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Final Fantasy Wiki:Manual of Style

From Final Fantasy Wiki

This page will give an idea of how to write articles so they are consistent with many of the similar articles.

Contents

General Article Guide

  • Article title must follow the subject's official name, e.g. "Revolver" instead of "Squall's Weapon". It must also be written in Singular instead of Plural, e.g. "Gun" instead of "Guns" - exceptions are only when the article is a List, e.g. "List of Airships".
  • Always include at least a sentence about the subject when starting an article.
  • The first sentence should be about the article's subject, and the subject has to be written in bold. It should also state what game the subject of the page is from.
  • The Japanese term should be included in the intro after the bold subject term within parentheses and included with the romaji, written in italics, e.g. Light of Judgment (裁きの光 Sabaki no Hikari). Pages that use infoboxes are exempt of this since the infoboxes already have sections for the Japanese term.
  • The "International Phonetics Alphabet" (IPA) guide should be mentioned on the introductory sentences; for voiced characters, in the sentence which notes the character's voice actor/actress. Pages that use infoboxes are exempt of this, since the infoboxes already have sections for the IPA.
  • When writing the article content, game titles should be written in italics, e.g. Final Fantasy IX and song titles should be with "quotation marks", e.g. "Prelude".
  • The definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) should be avoided in article titles except if they are used as the official title.
  • Please write in third person: use "the player" instead of "you". Disregard this when writing walkthroughs.
  • Please avoid writing abbreviations for game titles, e.g FFVII - it should be Final Fantasy VII. If you find one abbreviated - our music album pages are the biggest offenders of this - please edit them and write in full.
  • Follow the official game title and use roman numerals, it's Final Fantasy III, NOT Final Fantasy 3.
  • Wikilinking is limited to the first occurrence of the word or phrase.

What should an article have?

This depends on the page. Some things are meant for some pages.

For Games

Recent discussions point out that the game articles, the highlights of this Wiki, should be divided to:

  • the descriptive Intro, describing about the game in general. Some snippets from the content of the article may be written here,
  • the Gameplay, divided into subsections on the aspects of the game that makes it unique from the rest of the series. Links to the gameplay element pages, if any, should be linked too.
  • the Setting in which the story takes place. A link to the main/list location/world article should be added too,
  • the list of playable Characters including a short description. A collage of the characters picture would be a good addition,
  • the Story, written from the point of view of the player character,
  • the Music, describing the composition, composer, soundtrack, including main themes, adding in links to the respective music article,
  • Development, describing the different versions of the game, and a credits list of the staff/cast behind the game,
  • Allusions/Trivia, describing Internal and External Crossovers between the series as well as other series within popular culture,
  • the Packaging artwork gallery for each and every version out there,
  • External links; these pages should link to pages on important fansites (Final Fantasy Compendium or Caves of Narshe, for example), an official site (if one exists), and the GameFAQs page, as well as any other links that may be relevant (see Final Fantasy V for example).

Also, put the relevant wikilink as needed.

For Characters

Each character gets an article, as long as the character is not owned by another company. Each page of a playable character should have:

  • the Infobox designed for the game in which the character appears (see Category:Infobox templates for boxes) - this is only limited to Playable characters,
  • the Appearance and Personality to describe their characteristics,
  • a Story section about the role of the character in the game he/she/it is from,
  • a summary of the character's Equipment and Stats,
  • a short recap of the character's Abilities in their game. The abilities themselves will have articles elsewhere (see Zidane Tribal and Dyne (Command) for an example on this).
  • Development, describing behind the scenes work,
  • The character's Musical theme, added after the Abilities section, based on the soundtrack and in-game occurrences,
  • a section describing the character's Other Appearances within the series,
  • A summary of the character's Non-Final Fantasy Appearances outside the series,
  • A Trivia section, describing any popular culture references,
  • Any External Links relevant to the character; official, informative resources, shrines, etc.

Place the navigation template related to the character. Also categorize the article accordingly.

For Abilities

Each ability does not necessarily get an article. However, each skillset gets one, and each article on a skillset should list all the abilities. The exceptions to this are if an ability is part of the "Magic" skillset (i.e. is Black, White, or Time/Space Magic), or appears in more than one game (see Black Magick and Status Effect for examples). What constitutes an Ability article?

  • The Intro describing the ability in general, such as which job/skillset generally possesses it, and where the ability first appeared.
  • An Appearance section divided between every game title the ability has appeared before, whether as a status effect, magic, enemy skill or player skill, and listing every possible name the ability has appeared in every possible version of each title.
  • Place the navigation template related to the skillset or ability, and don't forget to categorize them according to the relevant categories.

