it is still experimental and it causes tag errors.

For more information about gallery and images, see Help:Images.

Appearance lists
Halopedia uses dedicated appearance lists to list the appearances of fictional subjects in real-world works. There are a number of standards to follow when utilizing these lists:

The definition of "appearance" as used here varies depending on the type of media. As a general rule, in visual media (games, comics, films, etc.), everything the viewer can see constitutes as an appearance. In literature, the subject must be specifically mentioned by name, or described in enough detail to discern what it is, in order to qualify as an appearance.

Deriving appearances of individual constituents from an appearance of a larger whole should be applied with discretion. Although there are exceptions, it is generally advised that the appearance or mention of an entity alone does not constitute as an appearance of all of its constituents. For example, in Halo: The Fall of Reach, there are instances in which all of the SPARTAN-IIs are gathered in the same space; however, only the Spartans who are explicitly named or described in the narrative are considered to "appear" in the novel. Similarly, while the quantum mirror is a component of MJOLNIR Mark VI armor and is thus fictionally present in all media in which the armor appears, it is only mentioned or seen in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx which is thus listed as its only appearance.

There are several templates which can be used to further detail specific types of appearances:
 * - used to identify a subject's first appearance in any work; if the subject is only mentioned for the first time, but does not appear as described above, use the "First mentioned" tag instead.
 * - used if the subject is mentioned in the source, but is not physically present in the narrative; in visual media, this means that the viewer cannot see the mentioned entity.
 * - when a previously-unseen or unmentioned subject is mentioned for the first time, use this in the place of "First appearance" and "Mentioned only".
 * - applies to instances in which the subject is not directly mentioned by name, but is being alluded to in an unambiguous manner.
 * - can be used to provide more specific, although brief, information on appearances that do not fit any of the aforementioned categories; this may include notes such as "Cameo appearance" or "Possible appearance" (used in very rare cases in which the possibility is highly likely or strongly implied, though uncertain).

"List of appearances" in in-universe articles

Articles written from an in-universe perspective feature a list of appearances to detail the works in which the article subject has appeared. All works the subject appears in should be listed in chronological order of release date, regardless of the type of media. Appearance lists must only contain official and canonical Halo titles. A list of official media in chronological release date order can be found here.

"Appearances" in articles for real-world media

Pages for real-world media (e.g. games) have lists for the in-universe entities that appear within that work. In these lists, the appearances are grouped into categories (characters, technology, etc.) and listed in alphabetical order within their respective categories. In order to prevent these lists from becoming too extensive, less significant appearances or mentioned-only subjects may not be included.

Official layouts
The purpose of standardizing all articles to an official format is to improve the quality and readability of all articles in Halopedia. That said, all users must follow the official format.


 * Starship (UNSC/Covenant) article standard
 * Characters (incl. SPARTANs) article standard
 * Weapon article standard
 * Vehicle article standard
 * Campaign Level article standard
 * Walkthrough Standards article standard
 * Multiplayer Level article standard
 * Action Figures article standard
 * Music & Songs article standard
 * Military Unit article standard