Tardis:Tardis Manual

We here at the TARDIS Doctor Who wiki like things to be uniform and everything so this Manual of Style is here to set things straight.

For information on the most basic writing techniques and styles, which are used here, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

Below are some basic Doctor Who formatting dos and don'ts. There is much to add to this. However, before adding your ideas, suggestions, or changes, please post your suggestions either on the discussion page for this article, or at the Panopticon forum page.

In-universe
All in-universe articles should be structured as follows: For more details as to what each section of an article should contain, see the Layout guide.
 * 1) Main body of article
 * 2) Behind the scenes
 * 3) See also
 * 4) External links
 * 5) Category

Note: all articles should have a "lead" or introduction paragraph that sets the article in context. (For example: "Happy Endings was the 50th novel in the Virgin New Adventures series"). Information included in the lead may be repeated (within reason) in the appropriate section. Articles lacking leads can be easily identified as they usually have no body text above the automatically generated table of contents.

Out-of-Universe articles on reference works

 * For more information see the individual articles


 * Format for Television Stories


 * Format for Novels


 * Format for Short Stories


 * Format for CDs


 * Format for Comic stories

Out-of-Universe articles about real people
Write an encyclopaedic biography of the person, centred mainly on his or her contributions to Doctor Who, but also include other notable work if known. Do not place items of trivia, such as date of birth, under their own headings or sub-headings, especially if such headings only contain the single word, "unknown." This makes the article hard to read and is actually somewhat annoying. Please also see "Articles on living people", below, for important information regarding content.

Naming of articles
There are some rules regarding how articles on the TARDIS wiki should be named.
 * Article names should be in singular form, not plural. An exception would be a group such as The Beatles, or an organisation such as the United Nations, as the official, legal names of these are in plural form.
 * The titles of articles about individual characters should be the name by which the character was most commonly known in the Doctor Who universe, (or "Whoniverse") with later names preferred to earlier names, and full names preferred to partial names or nicknames. Titles, such as military ranks or titles of nobility, should be omitted.
 * Unless the name of the article contains a proper noun, only the first word should be capitalised.
 * For television stories, especially those produced before The Savages, the name given in the BBC's Episode Guide is preferred. Alternate names and names of individual episodes from the Hartnell era should redirect to the name given in the BBC guide. "Inside the Spaceship" should redirect to The Edge of Destruction, while "The Cave of Skulls" should redirect to An Unearthly Child.
 * The MediaWiki software which underpins this wikia has some limitations about characters which cannot ever be used in page titles. These characters are |, #, <, >, {, }, [, and ].  For advice about how to handle a page which should include one of these characters, like 2|entertain or Man #1, please see this discussion.
 * A related issue is that of page linking. The # character in a link tells the software to link to a section of an article.  For instance, Tardis:Manual of Style creates a specific link to this section of this article.  One of the areas in which this issue becomes most important is in the naming of articles about specific issues of magazines. The 273rd issues of Doctor Who Magazine would in many instances be referred to as DWM #273 or Doctor Who Magazine #273.  However, this is impossible.  Although DWM  creates a blue link and appears to work, it is actually linking to DWM and looking for the section called "273".  Thus, it produces a false blue link.   This phenomenon is perhaps easier to see with a red link.  DWM Issue  creates a red link — DWM Issue  — because it's actually linking to the article DWM Issue (which doesn't exist) and looking for the section named "273". Because of all this, the closest workaround is DWM Issue 273.

For more details, see the naming conventions (below).

In-universe
If something is in-universe, or is described as such, it belongs to the Doctor Who universe exclusively and not in the real world. Characters are for example in-universe, but the actors who play them are not in-universe. Exceptions are persons, places, and organisations which appear or are referred to in the Doctor Who universe which also exist(ed) in the real world, i.e., William Shakespeare, The Beatles, the United Kingdom. Pseudohistory is an integral part of in-universe treatment of canon material. Information given from a "real world" perspective (i.e. notes about the creation of a character, or actors, or other real-world trivia) should appear under a Behind the scenes subhead.

In case an entry might detail a subject of importance both to the real world and to the Doctor Who universe, you may create a Real World section in the article, such as the one on Glasgow. The second section could have such articles as cast and crew born in Glasgow and location shooting for various stories shot there. Another example is years, months and specific days which are divided into 'Doctor Who Universe' events and 'Real World' events, see 1963 for an example.

