The Kirby Encyclopedia:Manual of Style


 * This covers how we would like an article to look on this wiki at creation. While not an enforced policy, try to follow it the best you can.

An article is a content page about the knowledge - a character, item, enemy, game, etc. The goal of The Kirby Encyclopedia is to add as many articles as possible to fill up the knowledge base, but some basic guidelines will help you get a good start either creating an article or expanding one. We have some specific criteria that should go into every article from its creation, and some enhancements to make it even better. Though not mentioned, all articles should have relatively good grammar.

Critical criteria

 * 1) Bold and repeat the title of the article in the first sentence.
 * 2) Details - provide as much information pertaining to the subject as you can.
 * 3)  You  - use another term like "the player" or the name of the playable character.
 * 4) Link to as many other articles as possible once and only once.
 * 5) Italicize all game titles as well as linking them.
 * 6) Navigation via templates.
 * 7) Categorize with many categories.

Enhancements

 * 1) Images to visualize the article.
 * 2) Knowledge/Notice templates like, ,.
 * 3) Tables to lay out statistics neatly.

How to create or edit an article

 * Create: - Clicking on a red link brings you right to the edit box. Searching and then clicking "create this page" does the same.
 * Edit: - While viewing any article, click the "edit" tab, third from the left.

Step-by-step example article
Let's say that the article "The Kirby Encyclopedia" was created by a user. Keep in mind that this is just an example, and that an actual article covering the wiki itself would be deleted, especially as you can read up about The Kirby Encyclopedia and its history on the About page. Here's the wikitext (what appears in the edit box) of this article:
 * The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the kirby series. you can edit many articles like kirby's dream land, but you must be logged-in to upload images

The example above has a few grammatical errors. As with any other encyclopedic wiki, we want to use proper grammar within the articles. Here is a corrected version:
 * The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the Kirby series. You can edit many articles, such as Kirby's Dream Land, but you must be logged-in to upload images.

Now, we will run this article through the seven critical criteria listed above and compare the final article to this.

Bolding the title
In most cases, we start out an article by restating the title of the article, and also bolding it for emphasis. This is a simple rule to remember and easy to add. Here we replace "It" and add a "The" to keep the sentence sensible:
 * The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the complete Kirby franchise. ...

If the article is a game or a series, referring to Step 5, use five apostrophes ( ' ) to apply both bold and italic formatting to the title. Note that the title doesn't need to be bolded again after the first time (e.g. in image captions, infoboxes).

Describing the subject
You need to add details about your topic. Here's some good starter questions: if it's an item, what game did it appear in? What are the effects of the item? What specific level(s) did the item appear in? If it's a location, what game was it in? What events took place there? If it's a game, what features are there? How is it played? What are the game modes?

In our example article, we have one detail: the game Kirby's Dream Land is one of many articles on the wiki. Here we add some more about the wiki as well as more games:
 * The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the overall Kirby franchise, including its games, the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, and other media. Partial coverage for its related appearances, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, is also allowed. It has many articles, such as Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby Super Star, Kirby: Squeak Squad, King Dedede, Extra Life, Waddle Dee, and more. Many of these games, such as Kirby's Dream Land 2, involve Kirby having to save Dream Land from a dark entity. The wiki was created on August 3, 2021 by DarkMatterMan4500, and has been expanding ever since. Anyone can edit, but they must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

Your details depend on the type of article you're creating. Think of the basics - a person who has never played the game(s) would need to get a fair idea of what it is. There are a few things that should be avoided when writing, such as implying bias toward certain subjects or attempting to dramatize the text; see the writing tips for useful advice while writing articles. Try to add a decent amount of information to the article that are you are creating. It is the amount of info that matters, not the length, and simple subjects will inevitably have small articles, but that does not make them stubs, which are articles or sections lacking essential information about the subject.

No "you"s
In this wiki, we opt against using the tempting word "you". This includes implied "you's" in a command/imperative sentence (such as just above: "(you) Think of the basics..."). Instead, we use phrases such as "the player", "Kirby (a playable character) should", "the racer could", "they must", etc. that still describe the person being talked to, indirectly or refers to the character he or she plays in the game. This makes our articles more encyclopedic.

