How to Train Your Dragon Wiki:Manual of Style

This is the Manual of Style for the How to Train Your Dragon Wiki. Please refer to the below rules about editing on here.

General Rules

Please use Source Editor for any edits outside spelling/grammar fixes. Visual Editor can cause major problems with code.
When creating pages, please make sure that they are about things officially related to the franchise and/or books.
Only fill a new page with the correct information; no speculation or fan fiction! Include a proper infobox (if needed), and proper categories.
Always add information in your own words. Plagiarism is prohibited on this platform and will be punished accordingly.
If you have a program like Grammarly installed on your device, disable it before editing! Such programs work against this Manual of Style and often mess with templates. Any spelling and grammar mistakes can always be fixed later.
Make as many changes as possible in a single edit as not to "edit farm". If needing to make many edits on a large article, edit each header separately rather than editing the entire page every time.
When trying to place a word or sentence on the line directly below, please use <br> instead of <br /> to separate them.
Do not type walls of text. Please separate paragraphs every 10-20 lines.
Please italicize the titles of movies, seasons, novels, and graphic novels. Put "double quotation marks" around episode, comic, and song titles.
When dividing a page into separate pages for the books and the franchise, make sure to put "(Books)" or "(Franchise)" in the title of the page, according to its origin.
Please add "Trivia" and "Gallery" sections to every page that is not a gallery or transcript page. If a page has enough images, a separate gallery page may be created and the “gallery” heading may be removed.
Always put the conjecture template at the top of articles that have a conjectural title.
If available, always put a quote at the top of the page, which is relevant to that page. The quote must be placed right after the infobox.
Always put verbs in past tense in the "Biography", "History", "Appearances", and "Relationships" sections and at present tense in the "Physical Appearance", "Personality", "Function", "Synopsis", and "Weakness" sections.
For specific types of pages, refer to the examples listed in the category Article Standards Examples.

Headings

Please put equal signs next to each other on each side of the words to create headings.
1. Eg. ==Example Heading== produces what you see at this page.
2. When creating headings, do not put spaces after the equal signs.
Do not bold headings, since text in a heading is automatically bold.
Custom headings, such as these headers, should only be used on How to Train Your Dragon Wiki pages, for special emphasis only. However, they may be used for user pages.
If the heading is a section of a biography page or it is a subsection of the biography section on a character page, it should be in italics to make the page a bit stylized.

Images

All images, by default, will be flushed to the right.
For bodies of text with a lot of images present (around 1 image per paragraph), alternate them such that they are flushed to the right, then left, then right again, etc.

Links

The first mentions of a subject matter should be linked under every main header, this means that for every new header, the page needs to be re-linked.
Image captions and quotes are considered part of the main body text, and be treated with accordance with the above rule.
1. However, first mentions in data-heavy templates, mainly infoboxes and game statistics, should always be linked, regardless of whether it has been linked before under the same header.
Indirect or inexplicit mentions of a subject should always be linked, regardless of whether a direct or a different indirect mention of it has been linked before under the same header.
Headers should always be linked.

References

Use credible sources for any information added.
Please do not use internal <reference/>s. That means do not create references to pages on this wiki.
Link all internal pages as well as external pages/sites, where applicable when referencing.
References should be cited in APA format, like a bibliography. The APA format is as shown below, editable fields are in blue.
1. Books: Last Name of Author, First name. (Year of Publication). Title of Book. Location: Publisher.
2. Newspaper Articles: Last Name of Author or Journalist, First Name. Title of Article. (Date Published - Month Day, Year). Title of newspaper, page number.
3. Online News Articles or Webpages (with author): Last Name of Author or Journalist, First Name. (Date Published - Month Day, Year). Title of page/article. Title of site.
4. Online News Articles or Webpages (no author): Title of page/article. (Date Published - Month Day, Year OR Copyright - year if publication date not available). Title of site.
5. Website Main Pages: Site Name. (Date Updated - Month Day, Year).
6. Interviews: Last name of interviewer, First name. (Year). Title of Interview. [Interview transcript if available].
7. YouTube Videos: Title of Video. (Date Posted - Month Day, Year). YouTube.
8. Social Media: "Name of Thread/Text in Post". (Date Posted - Month Day, Year). Site Name.
All references cited that were retrieved online should have be linked directly to the webpage.
Excessive use of information from another wikia should not have any references, instead, a Creative Commons Licensed template like this should be added below the reference list. If the template for a particular wiki does not exist, inform a bureaucrat, an administrator, or a content moderator.
Examples of good and bad reference citations can be seen here.

