One Piece Wiki:Guidebook/Manual of Style

This is the Manual of Style, which explains how to write in the encyclopedic tone of this wiki.

General Writing Style

 * Given that this is an English wiki, nearly everything should be written in English. There exist occasional instances where fans take Japanese words from the series and wish to not translate them (using English approximations of the Japanese pronunciation); however, in most instances, our policy is to translate Japanese terms and avoid using it gratuitously, though we do refrain from translating some things, typically when it comes to names. For a full, in-depth guide on our translation policy, see One Piece Wiki:Japanese vs. English Names.
 * This wiki uses an in-universe writing style for all fictional subjects in the One Piece franchise; in other words, we write about them as though they are real. For example, instead of introducing Luffy as "a character in the manga series One Piece", we instead introduce him as "the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates".
 * Chapter and episode summaries should be written as though they are describing a real event. References to the described events taking place within a chapter/episode, such as "the chapter begins with" or "in the next scene" should not be used.
 * Use words that are appropriate to the article and keep the language simple.
 * Avoid the use of obscenities in articles. They can be used only in the context of quotes from characters. In such instances, be sure you are using a reliable translation as some fan translations have been known to include excessive and gratuitous obscenities.
 * Avoid the use of slang terms or euphemisms. This wiki is also used by non-native English speakers so using them on articles makes it hard to understand.
 * Instead of saying "Usopp went to take a leak", say "Usopp went to urinate."
 * Instead of saying "Sanji got pissed", say "Sanji got angry."
 * Limit using technical terms (usually but not limited to medical and legal jargon) as much as possible. So long as a concept is properly explained at the end of the day, the simpler the description the better.
 * Avoid hyperboles, such as excessive use of adjectives like "immensely" or "extremely".
 * Do not write in a style that adds suspense. Although the series has many suspenseful moments, our job is not to match this style in our description of events.
 * For example, if a character is attacked by an unknown assailant whose identity is revealed later, the attacker's identity should be made clear immediately in history sections; it is counterproductive on our end to not reveal their identity when describing the attack.
 * This does not apply to chapter and episode summaries, which should only be written with knowledge known up to that point.
 * The metric system should be used when giving measurements, as this system is what is used in the series. Thus, for lengths and distances use centimeters, meters, and kilometers instead of inches, feet, and miles, and for weights use grams and kilograms rather than ounces and pounds. However, for heights, weights, and other sizes given in infoboxes, it is appropriate to include the imperial measurement in parentheses next to the metric.
 * Real-world brand names should not be used in articles, even if they are ubiquitous terms for the object. For example, "swim briefs" should be used over "speedo", "tissue" should be used over "kleenex", etc.

Summaries

 * Short summaries for chapters and episodes must be very succinct recaps of the work, ideally covering its events in only a few sentences with only a minor amount of detail.
 * Long summaries, in contrast, should be in-depth explanations as to the events of the work, although it need not read like a "play by play" of every single aspect of the chapter or have excessive detail for every new element; not every speech bubble needs to be mentioned, nor do irrelevant background events.
 * History sections and arc summaries should be somewhere in between, with sufficient detail given to important events regarding the character or plot while less important occurrences just be summarized briefly.
 * Chapter and episode summaries should only include information that is known at the point of that installment's release. If there is an element to a story with unknown details at the time; the details should remain unknown, with only a pipe link added on occasion for nameless characters who are named later.

Grammar

 * The titles of works should be italics such as One Piece.
 * Any occurence of the day-month-year (DMY) date format (i.e. 14 February 2006) should be changed to the month-day-year (MDY) format (i.e. February 14, 2006). Also, use of suffixes after dates such as February 14th is discouraged on main articles.
 * Avoid the use of any contractions, such as "didn't", "could've", etc. Use the full forms "did not" and "could have" instead. Contractions do not belong in encyclopedic writing styles.
 * "It's" is a contraction, and should not be used. "It's" is short for "it is" and is not the possessive of "it", the possessive form of "it" is "its" with no apostrophe.
 * Keep the tenses of articles/sections consistent.
 * When writing about fiction, the rule is to use the present tense for elements of the series which remain in existence at the present day. If a character is currently alive, they should be written about in the present tense. However, if a character is dead or an object has been destroyed, it should be referred to in the past tense.
 * This means all episode and chapter summaries should be written in the present tense. If the content of a section of a chapter or episode is a flashback to a previous story point, the past tense should be used.
 * In the case of history sections or arc summaries, the past tense should be used.
 * If you have any doubts about English grammar in Wiki articles, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.
 * Edits which contain consistently poor grammar may be undone at another editor's discretion, even if it was made in good faith, though it is recommended for other editors to correct these edits rather than undo them. Even the most fluent English speaker is prone to making errors every so often; however, users who repeatedly struggle to use coherent grammar should be informed about the issue on their talk page and given potential courses of action (including being advised to edit a One Piece Wiki in a language they are more familiar with).