Out-of-universe
Out-of-Universe refers to the perspective in which an article is written; it is the opposite of in-universe. Something written from an out-of-universe (OOU) perspective is written from a real life point of view. It will refer, for example, to real life publications, actors, authors, events, and so on, acknowledging that its subject is fictional. In contrast, an in-universe perspective will strive for verisimilitude; that is, it will be written as though the author existed within the Doctor Who universe. Articles about any in-universe things, such as characters, vehicles, terminology, or species, should always be written from an in universe perspective. If a section in the article is not, such as the listing of a character's published appearances or behind the scenes details, it should be tagged as such. In contrast, articles about books, movies, games, or other real life Doctor Who material should obviously be written from an out-of-universe perspective, but should still be noted as such. Basically, in-universe articles should never refer to Doctor Who by name, or any other real life things such as publications, actors, or the like.

Use of material from Wikipedia
Use of material from articles on Wikipedia, up to and including copying of articles on Wikipedia (known as "forking"), is permissible if the following guidelines are observed:
 * Such material should be properly credited in the External links section with the Wikipedia citation template, whose text would read:


 * "This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at "Name of Wikipedia article you used." The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the TARDIS Index File, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).

This gives proper credit to the original authors of the article and maintains compliance with Wikipedia's terms for use of material on the Wikipedia site.


 * Wikipedia articles on fictional persons, places, things, or events are written from an "Out-of-universe" perspective. Such articles should be edited to conform with the "In-universe" perspective used on our wiki. The article on Liz Shaw should not begin, "Liz Shaw is a fictional character on the British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who." (Being considerably more familiar with Doctor Who than Wikipedia's more general audience, we pretty much already know this.)


 * It is preferable that articles be written for this wiki without heavily relying on Wikipedia in order to create a unique wiki, different and individual from the main Wikipedia site. Also, care should be taken not to import errors that may exist in Wikipedia articles.

Headings
Use the  (heading) markup for headings, not the   (bold) markup. Example:



which produces:


 * This is a heading 

If you mark headings this way, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article.


 * Capitalise the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lower case.
 * Avoid links within headings.
 * Avoid overuse of sub-headings.

Usage and spelling
Though the readers and editors of the TARDIS Doctor Who wiki speak many varieties of English, we prefer standard British English spelling, punctuation, and word usage. This is the variety of English used in the Doctor Who series and first printings of most primary sources, as well as the fact Doctor Who is a United Kingdom-based franchise, where this form of English is used. In the event that an article (or category) uses spelling, punctuation, or word usage typical of American English, or some other form of the language besides British English, contributors who are native users of or otherwise fluent in British English standards reserve the right to edit articles to conform to those standards.

A frequently noticed example of British English vs. American English involves words that end in "or" vs. "our". In British English, for example, colour is spelled with "our", whereas American English spells it "color". The former is the preferred style.

Another noticeable usage different between the use of British English on this wiki and American English is our use of Organisation rather than Organization.

In keeping with the aforementioned standard, dates should place the number first, e.g. 23rd November, not November 23.

If the title of an article differs in different varieties of English, the British, or English English, title should be the article title, with alternate names being used as redirects (for example, Target Novelization redirects to Target Novelisation).

Please use complete sentences. "'An Unearthly Child' first broadcast" is not a complete sentence.

Tense
With the exception of episode synopses and ongoing events the past tense should be preferred in the main article text (this includes on all Timeline pages). All in-universe articles should be in past tense.

The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the articles on the TARDIS wiki are presented as historical recordings that have been pieced together from scraps of information left over from the early Universe, and various eras of history. As such, all details pertaining to this history have not yet been uncovered, and more information may be added at a later date. Keeping articles written in past tense provides consistency and flavour. Secondly, the Doctor may travel into the past, the present, or the future, but from his personal perspective, any events which have been previously recorded are now in his own personal past, regardless of where in the universal timeline they may fall. Writing in-universe articles in past tense relates the timeline of the Doctor Who universe with both our and his own perspective.


 * Example: Martha Jones was an inhabitant of Earth. Rather than Martha Jones is an inhabitant of Earth.

Avoid phrases like "His ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery" unless it is an actual plot point in a story.

Do not jump back and forth between tenses; this is confusing.

Do not include theories or hypothesis in any articles.

Capital letters
Names like "the Doctor" and "the Master" should not have "the" capitalised (unless, of course, they begin a sentence). Only titles and proper nouns should be capitalised in the body of an article. "'An Unearthly Child' First Broadcast" should actually be written, "An Unearthly Child was first broadcast."

Human
In the in-universe sections of articles, the word "Human" should be capitalised, just as the name of any other sentient species in the Doctor Who universe would be. The word "humanoid", however, should not be capitalised.

Bold type
The article name, when first mentioned, should be bold, bolded and in italicised if it is a story title.

