This Manual of Style outlines a standard of clean, consistent formatting for articles in Music Wiki. The formatting described here is a guideline and can be overridden where circumstances warrant it. These guidelines will never be unerringly perfect for every situation. However, these are guidelines that should be observed when editing content pages. Please try your best to keep to the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when creating and editing their own articles.
These guidelines are a summary of the most important guidelines for the Music Wiki, but a more expansive set of guidelines can be found on Wikipedia at Wikipedia Manual of Style.
Article titles
The articles constitute the most important part of the wiki, and should be written in a way anyone interested can understand it and be able to easily find the information of interest.
Note that Fandom handles capitalized words differently than lowercase words. Entering them into search will bring up two different articles.
- Article names should be in singular form, not plural.
- Unless the name of the article contains (or is) a proper noun, none of the words should be capitalized.
Albums, songs & artists
There are a few simple rules to follow when naming an album, a song or an artist article.
- Articles titles for any type of article should include the original name. Titles should not use abbreviations; abbreviations should be left to redirects.
- The titles of any article regarding to music should be the name by which the it is officially known.
- If more than one song or album shares a name similar to other artists. Please include the song or album name first then followed by naming the specific topic in parenthesis under the format of "(<artist> <album type/song>)", e.g.: (Don't Fear) The Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult song).
- You may want to create disambiguation pages for commonly named articles. The title must contain only that commonly named term, without the "disambig" or "disambiguation" in parenthesis. Please include {{disambig}} at the top of the article.
Administrators may move articles without consultation if they do not confirm to the naming article policy.
Article content
How to edit and create articles? Take a look on several contributions done by some of our experienced users, Saviour's edits for example, and learn how to build a good article. It might be hard at the beginning, but after some time you would get used to it. Every changes, including new pages, will be monitored by the sysops, so be careful on every single contribution you've made.
A gentle reminder that you should be ready with contents before creating articles, and cannot be blank at the first ever version of the page. If you're not ready yet, you may create your own sandbox or drafts whatsoever rather than edit it on the spot. First things first, don't copy everything from Wikipedia, we all know that Wikipedia has a brief content about technically everything, but please encourage original content, not from the Wikipedia ones.
Structure
Most of the articles, no matter is about an artist, band, song or album, will have infobox information and must start with that. These infobox give a brief summary about the article. A good article should start with an introduction and then some background info, and must be in paragraphs and contain some advanced features, like tables, lists etc. only if necessary. As a whole, try to avoid point forms on an entire page, and elaborate as much as you can. If you're unsure about particular content, try to conduct some researches throughout the Internet, and cite them if possible.
For the article structure of particular topics, like albums, songs, artists etc., you may take a look at these sub-pages below:
- Manual of Style (albums)
- Manual of Style (songs)
- Manual of Style (artists)
- Manual of Style (other articles)
Language
In the Music Wiki, we only accept any content in English language, with the exception of interlanguages of the wiki. In terms of article content, English language must be applied at all times, with native languages only if necessary. Please avoid article content all in foreign languages, those such articles will be speedy deleted without prior notice.
In terms of article titles, it must be in Latin or Roman alphabet. In case of those that are not originally in a Latin alphabet, such as Chinese, Japanese or Russian names, must be Romanized. If there is a common English language form of the name, then use it.
Grammar and punctuation
When writing articles, it is important to follow these rules of the English language:
- Please refrain from using netspeak or any similar slang. We are compiling a professional and encyclopedic resource for Music related fans.
- Keep your writing around a 6th Grade reading level. You don't need to fill it with complex words or phrases just to make it sound smarter, especially if you're not certain how the word should be used.
- Vary your words. When writing, try to vary the words you use and the length of your sentences. It makes things sound more interesting.
- Capitalize words when appropriate. (see below)
- Use correct punctuation. This includes commas, periods, question marks, and apostrophes. (see below)
- Know the difference between homophones: there, their, and they're; here and hear; it's and its; who's and whose.
Capitalization
- Capitalize the first word of every sentence. (eg. Albums are published by developers of a record label.)
- Capitalize proper nouns. (eg. Scott Joplin, Iron Maiden)
- Capitalize the first and important words in a title. (eg. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings")
For a full list visit Capital Community College's Guide to Grammar and Writing
Punctuation
In addition to basic punctuation, it is important to know how to punctuate titles. Titles are always either in italics or inside quotation marks.