Infoboxes

When adding an infobox to a page, only Source Editor is allowed. For a list of good and bad examples of infoboxes, take a look here.
1. All sections of the infobox must be in order of what shows up first from the top to the bottom. Every infobox used on this wiki has the coding set up in the order it has to be placed on the pages on its template page. For example: on the Dragon Infobox, there is a heading called Coding and under that is the code for that infobox, in the order it should be used on a page. Copy and paste that coding onto a page and add the information from there. When Visual Editor is used to add infoboxes to articles, the sections don't end up in the right place.
2. Please do not clutter infoboxes. That once again means no Visual Editor for adding infoboxes. Please set infoboxes as explained above^, or please just don't add them at all. Leaving them straight out on the editing screen makes it easier for users to find what they want to add/remove/change. When Visual Editor is used, the sections end up cluttered together.
If you would like a section to be added to an infobox template, please contact an admin about it, or if you've already added a section, at least let an admin know. And when you add sections to an infobox, please add it to the coding both what you would copy and paste from under the Coding header and in the example infobox below in the order you placed it in.
When adding an image to an infobox always make sure to put in |Image = , just paste the file name after it. For example, to put [[File:Toothless!!!!!!!!!1.jpg]] onto an infobox, just put it like this: |Image = Toothless!!!!!!!!!1.jpg.
Please make all text in parentheses small, unless it's part of a quote. You can make text small by typing this <small>(example)</small>.

Quotes

Quotes in the quote template should come after the infobox in regular articles.
All quotes must be sourced, unless the source page is the same page that the quote is placed on.
All indirect mentions of characters, dragons, objects and locations must be linked inside a quote.
1. For example, if the following is written in the source mode of an article, {{Quote|Look, we don't know anything about a [[Valka|dragon thief]], or an [[Bewilderbeast|ice-spitting dragon]], or your [[Drago Bludvist|lunatic boss]] and his [[Drago's Army|dragon army]], okay? Just give us back [[Stormfly (Franchise)|our dragon]] and we'll go, [[Eret, Son of Eret|Strange-Hostile-Person-Whom-We've-Never-Met]].|[[Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (Franchise)|Hiccup]]|How to Train Your Dragon 2}} the quote will look like this

“	Look, we don't know anything about a dragon thief, or an ice-spitting dragon, or your lunatic boss and his dragon army, okay? Just give us back our dragon and we'll go, Strange-Hostile-Person-Whom-We've-Never-Met. ^[src]	”
	— Hiccup

Quote sections or pages should only contain memorable or significant quotes about the character or subject, not necessarily a line of dialogue the character has spoken.
1. However, if a character has less than 10 quotes (exclamations excluded) or has appeared in a single media, all the lines spoken by the character should appear under the “Quotes” heading.
Quote pages should only be created when there are over 10 quotes.
Much like galleries, headings must be created for each movie, series, or book that a character has appeared in.

Any new page that's created must have at least one relevant category added to it.

A category should only be created when at least 3 articles can be added to it.

Please do not add/create the same categories that have already been created, or recreate categories that have previously been deleted.

If you create a category, please capitalize every word of what you titled it.

With adding a category to a sub-category, please ensure that every article in it is also relevant to that particular category, or that the 'criteria' or 'requirement' of the subheadings should, logically speaking, apply to that category.

On Gallery pages, and pages that start with the words A and The, the magic words DEFAULTSORT should be placed on the bottom of the page with the way you want the page to be sorted in the categories it is in next to it like this: {{DEFAULTSORT:Name of Page}}

For example for Gallery: Leyla / Dragons: Rescue Riders, Season 1, at the bottom of the page to have it sort the page not by Gallery but every other word in the title one would place {{DEFAULTSORT:Leyla / Dragons: Rescue Riders, Season 1}} on the bottom of the page, and that will sort that page in all the categories it is in by the words Leyla / Dragons Rescue Riders, Season 1, instead of by Gallery: Leyla / Dragon Rescue Riders, Season 1.