Spelling

 * This wiki uses exclusively American English. Cases of British English should be changed.
 * The spelling of a subject's name must be uniform across the wiki, except in specific areas where the objective is to list alternative spellings. How a subject's name is spelled in its article title is how it should be spelled everywhere else.
 * The Japanese language is known for its long vowel sounds, with the most common being for the "O" and "U" sounds. On this wiki, we use the Romaji style rather than Rōmaji or Roumaji styles. In other words, terms with a long "o" or "u" sound should be spelled as just that, rather than using "ō/ū" or "ou/uu". The only exceptions come when a name is officially romanized with a long vowel having an extra "u" after it.
 * For more information on how we decide on name spellings, see this page.

Capitalization

 * Our article titles use what is known "title case", rather than "sentence case" which Wikipedia uses for their article titles. This means that almost all the words in the title should be capitalized. The only exceptions are grammatical articles like a, an, the, and, of which serve as bridges between words. This also applies to Japanese articles: no, wa, ga, wo, to in pages with Japanese titles. An example of title case in action is Legend of the Sacred Burning Beast of Baldimore.
 * Title case also applies to words written in disambiguating parentheses in article titles, such as One Piece (Live-Action Series), Monkey (Disambiguation), and Randolph (Non-Canon).
 * As shown by the last example in the above point, hyphenated words in titles should have both parts capitalized (thus, Non-Canon as opposed to Non-canon).
 * The names of characters, groups, places, ships, and Devil Fruits should be capitalized. Proper nouns such as Devil Fruit should be capitalized. Words in epithets except for modifying words like "of the" should be capitalized.
 * Species names, such as humans, giants, dwarves, minks, etc. should not be capitalized. General positions and occupations such as king, princess, captain, admiral, etc. should also not be capitalized.
 * However, specific occupation titles, like "Sweet Commander", "Marine Admiral", and "Tobiroppo" should be capitalized.
 * Use proper capitalization rules for titles where appropriate. This includes things such as, Chapter/Episode names, Cover Story titles, and section headings.
 * When referring to a specific episode or chapter, capitalize the word "Episode." Because our article names are "Episode #" instead of the episode's true name, this makes the word "episode" part of the title, and therefore worth capitalization.

WikiText style

 * All edits to WikiText must result in a visual change in the published article. Coding edits that result in no such change are considered to be pointless edit fluff which clogs the Recent Changes log and page history, and is not allowed. The only exception is if the coding is formatted extremely poorly so as to be hard to edit; in such cases, editing it to make navigation easier for future editors is acceptable. Otherwise, edits of this nature must be accompanied by changes which actually affect the presentation of the article.
 * Headers may be in either the form ==Header== or == Header ==. ==Header== is preferred in articles, although users should refrain from making edits that only change the header format.
 * Links like Whitebeard and Luffy (known as pipe links) are preferred over links with redirects like Devil Fruit, Whitebeard and Luffy.
 * Redirect links may be changed into pipe links, but the person changing it must make a major contribution to the article to go along with it.
 * When linking to pages on this wiki, internal links should be used over external links. Internal links allow you to simply put the intended article's name in double brackets; e.g. Monkey D. Luffy creates a link to Monkey D. Luffy, which is must simpler than an external link that reads like Monkey D. Luffy . External links need only be used for external sites.
 * Internal links can also be used for Wikipedia articles. Simply put "wikipedia:" as a prefix followed by the article name, then pipe link it with just the article name. For example, One Piece creates a link to the Wikipedia page for One Piece.
 * Additionally, internal links can be used to link to articles in other FANDOM sites. To do so, simply put "w:c: : " in brackets followed by a pipe with just the article name. For example, we can link to the Naruto wiki's page on Naruto Uzumaki by writing Naruto Uzumaki, which results in a link to Naruto Uzumaki on the Naruto Wiki.