For Equipment

Each equipment, that is weapon, armor or accessory, does not necessarily get an article. But should it get one, it will have:

  • An Intro describing the Equipment in general, such as which job generally uses it, and where the equipment first appeared.
  • An Appearance section divided between every game title the equipment has appeared before, whether wielded by the player or the enemy, and listing every possible name the equipment has appeared in every possible version of each title, plus what attributes, elements or abilities are usually related to the equipment in question.

Place the navigation template related to the skillset or ability, and don't forget to categorize them according to the relevant categories.

For Locations

Each location gets an article. A Location article should include: *The Intro, which states which game the location is from, and summarizes what life is like in the location

  • A section on Story events that occur at the location,
  • A list of Treasure that can be found in the area,
  • A Shop guide, and
  • A list of Monsters that appear, all if applicable.
  • Finally, a Map guide on where to visit at that place.
  • You may want to put in behind the scenes Trivia as well, if possible.

Place the navigation template related to the location, and don't forget to categorize them according to the relevant categories.

For Enemies

There are two approaches to this. First up is the Enemy Parent Page, made especially for enemies that are recurring in the series. As a general rule, this is limited to enemies that had appeared at least in five titles within the series, but exceptions can be made. Next, the parent page contains:

  • The Intro describing the enemies' appearance,
  • An Image representing the general appearance of the enemy,
  • The Appearance section listing all the Final Fantasy titles the enemy has occurred in.
    • Add an image of the enemy that carries the name of the page,
    • Under each title is listed the enemy's appearance and its other variants.
  • Next is the Non-Final Fantasy Appearances section for games outside of the series,
  • A Trivia section for any tidbits of trivial information,
  • If not already listed in its Disambig, an Etymology section with an external link, preferably to relevant name origin websites.
  • Finally, a Gallery that showcases Artworks related to the enemy.

Next, all individual enemies will have an article dedicated to it. The intro should say which game the enemy is from. If there is any relevant story info, add it in. Next, we'll include:

  • the enemy Infobox designed for the games (once again, see Category:Infobox templates for these boxes). This should be placed before the intro.
  • Battle listing its battle attacks, movement and behavior, and,
  • a listing of Strategy on how to beat it.
  • Additional info on game-to-game basis:
    • In the case of Final Fantasy XII enemies, its Bestiary Info should be added as well. In the case of Final Fantasy XII Marks, information about location of the petitioner as well as the Mark itself should be added, the battle strategy, the reward and finally, the bestiary info (see Gil Snapper for example).
  • Finally, a listing of Related Enemies, based on appearance, class and/or genus. Much better if there is already an in-game classification.

Navigation template is not necessary except for the enemies' parent page, but categorize them according to the relevant enemy categories.

For Jobs

Again, two approaches for this: the Parent Page and the specific Job Page. The Parent Page will contain:

  • An Intro about the job's appearance in the series, with an overview of:
    • Abilities used, Weapons equipped, physical appearance of the job class,
    • the characters who have been in the job class.
  • An Appearances section, which list appropriate traits for the job as it appeared in each game that had a job/class system only,
    • Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII International, and the Final Fantasy Tactics series.
  • If not already listed in its Disambig, an Etymology section with an external link, preferably to relevant name origin websites.
  • Finally, a Gallery that showcases Artworks related to the Job class in each title

Next, all individual jobs will have an article dedicated to it. This will be a little difficult since each Jobs in each game title is unique, so we'll just give a general overview:

  • The Intro should say which game the job is from. If there is any relevant story info, add it in.
  • Every Abilities, placed inside neat tables with relevant statistics and color coding.
  • Finally, a Gallery that showcases Artworks related to the Job class.

Optional sections include:

  • An Appearance section giving a description on the job's costume design.
  • A Requirement section on unlocking Jobs - if and when the job needs to be unlocked.
  • An Equipment section, as seen in Final Fantasy III job pages.

Place the related job navigation templates in the individual Job pages, and don't forget to categorize them according to the relevant job categories; i.e. main job pages get the Category: Jobs, while for jobs related to a specific game get the specific game and job category, e.g. Category: Final Fantasy Tactics Jobs.

Game Order

When adding a game to an Appearances list or something similar, the generally accepted order is:

When adding a Quote

It's encouraged to have at least a quote in every article. Use the Template:Q for one-liners and Template:RQ2 for conversations between two characters. It's best to write the quotations under each Section.