All transcript pages should have a category naming the season in which the episode of the transcript appears. For example, if the transcript is of an episode from Dragons: Race to the Edge, then it should have the category Dragons: Race to the Edge Transcripts. If it is the transcript of a short or of a movie, the categories Shorts Transcripts or Movie Transcripts should be added.

All images must be titled exactly what they are, and preferably where they're from. Please do not just upload images with autogenerated titles. This also means do not title images with a random configuration of numbers or letters.

This means image names should be as descriptive as possible, with them being named based off of what is being said or what is happening in the picture being preferred, with naming them based on the characters in the picture being fine as well but less preferred.

All images uploaded should be in HD, if possible.

Images must not have black bars above and below the picture. Crop them out before uploading!

Images must not have any words on it that are not a part of the picture. This includes watermarks or logos. Official logos such as that of DreamWorks, however, is acceptable if it cannot be avoided.

Images that are uploaded should be uploaded as jpgs, because they load faster than pngs, and in terms of file size are smaller than pngs.

Only one image per scene should be uploaded, as not to clutter galleries and prevent duplicates.

Full page images from books, such as graphic novels, comics, and other types of books, whether before or after release cannot be uploaded unto this wiki to prevent copyright violation.

Partial page images from books are allowed to be uploaded after a book has been released. However, the number of partial page images from a book should be limited, and in no case should a full page be uploaded.

Fan Art and edits are not allowed on this wiki unless it is placed solely on User pages, Blogs, or Discussions.

If you want to post Fan Art you can upload it on the Fanon wiki

Any images that are used on Personal Pages need to be marked with the Category:Images for Use on Personal Pages to avoid deletion.

All images should be categorized with Category:Images, as well as other pertinent image categories such as those for specific media or characters.

Visit: How to Upload an Image for further image information.

Gallery pages are only to be created when there are more than 20 images on a page under the Gallery section.

When a gallery page is created, {{Gallery|[[<page title for the Gallery>]]}} must be placed at the very top of the page.

Headings must be created for each movie, series, or book that a character has appeared in.

However, when the images in the gallery page are disorganized, all images must be placed under a "Gallery" heading until the images are organized.

Make sure to always add the categories Gallery and <Gallery Type> Gallery to a gallery page.

If the Gallery page that is being created is for a page with an infobox, the infobox template on the page will have a Gallery section at the bottom, and please make sure to add a picture different from the picture on the infobox itself, to create a direct link from the page to its gallery. For pages that don't have infoboxes, please create a Gallery heading on the page that the Gallery page is for and use the template {{Galleries|<picture from the gallery>}} below it.

For seasons where most episodes have more than 10 images, a separate sub-gallery for the season can be created.

Otherwise, if at least one episode under the heading has more than 10 images, sub-headings for each episode can be created under that section.

Only films, shorts, episodes, and interviews should have transcripts.

DO NOT create a transcript for a book, a comic, or a graphic novel. It is considered copyright content.

When a transcript page is created, {{Transcript|<name of the transcript page>}} should be added at the top of the page.

Each line said by a certain character must have the name of the character in bold at the beginning of it, linking them if it is the first time that character speaks.

If a song appears, it must be in italics and the verses should be placed one after the other instead of one under the other.

Denote scene changes with parenthesis and bold text.

Denote actions within the transcript in parenthesis and italicized text.

Sometimes information gets released about a DreamWorks HTTYD media project in a staggered fashion, and is not available to all people at the same time. Such material that is officially released somewhere can be added to the Wiki, but must be marked as spoiler information as a courtesy to those who are unable to view the media yet. Because this is an English language Wiki, this means media not yet available to all English-speaking countries.

All information should be legally obtained. An example: no photos taken of a movie seen in a theater or on pirated recordings are allowed.
If a new article is added whose entire content is spoiler information, add the {{SpoilerButton}} at the very top of the page, followed by the {{Spoiler}} banner. Then encompass the entire pages' code in the {{HideSpoiler|}} tag.
If adding spoiler information to an established page, add the {{SpoilerButton}} at the very top of the page, followed by the {{Spoiler}} banner. Then encompass only the specific information in the {{HideSpoiler|}} tag.
The {{HideSpoiler|}} tag can be used multiple times throughout the article as will as within other templates such as the Infoboxes. Only one {{SpoilerButton}} is necessary for the whole page.

By editing this wiki you agree to follow all of the rules listed and to behave in a reasonable and respectful manner.

Please report any rule breakers to the admins.