Undertale Wiki:Manual of Style

ver 1.3.2

The purpose of this manual is to create guidelines to help uniformize content across articles in the Undertale Wiki. Reading this is recommended to efficientize the editing process, as it would save editors a lot of corrections. If you have any questions, suggestions, or issues; please contact administration. Thank you.

Disclaimer: This manual is still a work in progress. Anything written here is subject to change, and certain exceptions may apply.

General

Language

• Undertale was released in American English, and thus this Wiki will use standard American English.
• In this Wiki, the use of singular "they" is not only accepted but also needed in certain contexts.
  • The reflexive form of singular "they" used in this Wiki is "themself".
• When making possessive forms of singular and proper nouns ending with s, append 's at the end. Example: Sans's.
• Present tense should be used whenever possible.

Article Content

• Factual: All content on this Wiki should be factual; that is, concerned with actuality, as opposed to what is theorized or believed. Please refrain from adding theories, "headcanons", conjecture, opinions, and other kinds of non-factual information.
  • Conjecture may exist in this Wiki only if it's indisputable, thoroughly supported, or required.
• Verifiable: Most, if not all, content from this Wiki should be verifiable. This means that the reader should be able to confirm if the content is true, accurate, and justified, should doubts arise.
  • See Reference and Citing
• Relevant: Articles must contain information closely related to the topic in question, without digressing or going into tangents.
• Neutral POV: situations must be discussed in a disinterested tone, giving no bias or preferences and avoiding giving unimportant issues undue weight. Avoid the use of imperative form and second person (you) when writing articles.
• Formal Language: Not colloquial. Avoid the usage of slang and conversational or casual undertones.
• Encyclopedic Language: Language must be clear and unambiguous. Avoid unnecessary verbosity. This Wiki should use simple language and sentence structure for the sake of all readers. Language should not be too vague, and sentences should not be too long.

Preferred Terminology

• This Wiki uses the term "the protagonist" in favor of "the player" and "Frisk" when referring to the human character controlled by the player. This is because "the player" is a separate entity from the protagonist. The use of "Frisk" is avoided because the name Frisk is a spoiler, and it is unclear whether or not the character is Frisk at certain points of the game. This character will be referred to as "they", as their gender is ambiguous.
  • It's worth noting that this does not mean that "the player" will not be used at all; there are instances in which the entity in question is the player and not the protagonist.
• This Wiki uses the term "Genocide Route", as opposed to the alternatives. This has been debated and it is non-negotiable.
• This Wiki uses the term "Photoshop Flowey", as opposed to "Omega Flowey", since that is the term that appears in the credits sequence, and therefore canonical.
• This wiki uses the term "epilogue" to refer to the part of the game after Asriel's fight.

Images

Images with no animation should be in .png format, preferably with lossless compression. In-game content should have a 1:2 pixel ratio, in other words, the pixels should look as they are outside of fullscreen (200% zoom).

Reference and Citing

As this Wiki grows, so do rumors. All content in this Wikia should be verifiable, any information must be cited with quotes, explanations in footnotes, and/or reliable sources.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is, in few words, taking someone else's work and submitting it as one's own. This includes but is not limited to copying, quoting, paraphrasing or submitting a third party's work without proper acknowledgement or citation.

Plagiarism vs quoting

As long as a quote is short and properly cited, it does not count as plagiarism.

Examples of reliable sources:

• Content from within Undertale
  • Dialog quotes, imgur screenshots, and youtube videos of playthrough are all valid.
• Content from the official Undertale website
• Content explicitly from Toby Fox's twitter account, and the official Undertale Tumblr account.
• Other verifiable sources of information like interviews, newspapers, etc.

If at any point the content is proven to be false or plagiarized, a source falsified, or otherwise deemed inappropriate for this Wiki, it will be deleted immediately.

How to cite

Inline citations are placed immediately after the text it applies to. Any punctuation, excluding dashes and parentheses, is placed before the citation.

Do:

Undertale was released on September 15.^[1]
Undertale (released on September 15^[1]) is a game by Toby Fox.^[2]
Undertale —a game by Toby Fox^[1]— was released on September 15.^[2] 

Do not: 

Undertale (released on September 15)^[1] is a game by Toby Fox^[2]. 

While this Wiki does not follow a specific house style, the style must be consistent within individual articles. Citatizons must include at least the following information:  

1. Name or alias of the author or speaker. 
2. Date of publishing or submission of source. 
3. Name of website source was posted in (if web). 
   • Name of work source was published in (if print). 
4. Date of retrieval of source.
5. If the source is notably lengthy, include the page number, section name, or video time where the source is mentioned or implied.

When quoting in-game text Template:Tt, the quote should be in italics, and asterisks (*) omitted. In these cases, only the name of the speaker is required. If the quote is not spoken, a secret, or an easter egg; briefly describe where and how the text is accessible.

When alluding directly to the game's files, provide an argument or explanation, as well as the source where the files or information were obtained.

Citation needed

In case of finding doubtful content not properly cited, don't delete it. Instead add a {{Citation needed}} tag. Before adding the tag, it's recommended to try to find a source first.

When not to use {{Citation needed}}

• Obvious nonsense/trolling/vandalism, delete it.
• Dubious/controversial/harmful claims of living people, delete it.
• When the content is plausible, but still very doubtful, search for a source instead, or delete it. If deleted, provide an adequate summary (ex: "Very doubtful - please do not revert without giving a citation").
• When an article needs more than one or two tags, add {{Unreferenced}} or {{Unreferenced section}} instead.
• To digress, to "pay back" another editor, or because of personal feelings related to the content.

