Article structure is an ever-evolving process here on Turtlepedia. This article will cover the basics on writing an easy-to-read entry and keeping a general manual of style.
Incarnations and Disambiguation Pages
While initially, character pages were designed to encapsulate the history of all of one character's incarnations, it became almost necessary to split them up into separate articles to facilitate ease-of-use. This also brings the Wiki in line with other comic Wikis, to help visitors from other Wikis navigate ours as well as vice versa.
This has also been helpful since the introduction of the Multiverse, since some incarnations of a character have appeared in multiple media.
- Disambiguation pages for characters are to include every major incarnation of a character, set by a gallery with character name and primary appearance, such as this:
File:Lhmirage.jpg|<center>'''[[Leatherhead (Mirage)|Leatherhead]]'''<br>[[Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Mirage Comics]]</center>
Which gives us:
We are still experimenting on the structure of how and where to place these incarnations on the disambiguation page. Initially, they were just grouped together in order of appearance, but it was suggested that we group them by media (Comic, Television, Video Games, etc.)
- Episodes and issues on character disambiguation pages are to be only used if that episode or issue is that character's name. Hun (Tales issue) would be applicable, but not Hun on the Run.
- Any action figure the character is depicted as, is placed below all of this.
- Disambiguation pages do not get any categories except for [[Category:Disambiguation pages]]
Trivia
What trivia is not:
- Trivia is not whatever pops into your head to write down.
- Trivia is not "this is the fifth episode that focuses on Mikey" or "this is the sixty-ninth episode that April does not appear in". Or "this is the third version of Slash to be a part of a team" etc.
- Trivia is not "it is unknown what happened to this character" or "it's possible that this charcter" or anything similar to the two.
- Trivia is not speculation or rumors. If it is not verifiable within the contents of the episode/issue or any other officially released supplemental material (official Nick website, official blogs, action figures), it doesn't belong on the Wiki, period, except for maybe discussion blogs.
- Trivia is not anything that has been or can be in the episode/issue/character synopsis, such as a major plot point (Dogpound's mutation into Rahzar in TMNT 2012, for example)
- Trivia is tidbits of interesting facts or behind-the-scenes information that may not be apparent, such as foreshadowing, mythology gags, and cultural references..
- Trivia is also not "Razhar returns in this episode" etc.
Categories
Try to keep categories concise, to the point, unambiguous, and ensure they conform to previously established categories. Try to exercise good judgment on what sort of categories you feel should exist. We don't need to catalog every single aspect of a character, and it's a safe bet that unless it's something significant that can be ascribed to something like [[Category:Temporary Mutants]], brief events may not be worth it. For example, one proposed category, "The Manipulated" didn't exactly describe its intention its categorization (brainwashed characters), and in fact, is such an insignificant brief event, that it probably doesn't need to be one at all.
Conformity in categories is super important and can't be stressed enough. Having eight different categories with names like "Mutants (1987 TV series)", "Mutants 1987", "1987 show mutants", etc. is a very ugly, cluttered mess. Likewise, if you see a category called "Villains (1987 TV series)" and one called "Villains (2003 TV series)", it might not be a good idea to make one called "Villains 2012". On that note, for the love of everything good and holy, try your best to spell things correctly (this also applies to articles in general). We actually had several categories with "villians" written in them, and anything in Japanese is plural for itself, so "Ninjas" doesn't fly at all.
In addition to the above, try not to make the categories too overly narrow. Male and Female Mutant categories? Okay, that works. Specific Male and Female categories for each continuity? That's a bit too specific. Again, try to exercise cautious judgment. "Deceased villains (2012)" not only breaks the above scheme, but it also is an incredibly small category that was full of more Space Heroes characters than anything else. Even a Deceased Villains category is pushing it.
Page Images
- Try to use the cleanest, clearest, most aesthetically interesting image possible of the character, from their most recent or most well-known look for the character image in the infobox.
- Official character art/renders are the most acceptable images to use, but if those are unavailable, get the best screenshot/scan/cropped panel you can.
- Color images are preferred over black-and-white ones, when available.
- NO WATERMARKED IMAGES (unless it's an official Nick/Mirage/4Kids/IDW etc. watermark)
- If you obtained an image from an exclusive source, credit it in the image description (as in, on the actual image's page)
- All images used to demonstrate the article's subject (as in, in an infobox or just at the page's top) are to be of 250 pixels in size (attained with the string "250px") unless the image would be distorted to an reasonable degree due to size of the original source image. Absolutely no thumbnail images (string: thumb) are to be use as demonstrative images.
- Episodes are to use the title card (a screenshot of the episode where the title is displayed on-screen), unless this item is unavailable. No random scenes from the episode, and no ending "sepia shots". It was sort of an unwritten and unenforced rule for a while that we were using the title cards, but then randomly all of the 2012 episodes were switched to the last shot of the episode. We want to make things uniform across the board.
When to Use Storylink
Storylink is to be used sparingly, to refer to an episode or issue as a footnote. When mentioning the story in question within a sentence, just link to the article, or if it's already been mentioned in the article already, simply add no Wiki markup.
Examples
- The wrong way:
- In The Gauntlet, Bradford and Xever are mutated into Dogpound and Fishface.
- Correct ways:
- In The Gauntlet, Bradford and Xever are mutated into Dogpound and Fishface.
- Bradford and Xever are mutated into Dogpound and Fishface.The Gauntlet
Character and Cast Listings
For individual episodes/issues of TMNT, a list of the characters that appear in the episode/issue is to be placed near the top of the article (after a brief rundown of what the article is about). Major characters are listed first (those that play an important role in the episode), followed by minor characters (those who play a lesser role or only show up as a cameo). If it is an episode, movie, or some other instance of the series that has actors, the actors are to be listed in this character list after the character name. A separate cast list is not to be made. These lists are to be alphabetical.
Galleries
- Galleries do not receive "image", "screenshot" or likewise categories. They are collections of images, not images themselves. Those tags are for the images that a user uploads.
- We do not need every frame of a character from every episode and if it is found that there are too many nigh-identical images in a gallery, they will be removed.
Article naming scheme
Continuities
At least until a better solution is introduced into canon for a naming scheme for universes (similar to DC and Marvel's), articles are to be listed by what media they appear initially in, following their name, within parenthesis.
For example: Leonardo
The main universes to use at this time are as follows:
- Mirage - For the original Mirage comics by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and the universe built in these comics.
- Archie - For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures and associated titles
- Image - For the "Volume 3" comics published by Image Comics
- IDW - IDW's comic universe
- 1987 TV series - For the original Murakami-Wolf Swenson animated series
- Next Mutation - For the short-lived live action series by Saban Entertainment
- 2003 TV series - For 4Kids Entertainment's animated series
- 2012 TV series - For Nickelodeon's CGI animated series
- Movies - For the first four theatrical films, and the universe built by them
- Paramount - For the 2014 film reboot distributed by Paramount films, and associated canon media
Note that there are many mini-continuities and that these are simply the major ones.
Character Names
If his or her real name is known, an article shall be listed by that name. A redirect article may be made so that the article can be easily found.
For example, the villain currently known as Rahzar in the 2012 TV series has the real name of Chris Bradford. Thus, his article is Chris Bradford, with a redirect at Rahzar. Since he was also known as Dogpound, there is also a redirect at Dogpound.
Eralink Templates
When available, please use the eralink templates (such as miragelink, 2012link, etc) instead of [[Article Subject (Universe Name)]] when writing articles. This is a shorter, easier way to link to character's incarnation. These are done as such: {{eralink|Article Subject}} - for example, {{2012link|Metalhead}} produces Metalhead.