Warriors Shattered Wiki:Characters/Guidelines

The succeeding points are some general guidelines that are to be upheld when creating, writing, or merely editing articles in Project Characters. =Project articles=

General style

 * Articles shall be written in English language, with U.S. spelling.
 * Articles shall be encyclopedic in content, and shall written in present tense with a non-bias tone, mentioning all aspects of the topic while keeping opinions out of the article.
 * Citations are required in order to be highly graded in several areas. They will be listed below where necessary.
 * References shall be listed with the page number from the first U.S. edition of the book.
 * Categories are to go with the character's name in which they achieved that category. (i.e. "Into the Wild characters" category would go with the name Firepaw while "The Darkest Hour characters" category would go with the name Firestar.)
 * Create links for any article names that appear in the article.
 * Take caution to prevent double links in one article body.
 * Names should be held with appropriate capitalization as they appear in the first U.S. edition. (i.e. Gathering, as opposed to gathering)
 * Use cat terms. (i.e. Sunhigh, as opposed to noon. Leaf-bare, as opposed to winter.)
 * On the talk page of every character article, place the Project-char template with the appropriate grade.

Article layout
All character articles must follow a specific formula, as listed below.

Startspoiler
Place the Startspoiler template in between the Featured Article template and Main quote. Alternatively if neither of these appear just put it above the charcat/charother.

Main quote
This is optional, as not all character articles have quotes. However, if one or more are found, pick the best one and use the. Please note that quotes with multiple speakers cannot be used.

Charcat or Charother
Depending on the species of the character, either the Charcat or Charother template will be used. If the character is a cat, the former will be used. If the character is not a cat, whether they be a badger or a dog, the latter will be used. These templates contain the affiliations, post-death affiliation, the education, immediate family, and book appearances. The educations must be cited. Please note that Charother is only to be used for specific non-cat characters, such as Big-Black-Claw or Lincoln.

The charart of the character's current rank should be used. If it has not been made yet, please use File:Noimage.png until it is approved.

Description
All character articles need a verified, spoiler-free description describing their looks and gender. Every piece of the description must be spoil-free and cited. If the author makes a mistake on the cat's appearance, use first appearance unless otherwise discussed.

History
This makes up the bulk of every character article.

Under a level two heading titled "History", document, in present tense, the character's history. The series must go in this order: Place these exact phrases in level two headings in this order. Then, place the books under their respective headings in order of release. The book headings should be italicized and be linked to their articles. Write the character's history under each book title. When writing the history, do not include any bias opinions of the character. Keep a formal tone and make sure the history flows clearly and every appearance is included. Do not include quotes in the history. There is a separate section for quotes. Be careful not to write so much that focus is taken off of the subject of the article. Each paragraph should be indented with a colon and there should be one empty line in between each paragraph.
 * In Shattered
 * In Chilled
 * The Adder should be next, as it takes place in canon before Snowkit gets "snatched".
 * Snatched should come next, as it was stated by the original author that it takes place about 2 years after Shattered and Chilled.
 * Journey to Redemption
 * Tigerstar's Redemption.
 * And then the 100 OneShot Book short stories should come after everything else

Trivia
Under a level two heading titled "Trivia", list all interesting facts of the character. This includes Clan heritage, author mistakes regarding gender or appearance, information revealed in an author chat, or any other unique facts about the cat. These should be marked by bullet points. Do not add trivia unless a reliable reference can be added. ===Author statements===
 * A level three heading should be used to separate mistakes from interesting facts, like so:
 * Fact 1
 * Fact 2

Interesting facts

 * Fact 1
 * Fact 2

Mistakes
Author statements must always come first. Then follow it with interesting facts, then mistakes.
 * Mistake 1
 * Mistake 2

Character pixels
A gallery of the character's pixels. This should not be edited by anyone other than a PCA lead unless there is a problem with the coding.

Killed victims
A cat's killed victims would be listed here.

Kin
This section lists all known relatives of the character, both immediate and distant. A level two section titled "Family" should be added first.
 * Members of the family should be listed by closeness in relativity. The member(s)'s relationship to the character should be listed in bold and followed by a colon. Under the relationship, the character(s) should be listed and indented by a colon. Immediately after the colon, a reference of this relationship must be placed. After the reference, one of the following must be placed:
 * Name of Relation
 * Deceased, Verified StarClan/Place of No Stars member
 * Deceased, Suspected StarClan/Place of No Stars member
 * Status Unknown
 * If a character's status is known and has known family, a template titled "Status|CHARACTERNAME" will be created. All this information should be placed under a level three heading titled "Members".
 * After the members, a tree should be placed under a level three heading titled "tree". Place the tree of the closet relative if the character doesn't have a tree of their own. Here is a list of family trees. Please note that trees are only created for families with three or more verified members.

Quotes
After the family section comes the quotes. They are used to describe the character's personality, or to quote significant events, monologues, speeches, etc. There are two templates that can be used for quotes; Quote and Dialogue a-b. The first is to be used for quotes with one speaker, and the latter for quotes with multiple speakers. The most quotes that are necessary are usually 5-6, but always aim for quality over quantity.

Ceremonies
Using the Ceremony, quote every rank/name-changing ceremony that is specifically quoted in the books. If a ceremony is performed outside of a novel, it cannot be quoted, and therefore, cannot be placed in an article.

References & Citations
Under this section, place the Reflist, and nothing else. This will automatically create a list of references and citations that were placed throughout the article.

