User:Subtank/Update

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Layout Guide

The 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.

Canon

This page details the wiki's stance on the issue of canon in the Halo franchise.

"When a painter starts, they have an idea. They sketch, they doodle, they make strokes on canvas and paper with pencil, pen, brush, charcoal, whatever.

Until the painting is finished, any previous stroke of the brush can be covered by a later one, altering the position of a tree, the color of the sky, a reflection in the water, the placement of a person, the existence of anything.... until the artist says "fin", it is not up to others to determine what is "so" and what is an "alteration"."

— Recon Number 54

Manual of Style

This Manual of Style is a guide applicable to all Halopedia articles. It reflects Halopedia's standards, and is intended to help editors to produce articles with language, layout, and formatting that are consistent, clear, and precise. The goal of Halopedia is to make the whole encyclopaedia easier, intuitive to use and the most definitive source for all Halo information.

General principles

Internal consistency

An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within a Halopedia article, though not necessarily throughout Halopedia as a whole. Consistency within an article promotes clarity and cohesion.

Stability of articles

The Administration Team has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, start a discussion on the talk page of the article and try to find ways to overcome the issue.

Follow the sources

Main articles: Halopedia:Notability Policy, Help:References

Many points of usage, such as the treatment of proper names, can be decided by observing the style adopted by high-quality sources. Unless there is a clear reason to do otherwise, follow the usage of reliable English-language secondary sources on the subject. If the sources can be shown to be unrepresentative of current English usage, follow current English usage instead—and consult more sources.

Clarity

Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Remember, the encyclopedia is aimed at late high school, early college reading proficiency, and general educational levels. Articles should be fully comprehensible to non-specialists.

Nomenclature

There is tension between the academic approach that names and classifies by the perspective of the field, and the layman's approach that uses common names and classifies according to common practice. We should try to accommodate the layman's approach wherever possible. The longer technical name may be described in parentheses the first time it is used.

Styles

Much of the styles you see in this manual of style is based on Wikipedia's manual of style, however in some cases Halopedia will differ from Wikipedia. You can find a more detailed guide of this in the Layout Guide The following specific style conventions will be used by Halopedia:

• Spelling: unless written as such, the spelling that is preferred in Halopedia is American English.
• Italics: titles of any media and ships in the Halo universe should always be italicized (i.e. Halo 3, The Art of Halo, Halo: Landfall, UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, Truth and Reconciliation). An exception to this would be those for citation purposes.
• Bolded: in any article introduction, the article name must be bolded.
• Measurement: unless presented as such, always use the US customary units over metric system as the primary measurement. Make sure to present metric system in brackets after the US customary units (i.e. (286 lbs (130 kg), 7'2" (2.18 meters)).

Verb Tense

Use past tense when referring to specific events that have already run their course in the media's plot. Examples below:

Wrong When Alpha Halo is destroyed, it emits a signal that places all other Forerunner installations in standby mode, including the Sentinels guarding the Shield World located within the artificial world of Onyx. On October 31, 2552, the first of these Sentinels to awaken suddenly begin attacking UNSC forces on or near Onyx. Coincidentally, Gamma Company is participating in the Top Honors exercise at the time.

Right When Alpha Halo was destroyed, it emitted a signal that placed all other Forerunner installations in standby mode, including the Sentinels guarding the Shield World located within the artificial world of Onyx. On October 31, 2552, the first of these Sentinels to awaken suddenly began attacking UNSC forces on or near Onyx. Coincidentally, Gamma Company was participating in the Top Honors exercise at the time.

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Plot summaries are rare exceptions to this, as they use present tense to maintain the narrative. Chapter summaries summarize a chapter's events in a "this is what happens in this chapter" fashion, as opposed to a "this is what happened in that chapter" fashion. Examples below

Wrong The "Pillar of Autumn" is the first level in the campaign mode of Halo: Combat Evolved and in the Halo Trilogy. Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN John-117 was revived from his cryo-sleep and made his way to the bridge of the titular ship to be debriefed by Captain Jacob Keyes about their current situation. After the brief meeting, the Master Chief, with his AI companion Cortana, made his way off the ship via a Bumblebee escape pod.

Right The "Pillar of Autumn" is the first level in the campaign mode of Halo: Combat Evolved and in the Halo Trilogy. Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN John-117 is revived from his cryo-sleep and makes his way to the bridge of the titular ship to be debriefed by Captain Jacob Keyes about their current situation. After the brief meeting, the Master Chief, with his AI companion Cortana, makes his way off the ship via a Bumblebee escape pod.

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Use present tense when referring to gameplay elements, characters, weapons, enemies, and the like. Examples below

Wrong The M6D PDWS was a handgun seen in Halo Universe. It was used by various characters and was the first ranged weapon the player encountered.

Right The M6D PDWS is a handgun seen in the Halo Universe. It is used by various characters and is the first ranged weapon the player encounters.

DO NOT include phrases like "his ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery."

Editing standards

General standards

1. Please categorize articles and insert navigational templates appropriately to ensure that Halopedia is a more orderly compendium of Halo knowledge.
2. Please do not insert a heading, such as ==Summary==, if there is only a single heading within the article. Just don't put a heading until you feel the need to insert two, and then you may create two.
3. Whenever inserting pictures in "thumb" format, such as [[File:Random.jpg|thumb|left]], be sure to add a caption like [[File:Random.jpg|thumb|left|Caption goes here.]].
4. Refer to the Halo universe from a third-person perspective.
5. List all references at the end articles. It should not be: SPARTAN-117 said, and I quote this from Halo 2, "I need a weapon." Instead, use the reference tag if necessary, or else, write: "I need a weapon." (Halo 2, Cairo Station)
6. Any game, media ^{(i.e. Novels)} and level title must be written in italics.
7. Refrain from using slashes whenever possible. Instead, work the word "or" into the sentence, or figure out some other way of stating it.