Try to write in the Active Voice

The active voice is much stronger than the passive voice. Here is an example of a sentence in the passive voice:

  • Cecil was removed from his post as Captain of the Red Wings by the King of Baron.

Now, here is an example of that same sentence, except written in the active voice

  • The King of Baron removed Cecil from his post as Captain of the Red Wings.

See how the Active Voice is much better? The person performing the action is the subject of the sentence, instead of the person or thing the action is performed on. Action is better than being!

Spelling

There have in the past been edit wars over the territorial spelling of a word (i.e. words spelled differently in between Europe and the United States). We're not arrogant and we have no intention on starting a territorial war over something stupid like spelling. If you come across a word spelled the way it is in another country (for example if you see "color" spelled as "colour" or vice versa), leave it as it is. I.e. the person who inserted the word initially will decide how it's spelled.

Point of view

On most Wikis, there is a policy to give a "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV). This is not the case here when writing story sections of specific articles. The point of view MUST reflect how the events unfold from the article's subject's perspective. On else, the article must maintain NPOV.

OMG Spoilers!

Following our Spoiler Policy, it's encouraged to place the Template:Spoilers above content regarded as spoilers - this mostly being plot sections - and Template:Endspoiler below it.

Categorizing

Each article must be categorized, and done so according to which category applies to it. Here in the wiki there are two types of articles; general and specific. General types are also known as parent pages; these contain links to articles that tell about a certain element of a specific game. For example; the Sage article, a parent page, is categorized under Category: Jobs, but the Sage (Final Fantasy III) article, a game-specific page is categorized under Category: Final Fantasy III Jobs.

The idea is to place the game templates in articles related to the game - like the character articles, location articles, respective game-related terms. Other articles like magic, abilities and summons as well as enemies don't have them since they cover the entire series and not specialized. A list of categories can be found here.

When creating tables and infoboxes

For table formatting and markup, see Help:Tables

Some game specific articles may contain information that can be compiled into a table or infobox. Each game has a certain color swatch code for its table headers and subheaders. Instead of inputting the hexadecimal code for each color (bgcolor="#000000"), type in the class code for each game (class="seriesa"). The colors that correspond to each class code are listed in MediaWiki:Common.css, and are also provided further below for consultation. It is preferred that class codes are used.

The table below lists only the specific games that are more likely to have this kind of information; for other titles or compilations, refer to their individual navigation templates.

As for the style of a table:

  • The main row is given the header color, while the main column is given the subheader color. Both contents are centered. Use ! instead of | before each to automatically center and bold the header and subheader, bypassing the use of three apostrophes (''')
  • Wordings are in left-alignment, while numbers or very short terms are centered.
  • Remember to use the class codes.

Class codes

Main Series
Game FF Series I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
Header seriesa FFIa FFIIa FFIIIa FFIVa FFVa FFVIa FFVIIa FFVIIIa FFIXa
Subheader seriesb FFIb FFIIb FFIIIb FFIVb FFVb FFVIb FFVIIb FFVIIIb FFIXb
Game X XI XII XIII XIV
Header FFXa FFXIa FFXIIa FFXIIIa FFXIVa
Subheader FFXb FFXIb FFXIIb FFXIIIb FFXIVb
Final Fantasy VII Compilation
Game CompFFVII VII:AC BC -VII- CC -VII- DC -VII- OtWtaS
Header compVIIa VIIACa VIIBCa VIICCa VIIDoCa OtWtaSa
Subheader compVIIb VIIACb VIIBCb VIICCb VIIDoCb OtWtaSb
Sequels and Spin-offs
Game IV:TA X-2 XII:RW VersusXIII AgitoXIII
Header IVTAYa X-2a XIIRWa VXIIIa AXIIIa
Subheader IVTAYb X-2b XIIRWb VXIIIb AXIIIb
World of Ivalice
Game Ivalice FFT FFTA FFTA2 Crystal Defenders Vanguard Storm Vagrant Story
Header Ivala FFTa FFTa FFTA2a CrystDa CDVSa VagrSa
Subheader Ivalb FFTb FFTb FFTA2b CrystDb CDVSb VagrSb
Crystal Chronicles Series
Game CCSeries CC CC:RoF CC:MLaaK CC:EoT CC:MLaaD CC:TCB
Header CCseriesa FFCCa CCRoFa CCMLaaKa CCEoTa CCMLaaDa CCTCBa
Subheader CCseriesb FFCCb CCRoFb CCMLaaKb CCEoTb CCMLaaDb CCTCBb
Other
Game FFMQ Dissidia Chocobo FFTSW FFLotC FFU
Header FFMQa Dissidiaa Chocoa TSWa LotCa FFUa
Subheader FFMQb Dissidiab Chocob TSWb LotCb FFUb

