Friday Night Funkin' Wiki:Style Manual

The Style Manual aims to establish a general set of guidelines and parameters for the way article pages are written and formatted. This should be read by everyone who wishes to edit on the Friday Night Funkin' wiki to ensure that its articles and pages remain both consistent and organized as well as reducing the amount of bad edits that usually end up being undone.

It is highly encouraged for users to edit, even if they are not experienced. Everyone here shares a common goal of improving the wiki and making it an accurate source for all Friday Night Funkin' fans and newcomers. Outside of blatant cases of vandalism, users are assumed to edit the wiki in good faith and cannot be punished for not following the style manual; mistakes can always be reverted or corrected.

These guidelines are not perfect and they may not work for every single situation, so never be afraid to suggest improvements for it to an administrator.

P.S.A. regarding mobile users
A note for mobile users of Fandom: the limitations of portable Fandom can make it awkward and troublesome for anyone to make some of the more complicated or generally larger edits. If any editors are a mobile user, use desktop view to ensure that all features are available and try to limit edits to simple ones, such as grammar/typo fixes.

For the best experience, it is strongly recommended that edits are made on desktop platforms such as a PC or a laptop.

Language and Grammar

 * 1) This is a primarily English-speaking wiki. All pages must be written following the style of American English (apologies to British English writers). Writing words in the style of British English out of habit will not be punished, but it will be reverted. This is to ensure that the writing on articles remain consistent. Pages should never be written or changed to be translated in another language. This will be reverted. Users of other languages are encouraged to use translating tools such as a translation software to read the pages.
 * 2) *Examples: favorite over favourite, gray over grey, paralyze over paralyse, defense over defence.
 * 3) Remain in 3rd person. Do not use personal pronouns like "I" or "me" or any words that give attention to the editors. Do not use "you" or "we" when referring to readers either. When referring to people who play the game, simply refer to them as "the player/players.
 * 4) Slang words should rarely be used. In almost all situations, formal language is expected to be used when writing or describing things as the wiki aims to be informative. However, contractions are generally acceptable.
 * 5) Keep it simple. Strive to make the wiki understandable for everyone without having to refer to a dictionary every other sentence. Use simple descriptions, understandable vocabulary and an easy-to-follow structuring that smoothly leads one sentence to the next. This does not mean editors cannot be descriptive or use synonyms to avoid repeating the same word over and over, but remember that word choice matters. Simplicity goes a long way to make reading through an article more enjoyable but variety helps make it interesting too.
 * 6) Keep a neutral point of view. All articles should remain as neutral as possible. Do not word anything in a page in a manner that could possibly inject personal biases or view points to the subject. Remain objective as much as possible to present an article's subject fairly and reliably without editorial bias.
 * 7) *A bad example: The song M.I.L.F is considered one of the most difficult songs in the game. (While it is arguable, the editor that wrote this should not be injecting that idea into a reader's mind when they should be discovering that for themselves.)
 * 8) *A good example: Boyfriend's name is not Keith as he does not have any "official" name yet. The name "Keith," as with many other random names thrown around by Ninjamuffin99, were said simply to confuse and troll the game's community. (The way it is written makes it impossible to discern the editor's tone, yet it remains both objective and clear.)
 * 9) Do not use profanities and foul language. Never use vulgarisms to describe things in an article. For example, just say, "a terrible situation," instead of, "a sh**ty situation." The only exception when such language is allowed is if it is relevant to the page subject. A prime example of this is cutscene dialogue, which needs to be transcripted accurately and faithfully to the game. In such specific circumstances, profanities can be left uncensored.
 * 10) Numbers do not need to be written out in full. All numbers should be written in numeral form.
 * 11) *Numbers that go above a thousand should have commas as thousand separators. Periods should be used as decimal points.
 * 12) Several ways of writing in a main article should be avoided. Writing like this diminishes the reading experience for users and makes the page look incompetent. Examples include:
 * 13) *Writing in all caps (Like, BOYFRIEND'S NAME IS NOT KEITH)
 * 14) *Using emoticons (Like, -->, - :) , ; ] , etc, etc)
 * 15) *Overusing punctuation (Like, this!!! or  this??? )
 * 16) *Abbreviations - (Like, " u r rly dum " or " srsly ")
 * 17) *Starting with lowercase - (Like " pico is funny ")
 * 18) *Starting each word with uppercase (Like This. Do Not Do This.)
 * 19) Lists of three or more things do not require the Oxford comma. The wiki chooses not to use it in most cases. However, if a list appears confusing due to its omission, then for clarity's sake, use it.
 * 20) *Example for a simple list that doesn't need it: One, two and three (no Oxford comma) instead of One, two, and three (with Oxford comma).
 * 21) *Example for a more confusing list that should use it: One and two, three and four, and five and six (with Oxford comma) instead of One and two, three and four and five and six (no Oxford comma).
 * 22) Dates must have the suffix written in superscript. Additionally, add a comma before the year if writing it.
 * 23) *Bad examples: 3rd November 2020. November 3rd, 2020. 3rd of November 2020.
 * 24) *Good example: 3rd of November, 2020.