Note that when using pronouns to refer to the player, use the gender indeterminate "they" (or "their", "themself", etc.); "he or she" can be used occasionally, but "he/she", "s/he" or anything else with a "/" separating gender-specific terms should be avoided.

Our example article fixes up the "you" in the last sentence:
 * ...they must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

Linking, linking, linking!
Linking to as many articles as possible, created or not, adds greater navigation to the wiki. Created articles allow readers to move to a related topic, while red links (not created) give another user a chance to create the article (and go through these very same steps!). For many articles, only the first occurrence of a subject in an article should be linked to, with all subsequent occurrences in the body text written as plain text only, to avoid redundancy and clutter. However, longer pages can sometimes have multiple links to the same subject, provided the links do not occur back-to-back, and are instead spread throughout different sections of the article. Duplicate links appearing in lists, tables, infoboxes, image captions and navigation templates are also allowed, regardless of the length of a page.

Our example article includes one User namespace piped link for DarkMatterMan4500, but in articles, mostly all links are to other articles.

The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the overall Kirby franchise, including its games, the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, and other media. Partial coverage for its related appearances, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, is also allowed. The wiki has many articles, such as Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby Super Star, Kirby: Squeak Squad, King Dedede, Extra Life, Waddle Dee, and more. Many of these games, such as Kirby's Dream Land 2, involve Kirby having to save Dream Land from a dark entity. The wiki was created on August 3, 2021 by DarkMatterMan4500, and has been growing ever since. Anyone can edit, but they must create an account to upload files or create new articles.

Italicizing titles
All games, series, movies, television programs, music albums, and publications (such as comics, books and magazines) should always be italicized. When linking and italicizing, the syntax is  Article title . Song titles and Kirby: Right Back at Ya! episode titles are not italicized, but written in quotation marks. The proper use of italics has been applied or example article below:



The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the overall Kirby franchise, including its games, the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, and other media. Partial coverage for its related appearances, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, is also allowed. The wiki has many articles, such as Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby Super Star, Kirby: Squeak Squad, King Dedede, Extra Life, Waddle Dee, and more. Many of these games, such as Kirby's Dream Land 2, involve Kirby having to save Dream Land from a dark entity. The wiki was created on August 3, 2021 by DarkMatterMan4500, and has been growing ever since. Anyone can edit, but they must create an account to upload files or create new articles. ...

Navigation templates
Navigation templates list a bunch of related articles. Most templates pertain to a particular game (such as ) and will list all the characters, items, etc. that appear in that game, although others will list all the specific types of a certain group of species, items, etc. (such as or ). Keep in mind that these templates may have red links which, as stated above, are articles that have not yet been created. Sometimes there is no navigation template yet for a game, subject, or other grouping, but if a fitting navigation template can go on an article, add it.

Let's say that a template called was a navigational template listing all wikis related to video games. So:
 * ... The wiki was created on August 3, 2021 by DarkMatterMan4500, and has been growing ever since. Anyone can edit, but they must create an account to upload files or create new articles.



Categories
There are a ton of categories and subcategories on this wiki, and every page can fit into at least one of them, if not many. However, it is not as simple as putting every applicable category imaginable to an article. As explained in the Categories policy (linked above), categories are organized so that the most specific categories can be placed on articles, and in turn, those categories are part of more general categories, leading up to the bare basics like Category:Games, Locations or Species. The reason why only the most specific categories should be added is to avoid redundancy. For example, the Super Smash Bros. Brawl boss Tabuu technically fits in Category:Characters, Category:Super Smash Bros. series characters and Category:Super Smash Bros. Brawl bosses, but only the latter category should be used, as it is the most specific option.

The most important thing to remember is that when dealing with categories that are a compound of two other categories, only the compound category should be added. For example, Category:Kirby & The Amazing Mirror enemies is a compound of Category:Kirby & The Amazing Mirror and Category:Enemies, but neither of these two should be added as this would be redundant. This rule does not apply to Category:Games, which should be placed on all articles covering a Kirby-related game.

