Big City Greens Wiki:Manual of Style

Manual of Style

Welcome to the Big City Greens Wiki's manual of style. The manual of style serves as a reference to help maintain uniformity of all articles in the Big City Greens Wiki. Please keep in mind that these serve as guidelines and not rules. Though these guidelines are enforced across the wiki, certain exceptions to these can apply when necessary. The manual of style is ultimately dictated by the community, and as such, this manual is subject to changes at any time. This page will answer many of your questions pertaining to articles on this wiki. If you can not find your answer, please ask an administrator.

Before editing, please make sure to read the wiki's Rules and Regulations!

General

Do

• Write in paragraphs
• Use punctuation
• Link
• Add sources
• Add categories
• Fix grammar
• Use templates
• Create episode page that's reliable from the official trusted sources (Disney Branded Television press site, The Cable Forum, Gracenote, Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR), etc...).

Do not

• Forget capitalization
• Add lists of attributes
• Leave blank articles
• Vandalize articles
  • If a wiki staff member with a bureaucrat or administrator role catches you for vandalism, you'll immediately be blocked from editing indefinitely. No second chances.
• Add speculative information
• Add both appearance and personality in infoboxes
• Create episode page that's not reliable from other untrusted sources (IMDb, Wikipedia, etc...).
• Use British spellings/wording; Big City Greens is an American show and must use proper American spellings/wording and terminology.
• Add descriptive categories (ie. "Big City episode galleries/transcripts", "Holiday episode galleries/transcripts") to episodic subpages; those describe the episode altogether and only go on the main page.

Articles

Titles

Avoid making articles with conjectural titles. Please make sure the article name for a subject is its official name. Similarly, please do not use nicknames or alternate names for an article's title. (e.g. "Cricket Green" instead of "Main Character.")

Article names must also be written in the singular form rather than the plural. (e.g. "Dog" instead of "Dogs.") Certain exceptions may apply, such as if an article is a list. (e.g. "List of dogs.") Additionally, the definite article (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) should be avoided in article titles except when they are part of an official title.

When starting an article, make sure to always include at least a single sentence about the subject. This sentence should include a brief definition of the subject, and don't forget to bold the first instance of the article name.

Language

For the purpose of maintaining consistency, and because the subject of this wiki originates from the United States, words on this wiki should conform to the spelling used in American English. This applies only to main namespace pages, not talk or user pages. Although no user should be harassed or punished for using other regional spellings of words, editors are encouraged to conform text in articles to U.S. spelling. If you come across a word spelled the way it is in another country (for example if you see "color" spelled as "colour"), just change it to the U.S. English spelling and be done with it.

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.

Syntax

Formatting

Capitalization of article titles and section headers should include the first letter of the first word being a capital letter, but it should otherwise follow the normal English rules of capitalization. For example, a section title should be "External links" instead of "External Links." An exception is the capitalization of article titles for characters.

When bolding an article's title within the article itself, only the first instance of the article's name should be bolded. In instances where alternate names or nicknames for the article's title are added, the first instances of them should also be bolded. Here is an example of this:

A bag (also known regionally as a sack) is a common tool in the form of a non-rigid container. The use of bags predates recorded history, with the earliest bags being no more than lengths of animal skin, cotton, or woven plant fibers, folded up at the edges and secured in that shape with strings of the same material.

View the original article here.

When viewed in Source mode, this is what it would look like.

A '''bag''' (also known regionally as a '''sack''') is a common tool in the form of a non-rigid container. The use of bags predates recorded history, with the earliest bags being no more than lengths of animal skin, cotton, or woven plant fibers, folded up at the edges and secured in that shape with strings of the same material.

When referring to the names of media, such as the title of a television show, these should be italicized (e.g. Big City Greens Wiki) while things like episode names should be surrounded with quotation marks. (e.g. "Episode name" from Season 1)

Linking

Linking is usually limited to the first occurrence of the word or phrase in each article, not counting links inside infoboxes. This is because spamming too many wiki links makes articles difficult to read. Adding multiple links for the same term might be acceptable in very long articles, where linked instances of the term are very far apart. Another exception to this is if multiple links lead to different sections on the same page.

