Tardis:Guide to writing Individuals articles
- This guide to writing entries for individuals is constantly developing, please add your thoughts and suggestions to this article's talk page.
Given the variety of sometimes limited amounts of information that exist for in-universe articles, this guide exists to assist you in finding the right layout for an article about an individual and how it might be structured.
You may use this as a guide for writing any in-universe article about an individual on this wiki from any sources within our Tardis:Canon policy.
Basic requirements[[edit source]]
At the very least, an article should have a description and profile of the individual.
An article often should have an Individual Infobox with all known information entered into it, however sometimes there may not be enough information to justify using an infobox (more detail below).
Any information you do not know just leave out, but the nature of a wiki someone will eventually find the article and add further information. Please do not add phrases such as (though not limited to) "this information is unknown".
Types of articles[[edit source]]
Generally speaking an individual article falls into three (quite broad) varieties; a short article, a medium article and a long article.
In the sections below there are examples of all three varieties and some things to notice when writing and editing articles of this length.
Short article[[edit source]]
A short article usually consists of an Individual Infobox and usually a single paragraph of information.
Charles Percival, Sondergaard and Kert Gantry are three examples of short articles, they all contain a paragraph of information and an infobox.
Short articles can contain just a sentence of information; Mollie Dawson and Ralpachan both contain just the infobox and one sentence.
Additionally, some articles may not have enough information to require an infobox, articles such as Saul Bredon and Pierre Breton contain all their information within the body of the article and do not contain enough information to be summarised within the infobox.
Medium article[[edit source]]
A medium article consists of Individual Infobox and more than one paragraph. It may be broken down into a Biography sub-heading and feature some in-depth information about the individual.
Medium articles represent a majority of the articles where a sizeable amount of information exists about the individual and the individual's article contains this of information to a detailed degree.
Tobias Vaughn, John Benton, Maggie Cain, Magnus Greel, Victoria Waterfield, Andy Davidson, all contain information of a 'medium article', some articles simply have a few paragraphs, whilst others are divided through a subheading beginning with Biography, using further sub-headings to break down an individual's life history through significant events or character altering events.
- For more information on additional sub-headings see below
Long article[[edit source]]
A long article consists of Individual Infobox and several paragraphs broken into several sub-headings. Long articles contain a significant amount of information from numerous sources.
The Doctor and all their incarnations' articles fall into this definition, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Melanie Bush, Susan Foreman, Bernice Summerfield, Sarah Jane Smith, The Master, Gwen Cooper, Luke Smith, as these examples show generally long articles are articles of feature individuals that have accumulated a significant body of information to draw information from.
This group of examples also illustrates the fluid nature of the sub-heading structure of long articles, while most begin with a Biography (or in some cases Profile) sub-heading they quickly break into a variety of further sub-headings based on the unique elements of an individual's life history. As with medium articles this is based on an individual's significant history and character altering event.
- For more information on additional sub-headings see below
Additional sub-headings[[edit source]]
For medium and long articles it is often useful to include additional information about unique elements of an individual's personality that is not focused on in the character's biography.
Personality[[edit source]]
Information contained in here is about the individual's personality, how they react, their moods and how their treat others and react to situations. This should be written as a paragraph, taking a new sentence when needed.
Habits and quirks[[edit source]]
Use this sub-heading to provide information about any unique habits or quirks that an individual is inclined towards.
Other information[[edit source]]
This sub-heading should be used for any information that does not fit within other sections that have been established or that you have established.
This can be anything from the individual in a parallel universe/alternate dimension/alternate universe etc, notable skills and abilities that were not covered else where (or need to be covered in more detail), romantic interests and any other information.
Please use complete sentences. Bullet points can be used, if used sparingly. Note that there should be no attempt to "bulletise" a person's whole life, as in the form of a "key life events" or "timeline" subsection. This sort of section was specifically rejected by the community in 2010.
Behind the scenes[[edit source]]
- This should be bullet points about extra information about the character form a production point of view.
- There may be headings in this section. In this case, the bullets points should go first, followed by headings at level three sub-heading (this uses three = like this: ===Sub-heading===.
- These sub-headings may be used to add behind the scenes information such as; casting information, significance of the individual, the individual's place in canon and continuity. Include these only if the information exists to include it.
External links[[edit source]]
- This should be a list, bullet pointed, of links to websites beyond this wiki and should be about the individual the article is about.
- These link(s) should be checked regularly to make sure they are still active and accessible.
- If there are no external links, this heading should not be included.
Footnotes[[edit source]]
If there are any sources used in the behind the scenes section they should follow our Manual of Style regarding citing out of universe (aka real world) information, in brief adding <ref> </ref> tags around the source.
If <ref></ref> tags are used add {{reflist}} to the this section.
Finally[[edit source]]
- At the end of the article you should add categories, and any templates that might apply to the article.
- At the end of the article, please always put {{NameSort}}, this may be excluded if the article individual has only one name, or if the character's name begins with "the", like the Master. In the latter case, {{TitleSort}} works.
- Also if you believe the article is significantly lacking in information add {{character stub}} under here.
