This page is under construction, but our policies are well-established. Until such time as the page finished, please consult category:manual of style, category:help and category:policies for the wiki's governing principles. Thanks for your patience while we improve this page.
czechout ☎ ✍ 21:45: Sat 22 Dec 2012
A manual of style is a document created by a publishing entity to ensure that all of its writers are working to a common standard. They are particularly necessary when working in the English language, as there are many different types of written English used throughout the world. A manual of style typically strives to settle matters of debate amongst writers by, in many cases, arbitrarily deciding questions like
- When shall we italicise words?
- How shall we name articles?
- Shall we generally use British, American, Canadian, or Australian English?
Note that a manual of style can answer any question like this in a way that might contradict one's own sense of "proper" English usage. Therefore, you should not assume, even if you are an extremely advanced English writer, than you understand the rules that we have chosen to use. Please make sure that you read this document thoroughly if you intend to edit with us. Also, be aware that the rules laid down here do occasionally come up for community review at the Panopticon, a forum dedicated to discussing the way the wiki is run. Indeed, this manual is certainly a living document. It has been locked only to prevent vandalism — not to discourage change. Please post your suggestions for how to improve it at the Panopticon, so that a wide range of users can discuss your proposal.
Except where a more detailed policy page exists, the manual of style should be considered the final word on any matter it addresses. If you don't agree with what it says, please don't blatantly disregard it. Instead, please start a discussion in the forum to change it.
For information on the most basic writing techniques and styles, which are used here, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
Image use
- You may be interested in seeing this information presented in an easy-to-read chart.
Use of images is encouraged on articles. As has been made clear by the community, articles with images are preferred to those without.
Markup
Please use the following base nomenclature when putting images into articles:
[[file:ImageName.extension]] as in [[file:Tensa.jpg]]
Do not use [[image:Tensa.jpg]] — even though it will work. Using "file:" instead of "image:" makes it much easier to maintain the site, and it reduces server load, as "image:" simply redirects to "file:"
Disallowed images
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. Colourised images from episodes originally filmed in black-and-white are specifically disallowed.
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 (2009)#Setting for the Tenth Doctor article.
Behind the scenes
"Behind the scenes" or "real world" subsections within in-universe articles should be cited using the same method as out of universe articles. See below for more information.
Out of universe articles
Telling readers a statement that can be verified is important. For out of universe articles (those about the Real World or Behind the scenes) we use the same system as Wikipedia; Footnotes. The sources must have reference tags around the <ref> source</ref> (see also Wikipedia:Citing sources for more info). Or The Dark Dimension and Gothic stories for examples of correct citation within articles. A section at the base of the article entitled 'Footnotes' must also be placed with {{reflist}} (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 {{fact}} tag beside it which will display the Fact tag like this; [source needed], 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.
- Wikification
- Don't over-wikify
- Romana
- Naming conventions
- Naming conventions
- Serials
- Cast and crew lists
- Cast lists
- K9
- TARDIS
- Doctors
- Characters with one name
- Character names
- Honourifics
- Magazine issues
- Years
- Eras
- Human
- Self links
- Section headings
- Use sentence case
- Spelling
- Use British English
- SpellBot
- Spelling cheat card
- Spell checking
- Quotation marks
- Typography and punctuation
- Capital letters
- Bold text
- Page layout
- Format for short stories
- Format for comic stories
- Comma
- Semi-colon
- In-universe perspective
- Point of view
- Neutral point of view
- We're Wikipedia's evil twin
- Citation in articles about living people
- Citation
- Images and perspective
- Changing policy
- Who writes policy
- British English
- Parts of a series without clear individual titles
- Chat policy
- Forum policy
- Using wikitext
- Humanoid
- Categorisation
- Beware recursion
- Don't over-categorise
- Categories and the Game of Rassilon
- Cast and crew lists
- Out-of-universe perspective
- K9/Background
- Avoid HTML
- The Monk
- Redlinks
- Page layout
- Point of view
- Categorisation
- Italics
- You are bound by current policy
- Dates
- Format for novels
- Category page descriptions
- Astronomical objects
- Do not disrupt this wiki to prove a point
- Format for audio stories
- Spell checking with a Mac
- Changing policy
- Preloadable formats
- What categories are not
- Section linking
- Apostrophe
- Prefixes
- Category naming conventions
- Discussion policy
- "Real world" versus "from the real world"
- Spell checking with Firefox
- Vertical spacing
- Category tree
- Sentence spacing
- Crew lists
- Format for television stories
- Leads
- Quotes
- Spell checking with Chrome
- Wikify wisely
- Lists
- Lists of appearances
- What SpellBot actually corrects
- Typography and punctuation
- Spell checking with Opera
- Period
- K9 credits
- Universe
- Citation
- Full sentences
- Grammar
- What does a citation mean?
- Bots
- Bots
- CosmeticBot
- WikiaBot
- Format for articles about real world people
- How do I get a bot?
- Date links
- Disambiguation term
- Disambiguating other realities
- Disambiguation
- Disambiguating story titles
- Spelling we've agreed by discussion
- User pages
- User pages automatically created
- User categories
- Safely using user pages
- Good uses for user pages
- User images
- Bad uses for user pages
- Userboxes
- User pages
- Fan fiction on user pages
- Other people's user pages
- Interlanguage links
- Linking to Tardis
- Integers
- Rule of three
- Desktop is definitive
- Disambiguation
- When do local rules prevail?
- Fandom names
- Image cheat card
- Image use policy
- Thumbnail policy
- Video policy
- File naming conventions
- Editing
- Edit conflict
- Edit wars are good for absolutely nothing
- Plagiarism
- Wiki markup
- Editing
- Tables
- Magic words
- Speedy renames
- Video recommendations
- Infoboxes
- Infobox coding
- Don't let a pretty face ignite a war
- Infobox images
- Galleries
- Galleries and slideshows/wikitext
- Untransmitted images
- Names of actors
- Even good categories can be removed
- Copyright
- Ogg format banned
- Header image
- No personal attacks
- Spoiler policy
- Official releases
- Where spoilers are allowed
- Comics and spoilers
- Ways you can avoid spoilers
- What is not a spoiler
- Disambiguating in-universe counterparts
- User talk pages