If your work is tagged or deleted for lack of citation, provide a proper citation.

Adding references

Visual editor

On the top bar, click 'Insert' and choose 'Reference'. Type in the text of the citation or footnote desired. For items sharing a same reference, click the 'Use an existing reference' button, or copy and paste the brackets directly. At the end of an article, in a section titled References, insert a references list.

Should one desire to add a template to a reference, the use of the Source Editor is recommended; disregarding this advice might cause the Visual Editor to crash and the edit to be lost.

Insert Reference

http://i.imgur.com/Pcj0zbG.png

When inserting a new reference, one can choose to make a category of references or use the general ones. Alternatively, one can pick an existing reference

http://i.imgur.com/IDLdKtt.png

Insert Reference list

http://i.imgur.com/MBF6yTB.png

One can choose to show general references, or another category (if available).

http://i.imgur.com/9yDoap6.png

Source editor

Use the following code

<ref>Actual reference</ref>

Templates and links go inside the ref tags

<ref>{{Template}},[[Link]]</ref>

For items sharing a same reference, add an identifier <ref name="name"> to the first reference, then use use a terminated ref tag <ref name="name" /> to the next ones. The identifier is arbitrary.

This is a thing. <ref name="name">Only the text from the first tag will be used as a footnote. The name can be anything with at least one letter, and there can be multiple tags with multiple names.</ref> 

By adding an identifier to the ref tag, using another tag with the identifier will use the same reference for multiple inline citations.<ref name="name" /> 

Only the text in the first tag is used.<ref name="name">Making the text inside this useless.</ref>

{{ref}}

This is a thing.

By adding an identifier to the ref tag, using another tag with the identifier will use the same reference for multiple inline citations.

Only the text in the first tag is used.

At the end of an article, in a section titled References, insert a references list using the terminated tag <references />.

Page Organization

The first paragraph (introduction) of an article should be a short description of its topic, stating what it is and its role in Undertale. Empty sections are to be omitted from the article.

Characters' pages should be divided the following way.

- Infobox
- Introduction
== Profile ==
=== Appearance ===
=== Personality ===
== Main Story ==
=== Neutral Route ===
=== True Pacifist Route ===
==== Epilogue ====
=== Genocide Route ===
== In Battle ==
== Relationships ==
== Trivia ==
== References ==
- Navboxes
- Translation links

Regular monsters should be divided the following way. In this case, if a section would be too short, it's probably better to omit it entirely.

- Infobox
- Introduction
== Profile ==
=== Appearance ===
=== Personality ===
== Main Story ==
=== Neutral Route ===
=== True Pacifist Route ===
=== Genocide Route ===
== In Battle ==
=== Appears with ===
=== Attacks ===
=== Strategy ===
=== Quotes ===
=== Flavor Text===
== Relationships==
== Trivia ==
== References ==
- Navboxes
- Translation links

Items should be divided the following way.

- Infobox
- Introduction
== Additional Uses ==
== Trivia ==
== References ==
- Navboxes
- Translation links

Introduction

For characters, the introduction should be a brief description of them, stating what they are and their role in Undertale.

For items, it should state what type of item it is, where its found, and (if applicable) its counterparts. Any special effects of its intended use that may not be clear from the item's infobox should go here as well.

Additional Uses

This section should list in bullet list format, the special uses an item may have, as well as their effect.

Profile

Appearance

The physical characteristics of the character, including their clothes.

Personality

Traits and qualities of a character, this may include their likes and interests.

If there is information relevant to the character, but not applicable to any of the two subsections, it should be put after Profile and before Appearance.

Main Story

Summarized narration of the plot without much detail and closely related to the character in question. Before the subsections should be the events that happened before the protagonist fell into the Underground.

Neutral Route

Events that happen in all routes of the game. Due to the nature of the Genocide Route, there may be exceptions.

True Pacifist Route

Events that happen only in the True Pacifist Route. Since this route differs to the Neutral Route only towards the end, it is not necessary to restate what has already been stated in the previous subsection.

Epilogue

Events that happen in the epilogue after defeating Asriel, and during and after the credits sequence.

Genocide Route

Events that happen only in the Genocide Route.

In Battle

Depending on the length of this section, it may be forked into a subpage. In Battle should be divided the following way:

1. Attacks
2. Strategy
3. Quotes
   1. Pre-Battle (if applicable)
   2. Post-Battle (if applicable)
4. Flavor Text

Relationships

This section should list and describe the relevant relationships of the character in question, divided in subsections per each character. This description should include how the character in question regards and behaves toward the character of its subsection.

Name (DEPRECATED)

This section should now go to Trivia, unless it's obvious how the name was made (for example, "Memoryhead" = "memory" + "head")

Trivia

Trivia sections are located at the end of the main content of an article. They should only contain true trivia: interesting, little-known facts that cannot be incorporated into an article effectively. Trivia takes the lowest priority, meaning any information should be attempted to be added to the main text before being placed in trivia. If several trivia points can be lumped into a category, do it. (ex: if Sans's trivia mentions there's a connection to Gaster 3 times, add a 'Gaster' subsection in Relationships)

References

References and citations are placed at the end of an article, before navboxes.

Don't be scared to add information as long as it's verifiable and factual. These may seem like a lot of rules, but don't be overwhelmed. Contribute as you see fit, both aware and reassured that it can and will be changed, fixed, or deleted in the future.