Articles

 * 1) All pages have a general format that must be followed. This is best seen across pages with similar subject matters such as characters, songs or weeks. Notice that they use the same types of infoboxes, the same header titles and more. The familiar structuring keeps pages uniform with each other despite their different page content. Look at what similar pages do and follow their basic format instead of trying to do something completely different and break that format in the process.
 * 2) The page's name should always appear in the beginning sentence. Additionally, the first time the page name is written should be written in bold.
 * 3) Links should be in bold. This does not include links in images captions, quotes and infobox templates. Links created for a word with a possessive form must be in bold and linked in whole.
 * 4) *A bad example: Boyfriend 's only fear seems to be lightning. (The "'s" is not in bold and linked.)
 * 5) *A good example: Boyfriend's only fear seems to be lightning.
 * 6) Multiple links for the same page can be repeated throughout a page, but space them out accordingly so it doesn't become too cluttered in links. In general, do not repeat the same link in the same sentence, paragraph or point form list.
 * 7) No outside links that leads to anywhere that could possibly be considered NSFW. If an alternative cannot be reached, a link simply cannot be added.
 * 8) Do not link everything that could have a link. An outside link should only be added to words to help expand that particular subject without taking up any space in the page. The most common example is adding Wikipedia article links to something that may not be familiar to most readers. However, just because it does have a Wikipedia page does not mean a link to it is necessary.
 * 9) *A bad example: Monster's head is in the shape of a lemon. (The link added is unneeded. We assume most readers know what a lemon is. For the minor few out there that do not know what a lemon is are expected to look it up themselves.)
 * 10) *A good example: Friday Night Funkin' was originally a game jam game for Ludum Dare. (In both cases, the links added are needed. It may not be so obvious to most readers what a "game jam" is or what "Ludum Dare" means.)
 * 11) Trivia should only include interesting things or points of note about the article topic that doesn't fit in another appropriate section of said article. Additionally, it is typically unnecessary in most circumstances to repeat something that has already been stated in the main article unless there is additional information related to it that cannot fit appropriately elsewhere in the page. Largely speculative, uninteresting information or claims from a dubious source added to trivia can and will be removed at the staff's discretion. If a trivia piece has an easily available reference, make sure to add it to avoid issues regarding legitimacy of the trivia in question.
 * 12) Do not add sound files to a page. This does not apply to pages where they are supposed to be added, namely Music. While they may not affect anything on desktop, they ruin the formatting on mobile so this is best avoided.
 * 13) Do not leave a signature. The wiki is a collaborative effort and none of the main pages should have any sort of personal inscription left whether it is to bring particular attention to an editor or to bolster one's own ego. These will be removed if found. This also extends to images and videos. If a file is found to have a signature embedded onto it, it will be deleted.
 * 14) Do not write an article's full title if it contains parentheses. Some articles have similar titles that are differentiated by a subject written between parentheses. An example would be the antagonist "Daddy Dearest" who also has a week named after him which is written as "Daddy Dearest (Week)" in the wiki. However, the portion written in parentheses should not be mentioned while editing. While this could lead to confusion, it is important that the sentence where it is written down on has sufficient context to make it clear which particular article it is referring to.

Galleries

 * 1) Galleries should only include images related to the page. This includes game assets, game screenshots/gifs, related sketches and concept art by the game's artists, and sometimes relevant images from a source that connects to the page. A guest character's page can include images that show what the character looks like from their home series for comparison to their appearance in the game.
 * 2) All gallery images/gifs require a subtitle that briefly describes it. Do not leave them blank.
 * 3) All galleries should never include sound files. Galleries are for images, videos and gifs only.
 * 4) Pages without a dedicated gallery page should not have too many images in the gallery. Some may be removed if they begin to clutter it. A dedicated gallery page is generally not subject to this.
 * 5) Dedicated gallery pages can only be made for characters. This does not include background characters.
 * 6) Dedicated galleries have to have their images organized under section headers. Make sure that they are placed somewhere appropriate, such as drawings under the "Doodles" section or unused character assets under the "Currently Unused" section. Do not haphazardly throw images under any section headers.
 * 7) Dedicated galleries should not have any links that lead to the original page. Doing so is redundant as there is already a link to the original page at the top of the gallery under the title.

Categories

 * 1) Categories should remain in a specific order. To figure out how to order the categories for a page, refer to another page with a similar structure and follow it as closely as possible.
 * 2) Do not create new categories without checking to see if an appropriate category exists already. Add those instead.
 * 3) Most categories belong only on articles. Categories that appear on pages where it shouldn't such as blog posts or profiles will be removed. Categories that do not fit with the page will be removed as well.