Story names
Names of stories should be:
 * Capitalised
 * Italicised

e.g.;
 * An Unearthly Child
 * Everything Changes

Spacing and formatting

 * Generally there should be no more than one blank space between paragraphs, sections, etc. In most cases, a single carriage return is sufficient.
 * A single space after the end of a sentence is sufficient; the practice of adding two spaces after a period is not applicable to Internet.
 * Do not indent paragraphs.
 * Generally speaking, HTML coding is not necessary, as Wikia has its own coding for such things as italics, bold, links, etc. Some coding for things such as forced line breaks (i.e. the HTML code "br") may be used if the Wikia coding isn't allowing a section (like a chart or an infobox) to format correctly. Inserting HTML coding such as "ul" and "li" will more often than not completely mess up the formatting of a page or infobox or generate error messages.
 * Never underline text as this will confuse users with browsers configured to signify hotlinks with underlining. Likewise, never use colour text.

Naming conventions
Titles such as Mr, Mrs, Dr, Professor, religious ranks or military ranks should not be included in article titles.
 * For example a character such as Amelia Rumford, may be listed in the credits as 'Professor Rumford' however her full name is used for her article.


 * If a character is widely known by a title, such as Sergeant Benton, then a redirect can be created under that name, pointing to the proper article title. This however should only be done sparingly and only with major characters.


 * For characters who only have one name given such as Spencer, the story in which they appeared is added to the article name to disambiguate between articles; Spencer (The Faceless Ones), Spencer (The War Games), Spencer (Doctor Who and the Silurians).

Image use
Use of images is encouraged on articles, with a few caveats (detailed below).

Images that should not be used in any articles include; amateur 'spoiler photos' and images that have been highly image-edited or had an overlay of text or colour placed over them.

In-universe articles
For in-universe articles images of an in-universe style can be used such as; screenshots, comic strip scans or suitably cropped images from novel or audio covers.

Promotional images that have been specially photographed, posed or photo-manipulated to be used as a promotional image should not be used as the characters are often in a pose that is not of an in-universe style. Images that fall within this definition include images such as wallpapers that are available for download from a production company's website (such as the BBC).

Out of universe and story articles
For story articles promotional images also should not be used, instead a screenshot that captures a poignant scene from the story should be used.

Real world articles may use practically any other relevant images that have been properly sourced and tagged with the appropriate copyright tag.

Quotations
Quotations are not encyclopaedic in and of themselves and therefore should not be used as headers to articles or at the top of sub-headings within articles. Quotations can be used within the text body of an article to emphasis a certain point or highlight a certain issue of the article's focus, often a quote can explain things better than we can ourselves.

For example:


 * Vicki described Time as "like space, although a dimension of itself, also has dimensions of its own." (DW: The Space Museum)

Real world articles and Behind the scenes sections
The Quote template and quotes may be used within Real world articles or behind the scenes sections (including on occasion as headers), as quotes from the real world often are sourced from a wide variety of sources, that are often handled better by the template.

For example see the quote template used within this Doctor Who Ongoing article.

Links

 * There is no need to link a keyword every time it occurs in an article; this is redundant. The one exception is if the keyword occurs under two or more different headings, as some readers may only read one section of an article rather than the entire page. Avoid overlinking: mundane, everyday terms do not need to be linked (even though this is commonplace in Wikipedia), unless there is a specific TARDIS Index File article. For example, restaurant generates a redlink because there's no need at present for a Doctor Who-related article on the subject, and thus a wikilink is unnecessary. However as there is an article on DVD, wikilinking that word is OK.


 * In some cases, however, it may be desirable to link to a specific Wikipedia article. This is primarily for topics such as TV shows, movies, individuals, and technical terms that otherwise do not have their own TARDIS wiki articles. In this case, the link should be formed this way: Angelina Jolie . However always check to make sure there isn't actually an article on the subject on this wiki, for example Star Trek. As noted above, however, mundane terms do not need links, so there is no need to link to the Wikipedia article on, once again, "restaurant" as most readers will not need an explanation of the term.


 * Using links to redirect readers to another page is only necessary if a related topic cannot be covered in the original article without digressing too far from the article's main topic. There is no need, for example, to place the synopsis, viewer ratings, or uncredited cast for a television story on separate pages and redirect readers to those pages. This can contribute to too many red links in an article if those pages do not yet exist, and can be annoying.