Redirects

It is generally advisable to leave links to pages like those for characters like this:

• [[Tilly Green|Tilly]] (over [[Tilly]], which will always redirect to Tilly Green)

While redirecting would be beneficial in the long run as to decrease page file size, leaving the full page name there will be much more convenient as Fandom's visual and source editors will always prioritize the main page over the redirect. In addition, it helps against double redirects should the page be moved again.

If you want to link to Wikipedia pages, please use this syntax:

• [[wikipedia:Big City Greens|Big City Greens]]

Warning! Using the W template will result in rendering issues on Fandom's mobile skin. It is generally advisable to use the [[wikipedia:]] link as to circumvent this.

Transcript formatting notes

• Speaker's names are in Bold.
• Stage and camera directions are in brackets and italicized.
• If the character is offscreen during their line, immediately follow their name with a parentheses with "OS" (offscreen). (ex. Cricket (OS):) Use "partially OS" (partially offscreen) if the character is offscreen, but part of their body still shows up on-camera.
• Try to match the punctuation in the dialogue to closely adhere to how the character says it in the actual episode's audio. Some lines marked with a period in the closed-captions/subtitles technically use an exclamation point if the line is shouted.
• Link to the character's name the first time they are mentioned.
• Lines that are sung are bookended by musical notes.
  • All songs within the transcript must place <center><poem> and </poem></center> inbetween the lyrics from top to bottom. Here's an example of this:

Cricket:
♪ I had my fun, ♪
♪ Now it's done, ♪
♪ And so is my Big City ♪
♪ I wanted to try something new, ♪
♪ Now all I have is self-pity ♪

When viewed in Source mode, this is what it would look like.

<center><poem> '''Cricket''': ♪ I had my fun, ♪ ♪ Now it's done, ♪ ♪ And so is my Big City ♪ ♪ I wanted to try something new, ♪ ♪ Now all I have is self-pity ♪ </poem></center>

Another example with action description and spoken dialogue during the song are included as well:

Gwendolyn:
♪ 'Cause it was big ♪
♪ It was so big and full of dreams ♪
♪ She'll have ideas ♪
♪ She'll turn things into smart machines ♪

[One of the machines in question picks up Gwendolyn and puts her down in the spotlight.]

Gwendolyn: [gasps] And he was right! You wanna know how smart I was? That doctor wasn't a he, it was a she! And that doctor was me! Yeah! I delivered MYSELF!!!

Nancy: [whispering] Let's find a way to get that escape pod back to that asteroid.

[Nancy and Gloria sneak to the control panel as Gwendolyn sings.]

Gwendolyn:
♪ My future was bright ♪
♪ All the kids looked up to me ♪
♪ I had foresight ♪
♪ I was a visionary ♪

And here's what it would look like when viewed in Source mode.

<center><poem> '''Gwendolyn:''' ♪ 'Cause it was big ♪ ♪ It was so big and full of dreams ♪ ♪ She'll have ideas ♪ ♪ She'll turn things into smart machines ♪ ''[One of the machines in question picks up Gwendolyn and puts her down in the spotlight.]'' '''Gwendolyn:''' ''[gasps]'' And he was right! You wanna know how smart I was? That doctor wasn't a he, it was a she! And that doctor was me! Yeah! I delivered <big><big>'''MYSELF!!!'''</big></big> '''Nancy:''' ''[whispering] Let's find a way to get that escape pod back to that asteroid.'' ''[Nancy and Gloria sneak to the control panel as Gwendolyn sings.]'' '''Gwendolyn:''' ♪ My future was bright ♪ ♪ All the kids looked up to me ♪ ♪ I had foresight ♪ ♪ I was a visionary ♪ </poem></center>

• Scene changes are marked by a heading markup with two equal signs (==). Add an extra equal sign if the scene changes to a sub-area within the main location.
  • If the episode is double-length or a movie, use the two equal sign markup for "Part 1/2/3" and the additional equal sign markups for scene changes within.

Stubs

Do not add the "Article stubs" category directly to an article. Instead, append {{stub}} to the beginning of an article. Articles should only be marked as a stub if the article is incomplete and is missing some basic information.