Hexadecimal codes

Game FF Series I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
Header black #00BFFF #C773A7 #68DC78 midnightblue purple #CC0011 #234432 maroon gold
Subheader white #00FFFF #E9CDDC #33CCFF #AFB5D7 #CCCCFF darkred #B0C4DE orange #EEE8AA
Game X XI XII XIII XIV
Header deepskyblue #4169E1 #3300CC #00CED1 #5C62AC
Subheader #FFD700 #87CEFA #FFCC99 #7FFFD4 #F3651B
Game CompFFVII VII:AC BC -VII- CC -VII- DC -VII- OtWtaS
Header #234432 #234432 #234432 #234432 #234432 #234432
Subheader #577A7C #ACD7D7 #C0C0C0 #7FFFD4 #C4362C #989898
Game IV:TA X-2 XII:RW VersusXIII AgitoXIII
Header #76529C #EE82EE darkblue navy #CD5C5C
Subheader #95BCE5 #1E90FF #33CCFF #1E90FF #EEE8AA
Game Ivalice FFT FFTA FFTA2 Crystal Defenders Vanguard Storm Vagrant Story
Header #373536 #F0E68C #4682B4 #4682B4 #4682B4 #4682B4 #8E6029
Subheader #BBD4B7 #A9A9A9 #FFAE29 #F5DEB3 #FFFACD #D8D8F2 #B29F6D
Game CCSeries CC CC:RoF CC:MLaaK CC:EoT CC:MLaaD CC:TCB
Header #4CC552 #7FFFD4 #FF6347 #15317E skyblue #5C1193 #1111AB
Subheader #A0CFEC #48D1CC #FFDAB9 #4082CC darkturquoise palevioletred #EEC600
Game FFMQ Dissidia Chocobo FFTSW FFLotC FFU
Header #658197 #4682B4 #FFFF00 #708090 #B64D51 #FF4500
Subheader #D9B16B #FA8072 #F4A460 #A9A9A9 oldlace #FFDAB9

When making a template

Be sure to add an explanation of what purpose it serves, so that the other users of the wiki do not have to guess. This goes double for admins, since if they see no purpose or even possible future potential use for the template, it is likely to be deleted. The explanation can be written as part of the template (between a <noinclude> and </noinclude>) or in the discussion page (see Template:Click for example on the former).

Talk Templates

You may have seen a number of users on the forum or on talk pages using templates to make their words appear in speech bubbles. If you want to learn how to create one of these, refer to the FAQ, and, if you're particularly creative, please remain within the guidelines for talk bubbles.

Working with Media Files

For the policy on media files, seek Final Fantasy Wiki:Media

Adding Images

The general practice would be to start Image placement on the right side by adding "right" in the image coding as in "[[Image:Example.jpg|right]]". The next image would then be placed on the left - "[[Image.Example.jpg|left]]", forming a sort-of zigzag pattern.

An image without white/transparent backgrounds should be thumbnailed by adding "thumb" in the image coding as in "[[Image:Example.jpg|thumb]]". A caption should be added to thumbnailed images, a short description of what the image is by writing the caption at the end of the code as in "[[Image.Example.jpg|right|Caption here]]".

Image galleries should be created when a number of images in a section clutter the layout. Image galleries should also be used with a caption to describe each of the images it contains. To create an image gallery, use the coding below; "perrow" enables one to set how many images on a row, the default and style recommends 4. 

<gallery perrow="2/3/4/5">
Image:Example.jpg|Caption here
Image:Example.jpg|Caption here
Image:Example.jpg|Caption here
</gallery>

On Music and Sound

The Template: Listen is used to help readers listen to an audio sample. While we have no specific guideline, template placement should be aligned to "right" or "left" accordingly. Standard practice is to put those templates on the left-hand side. Seek out the Audio help page for more information.

Embedding Video

When embedding a video from video hosting websites such as Youtube, it is encouraged to place them inside boxes. Place a caption and the caption box will be colored according to related header - follow game specific colors as above, or the series color if general. Video alignment follows viewer discretion and suitability. The coding below is an example, with those in double brackets being which parameters editors can customize. 

<div class="thumb t((left/right))" style="width:320px; background:((Caption Box Color)); border: 2px solid #A9A9A9;">
<div class="thumbcaption" style="text-align: center;"><font color="((Caption Text Color))">((Caption Title))</font></div>
<youtube width="320" height="240">((11-character Youtube Link)</youtube>
</div>
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