In-universe articles
Telling readers where a statement can be verified is important. It helps to focus articles and keeps the details in an article to only that which actually appeared in the various Doctor Who narratives. Don't assume that your readers have the same level of knowledge about the Whoniverse as you do. Cite often, cite accurately. Format your citations according to these guidelines:
 * When citing an episode, novel, book, audio drama, webcast, comic or any other story use brackets, the proper prefix for the series and then the name of the episode, in italics and linked, e.g:
 * (DW: An Unearthly Child)
 * (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation)
 * (TW: Everything Changes)


 * When citing an in-universe website, use the WEB prefix, the name of the website in italics and the website address shown using a piped link, e.g:
 * (WEB: torchwood.org.uk ), which appears as: (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)


 * If you encounter a statement that obviously needs a citation, but you don't have the time or knowledge to correct it, type, which produces:
 * On this wiki, it is difficult to avoid using "weasel words" like "many", "often" and "sometimes". The nature of an internally inconsistent universe like Doctor Who's usually makes concise, absolute statements untrue.  For instance, there are many occasions when the Doctor appears have a binary vascular system, but there are a few where he does not.  Weasel words can be made more accurate by remembering to balance them with an appropriate number of citations.  In general, if a sentence implies that something occurred multiple times, then there should multiple citations given.  For instance, if you write, "The Doctor often thwarted the plans of the Master", then you should give several story names to give a sense that "often" is an accurate term.  Some other words which trigger the need for multiple citations are "frequently", "various", and "regularly" — as well as the simple use of numerals ("the Doctor was known to have gone there three times").
 * Should you come across a sentence that seems to need more citations, but you don't have the time or the knowledge to correct it, type, which produces:

Out of universe articles
Telling readers a statement that can be verified is important. For out of universe articles (those about the Real World) we use the same system as Wikipedia; Footnotes. The sources must have reference tags around the (see also Wikipedia:Citing sources for more info). Or The Dark Dimension and Lawrence Miles for examples of correct citation within articles. A section at the base of the article entitled 'Footnotes' must also be placed with (this will collect the cited sources at the base of the article).


 * Please use 'Footnotes' rather than 'References' as this term is associated with the in-universe References section.

If while editing you come across a cited piece of information which has no source you can place the tag beside it which will display the Fact tag like this;, which states a source needs to be cited.

Rumours
Rumours may be added to articles concerning yet to be broadcast stories/series', these should only be placed within the 'Rumours' section of the article. Users must ensure the rumours are cited with a source so that they may be verified by other readers and editors.

Unsourced rumours should be removed.

Articles on living people
Although all articles should be as accurate as possible, special care must be taken with regards to articles on people that are currently alive, as issues such as libel may arise if claims are made without sources being given, or unnecessary rumours sparked. A prime example occurred in a late-1980s encyclopedia of dolls that was published in North America, and which, in a section discussing Tom Baker, make the unsourced claim that Baker died of a drug overdose in 1982. As it happened, this was an unrelated actor of the same name. If you choose to include information of a potentially controversial nature, a source must be given, and preferably a "reliable source" such as an interview, newspaper or magazine article, etc. Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database, not being peer reviewed, are not considered reliable sources. Nor are online (and, occasionally, print) sources that site Wikipedia and IMDb as their main sources.

Although this Wikia site is not considered part of Wikipedia, it is nonetheless helpful to review the Wikipedia Biographies of Living Persons policy. If you see an unsourced claim or comment regarding a living person, if a source cannot be located, it is best to play it safe and remove that material from the article.

Styles for specific types of articles
Articles on specific stories, novels, or individuals should have the appropriate infobox:
 * Articles on specific stories in the Doctor Who or spin-off television series should use the Classic TV story infobox (for TV stories from 1963-1989) or New TV story infobox (for TV stories post-2005). See the  Format for Television Story Articles for more information on how these articles should be written.
 * Articles on novels should use the Novel Infobox. See the Format for Novel articles.
 * Articles on individuals (companions, enemies, background characters) should use the Individual Infobox.
 * Articles on audio dramas which have been released on CD should use the CD Infobox for audio dramas containing a Doctor or Other CDs Onfobox for other audio dramas. (see also Format for CDs for more information on how articles should be written).
 * Infobox titles and names should not have links, as they would simply point to the article the infobox and thus the reader are already on. In other words, for the infobox on the page for "An Unearthly Child," "An Unearthly Child" should not be a link since it would only point to the page for "An Unearthly Child."

Contradictory evidence
Often on in-universe articles there will be instances of contradictory evidence. In cases where there are several accounts that cannot co-exist, both should be presented with a lead in sentence along the lines of
 * One account stated...

or
 * In one instance...

Information from sources that are within our canon policy should not be discounted as apocryphal just because they do not "fit in" with an account from a different source (such as a TV story contradicting a novel or an audio contradicting a TV story etc).