Minor characters
The Minor characters pages are reserved for characters who appear in the books but are unnamed. These pages are categorized by arc and by book if necessary. While these characters are inherently background characters, they must have some significance to be listed. This includes: If a character can be deduced who it is, they should be their history moved to their main article; for example, Snowkit talking about Big and Ginger, saying their real names were Brawnykit and Tamblekit (which is backwards and obviously is Bramblekit and Tawnykit).
 * 1) They speak and it's clear who it is.
 * 2) If they perform a somewhat relevant action or contribute to the plot.

=Project Operations=

Housekeeping
The following tasks are to be carried out regularly throughout the project.

Concerns List
Any user who feels that an article has issues that should be publicized should add it to the concerns list located on the main project page. The characters on this list are sorted by Affiliation.

Moving and Creating Pages
When a new book is released, it is almost guaranteed that new characters will be introduced and/or characters will go or have gone through name changes.

When a whole new character is introduced, create a new page for the character, including the appropriate sections.

When a character experiences a name change, the article should be moved to the appropriate title.

Creating Disambiguation Pages
When multiple characters are known by the same name at any point in their lives or the novels, disambiguation pages must created to specify which characters are which. For example, two different Birdpaws are introduced in the series.

First, move or create pages as necessary so that each character has a different article name. (i.e. Birdpaw (FrC) vs. Birdpaw (PC)). Use abbreviations such as (FrC) for FrozenClan or (PC) for PeakClan to distinguish the characters from each other. If the page that falls into this disambiguation is a former name of a character, (i.e. Whitepaw) create a redirect using the abbreviation.

Next, create a list containing every page that falls under this disambiguation. Include Disambig, and a brief, distinguishing description of each, character, like so: Birdpaw.

Creating Redirects
For the most part, redirects are created automatically when a page is moved, but there are times when redirects need to be created manually.

Create the page, and paste the following coding on the page:


 * 1) REDIRECT ARTICLENAME

Adding and Removing Members
When a request for a roster change is placed on the talk page, the leader, deputy, or a senior warrior should carry it out accordingly.

Archiving the Talk Page
Certain sections of the talk page should be archived by a lead or an experienced member of the project.
 * Nominations older than 3 weeks without being close to being put up for vote.
 * Roster change requests older than 3 days.
 * Any other outdated, cluttering sections of the talk page.

Article Nominations
To nominate an article, create a new section on the talk page called "Character name - Silver/Gold nomination" and then state why you think it deserves that rank. People will comment on it saying what could be improved, and as nominator, you should check back regularly and try to fix any issues pointed out. This is not to say that no other people can help with a nomination made by someone else, but don't just nominate an article and leave and expect someone else to fix it, please.

There are several rules for nominating an article:


 * A user may only have three first-time silver nominations running at a time.
 * There is no established nomination limit for gold nominations of downgraded articles that have formerly attained silver status.
 * A nomination may only consist of one article
 * Nominations older than three weeks will be archived.
 * Only silver and gold ranks receive nominations.

Silver article
Silver quality articles must abide by these standards:
 * A nominator is responsible for overseeing the entirety of an article, including its /History, /Family, /PR, /Trivia, and /Quotes subpages if applicable.
 * At the time of the nomination, the character's history section must be updated with their current appearance from the latest book. If the article is not maintained as new books are released, the article may be downgraded at a later date.
 * All history sections must be written in present tense, be free of spelling or grammatical errors, and told from a neutral perspective. Out of universe language, passive verbiage, or information the audience only knows should be avoided. Additional articles should also be linked upon their first appearance in the article. Articles must also not be written verbatim from the text. Based upon the importance of a character, their history section must be:
 * Major/Main characters - Document all major events, outcomes of dialogue between characters, and relevant scenes.
 * Supporting characters - Document major appearances.
 * Minor characters - Document major/all appearances.
 * Mentioned characters - Document all appearances.
 * Allegiance only characters - Document any significant ceremonies (such as an apprentice gaining their warrior name), parents having new litters of kits, or gained apprentices if applicable.
 * Minor characters - Document all appearances and/or mentions.
 * Personality and relationships sections should be detailed and cited to book pages or chapter numbers, if applicable. The references should be accurate to what it pertains.
 * A character article must have quotes, including a main quote and quotes underneath sections, if applicable. Additional quotes can be under a quotes section.
 * External links must be double-checked to ensure they are accurate to the character.

In addition, the article must abide by the guidelines. For more detailed information, see here. Credit should also be given to those who edited the article significantly.

Gold article
Including abiding by the criteria above, character articles must:
 * A nominator is responsible for overseeing the entirety of an article, including its /History, /Family, /PR, /Trivia, and /Quotes subpages if applicable.
 * The history section should be free of grammatical and spelling errors, well written, and neutral in tone, and should not contain short paragraphs, choppy sentences, and bias. While they should be comprehensive, articles should avoid unnecessary additional details for major/main characters that are not relevant to said character or plagiarizing the text.
 * Personality and relationship sections must be thoroughly detailed and referenced for well defined relationships and personality traits. Sections should be omitted if they are insignificant in nature.
 * Quotes should be relevant to the character and avoid repeating its content. They should be placed appropriately throughout the sections, including the PR and history sections.
 * All references throughout the article must be sourced from well documented and reliable resources. The references should be accurate to what it pertains, and be double checked. This includes having backup links, screenshots, or accurate chapter/page numbers.
 * Images should be included throughout the article's history if the character appears in a graphic novel or comic, especially if they are a major character. Images must be of a good quality and easy to read.

User Nominations
From time to time, there are members of a project that shine above the others. These users are worthy joining the leads of PC as senior warriors.

If you believe we may have a member such as that, nominate them to become a senior warrior. Be sure to follow the instructions listed on the page when placing your nomination.