Italics
Italics can be used for large works like albums and EPs.
- Examples:
- Black & White
- Hound Dog
To use italics on Fandom, place two single quote marks before and after the title:
- ''Music is an art of organizing sound waves that calms the soul''
These are single quotes ('), not double quotes ("). Alternately, highlight the title you want to put in italics with your mouse and click the "I" button in the toolbar above the edit box (in between the B for bolding and AB for the Internal link).
Categorizing manner
All articles, including images must be categorized into relevant yet necessary categories. Please avoid overcategorizing like Music, Artists, Singles, Albums etc.. We all know that some of our categories in this wiki have been either outdated or corrupted. Our staffs are trying our best to get rid of them, so for their convenience, try to avoid touching them. If you're unsure which category you want to assign to, just leave it to the the sysops, they can categorize it for you.
Citing and external links
Citing is optional, but is encouraged. No matter how true you elaborate about it, if it's wasn't cited, no one can verify it and might be easily reverted. Citing is a safety net for you as a proof of whatever you're saying is true, this is to avoid some incidents of removing content without realizing that it was from relevant source.
All of the citing and external links should be included at the bottom of the article. The external links should contain several relevant links that are not possible to be cited, for streaming services and social networks (only applied to artists), please use them under infobox artist, there is already parameters just for them.
Organization
While you're editing a page, it's possible to include some HTML tags, such as "i" for italic, "p" for paragraph, "a" for hyperlink, etc., as well as include some styles or CSS codes to improve its quality. However, this is not recommended as Fandom have already provided the fixed styles, and varieties of simplified codes to create them instead of those complex tags. If you modify them with bunches of codes, this would cause confusion from viewers and the article to take more time than usual to load.
Some of the specific HTML tags, such as "br" for line break, "pre" for pre-defined codes, "small" for small-sized words, are still allowed be applied into the article. Those tags are useful in terms of organizing the article.
Further considerations
Lyrics
At this point, lyrics are prohibited for obvious reasons. Of course, this wiki should contain only information, not of those lyrics. The now defunct LyricWiki did host everything about lyrics but was taken down due to TOS violation. However, we are still under discussion of whether lyrics can be bought back to the wiki or not, though this is not likely due to low number of staffs, so stay alert of this. Any articles that contain lyrics at this point will be speedy deleted without prior notice, though some articles still survive with it.
External Links
We have a template exclusively for the external links section. You can see this page for more information about this template. This template is currently under testing phase, it would become a mandatory template in the future. It is recommended to apply this template into the article so we can easily verify it.
Article templates
If you're exploring the categories throughout the wiki, you might wondering why the article templates are there and not used at all. This might be due to outdated elements, low effort template, or possibly no parameters given. We are still figuring out the fixed structure of an article and will be applying it in the near future.
Media
Medias are an efficient way to grab attention from the article. Though this is optional, editors are recommended to upload at least an image or video and assign them into relevant articles. If there's no image associated, please add {{Image needed}} at the top of the page.
Images
Please see Help:Images page for more information.
- Images are preferred to bet Right-alignment to left-alignment. Although this is allowed when other objects interfere or make it visually unappealing.
- Any given article shouldn't have too much Images. If there are too many images in the article, consider making a gallery with a level two heading at the bottom of the article.
- Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
- Large images should be reduced to an appropriate size; preferably small so it doesn't overshadow the article, but not too small so the image loses their appeal.
- Complete sentences in captions should always end in a period. If the caption is not a complete sentence, it generally should not have a period at the end. Captions should also not be italicized.
- Please name your files descriptively to avoid confusion. Uploading an image with the name "0239235jgjgkdgdf.jpg" will be deleted or moved according to the opinion of the administrator.
- Do not upload images we already have. If you plan on uploading an image, look around the Music Wiki first to see if it has already been uploaded by someone else.
- Encourage images in .jpg, or .png format. This is in order for pages to load faster.
All uploaded files must be assigned into at least one page. They can be displayed with the "File:" prefix, with the exception of infobox, in which doesn't seems to need that prefix at all.