Avoid making multiple edits in an article

Halopedia is one of few wikis with a point system-based on military ranks. Whenever one makes an edit, one is rewarded 50 points regardless of the amount of contribution contributed. Though it sounds fun, excessive amount of edits in an article can lead to a block. As such, editors are reminded to edit an article to a maximum of three.

A simple way of avoiding this problem is to mark your contributions as "Minor Edit", or practice using the Preview button which allows you to review the contributions you made before saving them.

Use the "Minor Edit" button

As a corollary to the above, if you are making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.

Use the Preview Button

The preview button is right next to the save edit button, and is there for a reason. It's your own personal spell checker, link checker, whatever-else checker. Use it. Users that purposefully do not preview edits as to inflate their edit count are not well regarded amongst Halopedians, and you may find yourself in trouble with an administrator.

Do not link to the current page

In other words, a page should not link to itself. If it is attempted, the link will simply turn into bold text.

Link once

A given section of sufficient size should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Captain Jacob Keyes in one place, then that should be the only link to Captain Jacob Keyes in that section. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article.

Do not use conversational style

This is an information site. It should read like Wikipedia, not like your diary.

• Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you are not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you are not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word or use an Internet browser like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, which has spell-checking built in.
• Do not "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you are 100% sure that something should be changed and do not think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages or the forum.
• Avoid using second-person narrative in articles. As noted earlier, this wiki should read like an encyclopedia, not a personal diary/website.
• Never abbreviate the names of characters or places. Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer to "Master Chief" as "the Chief" or "Captain Jacob Keyes" as "Keyes" and so forth. It is acceptable to abbreviate the title in some cases, including names that are commonly abbreviated in official material, such as "UNSC" as opposed to "United Nations Space Command".

Stubs

If you do not know enough information on a topic, or you know there's more, add a stub to it. To do so, try this:

• {{stub}}

And people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category. Generally the {{stub}} template is put at the bottom of the page.

Do not sign your edits

All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the Wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you have made an edit that you are particularly proud of (such as a transcript or screenshot), the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too.

Do sign your talk posts

If you make a post on a discussion page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing ~~~~ at the end of your post. If you do not have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who is who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you are going to stick around.

Using Images/Files

Main article: Help:Images

• Add only canon image, not screenshots from customized/tweaked canon games or mods.
• Avoid uploading pictures you don't have a purpose for, unless they can add to a subject gallery. Before uploading, read Help:Images for more information on image use.

External links

External links are links that point to sites other than the Wiki. The links should be in the form of a bullet list. External links typically look like this:

*[http://www.bungie.net/filename.html '''The Website''': ''Title of the article'']

Headers/Headings

Never make a header title as links. Instead, use the Main Redirect Template and add it under the header. Additionally, avoid adding the Ref Tag to the header.

See also

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style

Gallery

Project:Gallery

This Gallery project page provides guidance on the proper style and layout that should be used for the "gallery" namespace. This guide page should not be confused or associated with the Gallery section, of which is covered under the Layout Guide.

Styles

The proper styling convention that should be used for the "gallery" namespace would follow the standards laid out by the Manual of Style. The following is an overview:

• Spelling: unless written as such, the spelling that is preferred in Halopedia is American English.
• Italics: titles of any media and ships in the Halo universe should always be italicized (i.e. Halo 3, The Art of Halo, Halo: Landfall, UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, Truth and Reconciliation). An exception to this would be those for citation purposes.
• Bolded: in any article introduction, the article name must be bolded.
• Measurement: unless presented as such, always use the US customary units over metric system as the primary measurement. Make sure to present metric system in brackets after the US customary units (i.e. (286 lbs (130 kg), 7'2" (2.18 meters)).

The following is an exclusive addition to the style for "gallery" namespace.

• Image/file description: should be limited to one short sentence.
• Size: should be in its default size. Please refer to Layout section.

Layout

• The "gallery" namespace will fully utilise the gallery tag (<gallery>) extensively. The layout this utility would be limited to its default form, that is without any additional or modified fields.

Templates/Tags

• It will be necessary to link the "gallery" namespace of a subject to its main namespace. This will be performed through Gallery template. This template should be placed under the Trivia section or the List of Appearances section, whichever being the most suitable.

Miscellanea

• It shall be noted that every image in the "gallery" namespace must have some form of licensing information.
• Unless obvious, information of the file must be provided using Information template. This is especially true for images/files that are no longer made available to the public or from a closed source.

User Manual

Project:User Manual

The User Manual is a guide for users in relation to their wiki-experience in Halopedia. It provides guidance on how to navigate around the wiki and how to edit the wiki effectively. For users new to the wiki-experience, it may look like a daunting and complex task. But don't worry, this guide is here to help explain in the most straightforward way possible!

To do sections

• How to navigate around the wiki
• How to use templates and technical tags

• Combines all of the Help pages into one comprehensive page.

• Know your rights in this wiki!
• FAQ

See also

• Project:Layout Guide
• Project:Manual of Style
• Project:Projects