There are specific cases where both the most specific category and its parent category can be added to an article. For example, a boss is a type of character, yet it can help others to see both types of categories on a page. Take King Dedede for instance: both Category:Kirby's Adventure characters and Category:Kirby's Adventure bosses fit as a category. Another example of including the parent category of the most specific categories is Kirby Super Star, which has subcategories for its games (e.g. Category:Spring Breeze), which in turn have their own subcategories for the specific subjects featured within (e.g. Category:Spring Breeze enemies). On Waddle Dee's page, both Category:Spring Breeze enemies and Category:Kirby Super Star enemies should be added, especially because Waddle Dee appears in more Kirby Super Star games than just Spring Breeze.

To add a category to a page, type   and replace "Example" with a more suitable title for the page (like one of the examples listed in the previous few paragraphs). Be sure to not include a space between "Category:" and the name.

Let's say the categories Gaming, Wikis and Websites exist here, and that Wikis is a subcategory of Websites. In that case:
 * ... The wiki was created on August 3, 2021 by DarkMatterMan4500, and has been growing ever since. Anyone can edit, but they must create an account to upload files or create new articles.



Note that Websites isn't on the article, but it can still be reached by going through Wikis, just as this article can still be reached from Websites by going through the intermediate subcategory.

Also note that categories and templates often overlap in subject matter. This is perfectly fine, however templates are expected to provide enhanced navigation assets for readers (i.e. subdividing a large group of related pages by more specific criteria, such as characters vs. items appearing in the same game). If a category or a group of categories adequately links a group of pages, a template may not be needed at all.

''Congratulations! We have completed our tutorial article, "The Kirby Encyclopedia":
 * The Kirby Encyclopedia is a wiki about the overall Kirby franchise, including its games, the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, and other media. Partial coverage for its related appearances, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, is also allowed. The wiki has many articles, such as Kirby's Dream Land, Kirby Super Star, Kirby: Squeak Squad, King Dedede, Extra Life, Waddle Dee, and more. Many of these games, such as Kirby's Dream Land 2, involve Kirby having to save Dream Land from a dark entity. The wiki was created on August 3, 2021 by DarkMatterMan4500, and has been growing ever since. Anyone can edit, but they must create an account to upload files or create new articles.



Now try creating an actual article!''

Any article lacking in one of the seven criteria can and should be edited to correct its faults. This works not just for creating articles, but expanding and improving them too! The following sections deal with specific aspects of writing and additional features that can be added to the articles.

Capitalization and italics
The first word of an article section name is capitalized and proper nouns are capitalized. Subsequent words that are not proper nouns are not capitalized. Titles included in section names are italicized just like in regular text.

Section headings
An article's top-level body headings (typically level 2, surrounded by ) should not contain any links (e.g.  ), since this makes the show/hide function cumbersome on mobile, and linking to the section may not work correctly. While it's always preferred to use links in the body text rather than in headings, lower-level headings may be a link when there's no convenient place for it within the section itself.

Article sections should be separated by a blank line in wikitext, unless the line contains the template or similar. In addition, a blank line should precede the list of navigation templates, categories, and interlanguage links, which are all grouped together at the bottom of the article.

Empty sections
Sections should not solely consist of a link to another page. While the template is to be used to link to the stand-alone pages, a summary of the content (for pages like Glitch and Pre-release and unused content) or a sample of the most representative elements (for content-hoarding pages such as image galleries or quote lists)  should be present.

History
History sections detail the various appearances of the article's subject. They may also detail other media appearances, such as Kirby: Right Back at Ya! or Club Nintendo comics, although these can also be placed under a separate "Appearances in other media" section, which would come right after the main History section.

History sections are typically the first major section of an article, especially articles chronicling multiple appearances, after the article's introduction. Appearances in the History section are organized according to the international release date of a defined series and/or groupings (e.g. "Spinoffs" would be a grouping header), and independent titles. Series and grouping sub-sections are arranged by the release date of the first appearance of the subject in the series or grouping. For example, in the Kirby article, the Super Smash Bros. series section would go after the "Spinoffs" section, as Kirby appeared in spinoff titles within his own franchise before the Super Smash Bros. series, let alone the release date of the first Super Smash Bros. title.

If there is not enough content to mention every appearance in a series, the information can simply be merged under the series section, and other sub-sections do not have to be created. For example, if there is enough content to detail all of Superspicy Curry's appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series, sub-sections for each game could be created, but if there is not enough information for its specific appearances, therefore resulting in very short sub-sections, all of the information can be placed under the Super Smash Bros. series section. The paragraphs should still be listed in order of release. The same concept applies to content from remakes: if a subject appears in the original title and its remake and there is not substantial differences in the remake, all content can be placed in the original title's sub-section. However, if there is substantial new content in the remake (such as Galactic Nova having an expanded role in Kirby Super Star Ultra, specifically within the two modes Meta Knightmare Ultra and The True Arena), the remake can get its own sub-section in the overall series section, which is then organized according to release date. Episodes of a television or comic series are organized as sub-sections of the series section, as if they were a game in a video game series.

If a character only appears in one series or grouping, the intermediate section between the overall "History" header and the individual games can be omitted. For example, Galactic Nova Nucleus only appears in a main series title, Kirby Super Star, and its remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, so it is not necessary to make Kirby Super Star a subcategory of "Main series". Similarly, if a subject only appears in one game of a series, that game can be placed alongside the stand-alone games and the other series headers.

Certain appearances are difficult to find information on, either because they are obscure or because there is little information to report on. Rather than creating one-liner sections or ignoring these appearances, the information that is available can be compiled into comprehensive an "Other appearances" sub-section, which should go at or near the bottom of the History section. For cameos and references, this should be organized under a "Cameos and references" section, which should go at the bottom of the History section, under "Other appearances" if the article has such a section. Note that a "Cameos and references" section does not account for guest appearances, which are essentially a step above a cameo appearance. Instead, guest appearances (including crossover ones) should be a subsection of either the overall History section or its series' section, if it is a part of one. For example, Super Smash Bros. Brawl should be a subsection of Super Smash Bros. series, which should be a subsection of "History," as it is a crossover series.

If a series or franchise consists of both guest appearances and cameos, any instances of the latter can be subsections of the franchise or series section rather than in a "Cameos and references" section. Take Kirby's article for example — the Mario franchise has sub-sections for full appearances (e.g. Mario Kirby Meisaku Video) and cameos (e.g. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga) alike. Aside from guest appearances, the Super Smash Bros. series features several cameo appearances, such as in the form of trophies, and such information can be integrated into the specific game sections. It is advised to also mention them within the "Cameos and references" section, albeit summarized to avoid redundancy.

If the subject has a "backstory" (or "backstories", in the case of some subjects) referenced in its appearances, that content can be placed at the beginning of the History section before any series sub-sections, in a sub-section called "Background". Background information regarding the creation of the characters from a real life perspective (such as name and design origins) does not go in the History section's "background"; instead, it can go in the opening section or in a separate "Concept and creation" section, which should go before the History section.

Trivia
Many articles have a trivia section that consists of miscellaneous information and unsorted information. However, this is actually discouraged as long trivia sections are often disorganized, and most of its information can fit elsewhere into the article, so whenever possible, try to incorporate this information elsewhere in the article. Trivia points that merely state the obvious or reiterate facts already embedded in the text should not be created, and speculative information must be backed by hard facts or it will be removed.

Spelling standardization
Although our contributors come from all over the world, the majority of visitors to The Kirby Encyclopedia are North American. Therefore, North American game titles and box artworks take precedence on our articles. This standard extends to spelling, where the American standard should be used instead of the British variant. For example, "color" should be used instead of "colour". In order to maintain this consistency, instances of British-variant spelling on articles should be changed to the American standard and never vice versa. An exception to this is in profiles or quotes from a British English source. For example, many trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U have a different description between American English and British English releases.

Contractions
Contractions (such as "it's", "can't", and "doesn't") should be kept out of article writings (instead using "it is", "cannot", and "does not"), unless they are used in things like quotes. They can be used on talk pages, but using contractions on articles does not look very professional and should be avoided as much as possible.

In-universe
When writing an article describing characters, events, or locations from fictional sources (e.g. games, comics, films, TV shows, literature, etc.), present tense should be used.


 * In Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, Kirby has to save mirror world from a mysterious shadowy figure who has been converting it into a world of evil. In the intro cutscene, when Meta Knight enters the mirror world to try and save both it and Dream Land, this results in the creation of Dark Meta Knight, who appears before Kirby and slashes him with his sword, splitting Kirby into four duplicate copies. The four Kirbys grab on to a giant Warp Star and head off into the mirror world, which has ten areas for them to explore, nine of which are structured as a large maze with several rooms for them to explore.

Real world
When writing non-fiction, such as a biography or the history of a game series, past and present tense can be used as needed, depending on whether whatever is being described has already happened or is in the process of happening.

Future tense should be avoided when referring to subjects appearing in upcoming media; as trailers and screenshots show said subjects to have already been incorporated into and are thus presently in the game, present tense must be used. This also saves the effort and potential oversights when changing it all to present tense.

Time-based adjectives/adverbs
When referring to real-life events as references, avoid using adjectives and adverbs describing how long ago they occurred (e.g. "In a recent interview..."). What you add to an article may stay there for a long time, so citing an interview that is "recent" now won't be "recent" later. (This also saves the trouble of having to go back later and change the wording.) Instead, add the exact or approximate date the event occurred if possible.

Tying into the previous section regarding future tense, a game may be referred to as "upcoming" in its article's lead paragraph, as this is the simplest way to state that the game has not been released yet, on top of it being more visible and easy to update than an obscure sentence on a particular page.

Tables
Tables are sometimes the best way to display information. For example, instead of listing all the courses of a racing game and their accompanying locations, staff ghosts, and other information would go more nicely in a table than a simple list following a repetitive pattern many a time. One example of an article using multiple tables is Magolor's Shoppe, which shows the multitude of items that can be bought there.

Finding file
If you find an file that could go on an article, upload it and add it to an article using the syntax outlined in Help:Image (for images) and Help:Media (for audio and video files). Generally, a small image would use the frame, right and caption commands, a large image would use the thumb, right and caption commands - though sometimes different alignment is necessary. The first image should go on the first line of the edit box, even before the first sentence, and then additional images can be added between sections as size allows.

If an article needs an image to help illustrate a point but you can't find one, add to the top of the edit box (see the "Other templates" section). Do not add a placeholder broken file link until the image is actually uploaded, as this clutters up Category:Articles with broken file links.

Image captions
If a caption is a sentence fragment (which most are), it should not end with a period. If a caption contains at least one complete sentence, then periods are used. Other than that, caption punctuation should be consistent with that of article text. This guideline is true for both in-text images and image galleries.


 * Examples
 * "Kirby and King Dedede" (sentence fragment - no period)
 * "Kirby and King Dedede are not friends." (sentence - period used)
 * "Kirby and King Dedede. They are not friends." (at least one sentence - periods used)

Redirects
Redirects are used for search purposes, so linking to them is discouraged, and any links should use the full page's title instead with piped-link formatting when necessary.

Other templates
Project:Notice templates discusses a few other types of templates for use in articles, images and talk pages. Regular notice templates go at the tops of articles to bring attention to maintenance issues or specific conditions surrounding the article in question. For example, lets readers know that the name of a subject is not official, and  is placed on an article if it is still in the process of being written, thus letting readers know that they can expect that some aspects of the page will be incomplete. Templates concerning the subject matter rather than the state of the article includes, which needs to be put on all games that have been confirmed but not yet released, while goes on games that have only been released for less than a month, and  goes on pages related to upcoming or newly released games.

The template is used at the top of an article to direct the reader to similar articles that they may have been looking for. When using this template, do not use the piped-link formatting when linking to the other articles (e.g. ). Instead, just link to the article using its full name (e.g.  ). It's only necessary to use a piped-link when linking to a specific section in the article (e.g.  ).

In addition, there are some templates that form a table to fill in quick statistics, known as "infoboxes". For example, provides basic information about a game.

We suggest searching through Category:Templates to see what templates are available besides navigational ones. More specific template categories include Category:Notice templates and Category:Infobox templates.