Any files that are uploaded and not assigned into any pages will be manually categorized into Candidates for deletion, undoing that edit without doing necessary task will result in an instant delete. Such categorized files are usually be monitored for approximately 7 days, if the file was assigned into pages, than the file is safe from deletion, whereas if it still not being assigned, the file will be deleted under the reason of "unused file". In some rare cases, files may be deleted earlier without prior notice.
All files should not contain watermarks from specific image providers, Getty Images for example or from any channels specifically from YouTube. Those that contain watermarks will be speedy deleted, although it was marked as fair use. All uploaded images and videos must be categorized into specific categories, similar to pages, avoid overcategorizing, most commonly Images and Videos.
Images of artists
Images of musical artists are always copyrighted. Please do not use photos you find on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit or elsewhere. This is copyright violation and will cause nothing but trouble. You can search across Wikimedia Commons for artist photos you can unse here. Music Wiki supports Wikimedia Commons. That means, you don't need to reupload them here. Just use the file name in the article and the image will be displayed. In case of infobox, just use the file name without the "File:" prefix.
Cover artworks
Covers of a musical release are always copyrighted, and not free to use. All of them must be marked as fair use. Here is the wiki syntax you must use for such uploads:
==Summary== {{Information | description = Cover artwork of ''[release name]'' by [artist name]<br>The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the record label or the graphic artist(s). | source = | date = | author = unknown | permission = | other_versions = | additional_information = }} ==Licensing== {{Fairuse}}
- Source: This field is mandatory. This is where you can put links to where you find the cover from, it can be from any other music databases (e.g.: Discogs) or any streaming services. WARNING! Do not use Wikipedia or any of its affiliates as your source. If you don't provide it, the file would be auto-categorized into Files with no machine-readable source, which may likely lead to file deletion anytime.
- Date: The release year is enough for this field. If you can find the exact date, you may add it in this format: YYYY-MM-DD (Year-Month-Day, for example: 2003-03-03 for March 3, 2003)
- Author: The creator of the cover artwork if given in the credit section of the release. Physical releases mostly have the name of the cover artwork creator given.
- Licensing: Always use {{Fairuse}}. From the code snippet above, you don't need to provide anything as the licensing status is already there.
After filled in those fields, make sure to categorize which release type the cover belongs to. If the cover is for a studio album, use [[Category:Album covers]]; if it's for a single, use [[Category:Single covers]], etc.
Protected images
To make edits or uploads to the following images you need to contact an administrator first:
Videos
From September 2023 it is not allowed anymore to upload videos that can be found on YouTube. This function cannot be disablend by the FANDOM central, neither can i. Users who violate this rule will be punished. Official music videos can be mentioned in the external link section at the end of the article or, if possible, include it in the infobox.
Links
To link to another article inside Music Wiki, you must put [[]] around it. To link to an article in other Wiki, use [[w:c:NAMEOFTHEWIKI|]] and put the article title inside. If an article does not exist by that name, the link will show up as dark red. External links will show up as blue.
You only need to link to another page once in any given article. Most of the time this is the first time that article's title comes up, but there are some exceptions to this.
- Examples:
- [[Elvis Presley]]
- [[w:c:music:Music|the Wiki about all genres of music.]]
If there's any article that contain dark red links, you should add {{Redlinks}} at the top of the article, no matter how many red links in there. This can let the contributors know that those articles should be created ASAP.
Perspective
The perspective of writing in articles generally fall into two categories: in universe and out of universe. Put succinctly, in universe writing is written as if a person from within the universe wrote it. Out of universe is written by a person who knows that it is fictional. The latest being the one used in the Wiki. Use tense the same way a standard encyclopedia would. Please make sure to use third person instead or first and second person. Exceptions to this can be found when writing a review for a song or album.
Deletion
Reasons for deletion include, but are not restricted to, the following (subject to the condition that improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page):
- Copyright violations and other material violating the non-free content criteria.
- Vandalism, including inflammatory redirects, pages that exist only to disparage their subject, patent nonsense, or gibberish
- Advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising-related subject).
- Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed.
- Redundant or otherwise useless templates.
- Categories representing overcategorization.
- Files that are unused, obsolete, or violate the Non-free policy.
- Any other use of the article, template, project, or user namespace that is contrary to the established separate policy for that namespace.
- Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia.