Undertale Wiki:Manual of Style

For page organization manual, see Project:Page organization.

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 any questions, suggestions or issues arise 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 the singular "they" is not only accepted but also needed in certain contexts.
  • The reflexive form of the singular "they" used in this wiki is "themself".
• "Epilogue", "Monologue", "Dialogue" etc. should be preferred over "Epilog", "Monolog", "Dialog"
• 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 is 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 in windowed mode (200% zoom).

In-game screenshots should be taken in windowed mode and be sized 640 × 480 pixels.

Links

There are several rules to follow when adding links to articles.

1. There shouldn't exist multiple links to the same page in a single article. Exceptions are:
   • when two or more links are linking to a different section of the same page
   • when one of the links is in the infobox/navbox and the other in the actual content
2. There mustn't exist links in section headers.
3. Pages that can be linked internally must be linked as such. For further help on how to internally link pages check Help:Links and Help:Interwiki link.

Spacing

Spacing in the source code is a minor thing, but is enforced on the wiki.

Bad	Good
*Bullet **Point ***List #Numbered ##List ==Header 2== ===Header 3=== ====Header 4==== {{Template with named parameters |a=a |ab=b|abc=c |abcd=d}} {{Template with numbered parameters| A|B|C|D}} ;Bolded :Indent	* Bullet ** Point *** List # Numbered ## List == Header 2 == === Header 3 === ==== Header 4 ==== {{Template with named parameters |a = a |ab = b |abc = c |abcd = d }} {{Template with numbered parameters|A|B|C|D}} ; Bolded : Indent

Note: An exception out of the numbered parameter templates is {{Flavortext}}. This should be written as if it has named parameters, but with a space instead of the parameter name.

Easy formatting

The wiki implemented several classes for easy formatting into the wiki's CSS. Those should always be preferred over the normal methods of formatting.

Background color
.bg1																																										.bg2																																										.bg3																																										.bg4
Border color
.border1																																										.border2																																										.border3																																										.border4
Text color
.red																								.orange																								.yellow																								.green																								.cyan, .aqua																								.blue																								.purple
Fonts
Comic Sans (.csans)																																																								Papyrus (.papyrus)																																																								Determination Mono (.dt)
Border styles
.solid																					.dotted																					.dashed																					.double																					.groove																					.inset																					.outset																					.ridge

Additional classes

Class	What it produces
.rounded-borders	Rounds the borders of a table
.temppadding	Adds some padding to a table

Reference and Citing

As this wiki grows, so do rumors. All content in this wiki should be verifiable, and 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. 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, screenshots (should be hosted on Imgur), and videos (should be hosted on YouTube) 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. Citations must include at least the following information:

1. Name or alias of the author or speaker.
2. Date of publishing or submission of the 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 the 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 in references (not when using the {{Flavortext}} template), 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.

For more in-depth instructions on adding references see the help page about it.

Citation needed

In the case of finding questionable content not properly cited, don't delete it. Instead add a {{Citation needed}} tag. Before adding the tag, it is 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").
• 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.