W.I.T.C.H. Wiki:Editing guidelines

To uphold standards for good articles and for consistency across the entire wiki, we have a set of editing guidelines that we ask all editors to follow. Don’t worry about making a mistake though: this is a community effort and the wiki will always be a work in progress. Someone from the community will help improve on any mistakes made!

The basics

These are general guidelines that will be relevant to all writing on this wiki’s articles and category pages.

When you publish an edit, please leave a useful edit summary. Please include what you changed and/or why you changed it to help other editors understand your work.

Articles should not be entire copies from Wikipedia or other wikis. Some information can be copied (as long as the authors are credited (which can be done with {{Wikipedia}} for Wikipedia) and the licences are compatible) but the articles here should have a stronger W.I.T.C.H. focus.

Writing style

All writing should be objective, meaning that should convey only facts and not opinions. For example, Irma has brown curly hair and not Irma has pretty brown hair. Curly hair is an observable is a fact whereas pretty is an opinion.

Try to be precise in your writing and avoid your own biases. Regardless of if you’re writing about your favourite or least favourite character, they should get the same impartial treatment.

Try to avoid exaggerations so that the article accurately reflects the source material.

Try to be concise. One way that this can be done is by avoiding unnecessary adjectives such as “the magical Guardians sealed a portal”. Stating that the Guardians have magic in this context is unnecessary as it is obvious since they are Guardians. It also adds extra information, making the article harder to read – Longer isn’t always better.

All writing should be in the third person unless it is a direct quote. This means using he/she/they/it and not I/we/you.

All writing should be broken down into paragraphs. This helps with readability as long swaths of text without breaks are hard to read. A good rule of thumb of when to change paragraphs is when what you are writing about changes topic, person or location.

Multiple (visible) consecutive line breaks should be avoided. The spacing around images (and similar) added with extra line breaks creates a extra spacing on mobile and on some customised desktop views. To create the same effect, use {{Clr}}.

Tense

Most writing on this wiki should be in the present tense: e.g.

Cornelia is the Guardian of Earth
She has blonde hair
She lives with her mother, father, and younger sister, Lilian

One exception to this is any writing that recounts plot should be written in past tense unless it is a direct quote from the series or an official summary. Past tense should also be used in real-life articles when referring to events that happened in our past. e.g.

Yan Lin told the guardians about their powers
Irma made a joke
The first issue of W.I.T.C.H. was published in April 2001

Page completeness

Generally, when you publish an edit, please try to ensure that the page is in a presentable, finished looking state. While you may not have filled out all possible information on that topic, please make sure that you have finished your sentences and not left any empty sections, bullet points, or similar.

If it is not possible to complete a page in one edit, you may leave a note at the top of the page with the [[Page structure#Notices {optional}|notices]] which says, "This page is currently being worked on by " and then link your user page. That may stay on the page for a maximum of a week after the most recent edit by the named user before it should be removed and the page tidied. This is to avoid a messy appearance and dissuading other users from contributing.

Titles and headings

Titles and headings should be written in sentence case, like on Wikipedia. This means writing like a normal English sentence - only the first word should have a capital letter unless it is a proper noun.

For pieces of media, such as episodes from the TV series, comic issues or books, article titles should match exactly the official English translation spelling and capitalisation used where an official English translation exists. If no official English translation exists, the title should use an English translation written in title case, to reflect the fact that it is a title. Title case gives all words that aren’t articles ("a," "an," "the"), conjunctions (e.g., "and," "but," "or") or prepositions (e.g., "on," "in," "with") a capital letter, and the first word always gets a capital letter. e.g. The Guardians of the Veil

For media that is part of a series, it can use the name of the series, or the type of instalment, followed by a colon (:) then the instalment's title. For example, Issue 001: Halloween or Yen Press 01: The Twelve Portals Vol. 1.

For media which has "W.I.T.C.H." in its title, this should generally be omitted as that is redundant information. If the media's entire title is "W.I.T.C.H.", then the title should be the type of media it is. e.g. Comics or TV series. For media which includes "W.I.T.C.H." as part of the title, where possible this should be rephrased to remove it. e.g. Yen Press graphic novels for "W.I.T.C.H.: The Graphic Novel" which is published by Yen Press.

In-universe pages should be titled as they are written in official media, including spelling and capitalisation.

In general, pages for in-universe groups should be titled in the singular, so “Passling” not “Passlings”, unless the page is for a specific group of characters who it would not make sense for a page to be titled in the singular, like “W.I.T.C.H. (Guardians)” or “Four Dragons”. This is because plurals are longer without conveying any additional information and singular titles are consistent with Wikipedia's rules.

Similarly, titles should generally not start with the word “the” unless it was part of a title of a piece of media, as that also conveys no additional information and is consistent with Wikipedia's rules.

Character pages should primarily be named using the name that the character is most often called in-universe – “Matt Olsen”, not “Mathew Olsen”. If the character has two names (usually a forename and a surname) both should be included – “Cornelia Hale”, not just “Cornelia”. If the character has a title that is said more often than one of their other names, the title should be included instead of their lesser-used name – “Principal Knickerbocker”, not “Kate Knickerbocker” or “Principal Kate Knickerbocker”. If a character has only one name and a title that falls before their name, that title should be used – “Prince Phobos”, not just “Phobos”. Characters who only have one name and no title should be titled with only one name unless that name is clearly a surname when a suitable title such as “Mr”, “Mrs”, “Miss”, “Ms” or “Dr” should be chosen.

Where possible, page titles should reflect both the comics and TV series. If names vary between the two, a name that reflects both should be chosen even if it conveys less information, e.g. Susan Vandom, not Susan Vandom-Collins as the former is a name she held in both series, but the latter is not.

Heading levels should always follow from heading levels above in the article:

Fandom uses heading 1 (=heading 1=) to display article titles and, as such, should never be used within an article.
Heading 2 (==heading 2==), which on some fandom editors is simply called "Heading", should be used for all main article sections and if subsections are used, they should be directly followed by heading 3 (===heading 3===), which on some fandom editors is called "Sub-heading 1", and if further subsections are used heading 4 (====heading 4====), which on some fandom editors is called "Sub-heading 2", should be used and so forth – decreasing levels should always be one level lower than the previous.
Heading 4 cannot directly follow heading 2. Heading 2 must always be followed by either heading 3 or another heading 2.

This is important for accessibility reasons, especially for screen readers. For more information see here: https://www.nomensa.com/blog/2017/how-structure-headings-web-accessibility and https://usability.yale.edu/web-accessibility/articles/headings

Headings should not contain links, as these don’t display on mobile. Instead, use either the {{Main}} template directly underneath the heading to link to the main article or use a normal link in the main body of text.

Headings should not be set entirely in italics or bold styling.

Links

The first time a person/place/item with a page on the wiki is mentioned on a page, that article should be linked with an internal link. On longer pages, articles should be linked the first time they appear under each level 2 heading.

Generally, links do not need any extra styling, such as bold, italics or quotation marks.

Link aliases should not include punctuation at the end. e.g. "[[link|whatever]]." not "[[link|whatever.]]" ( "whatever." not "whatever."). An exception to this is acronyms like "W.I.T.C.H." where the punctuation is part of the name.

References

This wiki is focused on official material & media and to help ensure all material on canon pages of this wiki reflects the reality of the media, and is not a misconception or someone’s headcanon, all material should be sourced.

References should go directly after punctuation where punctuation follows or would follow it in a sentence and there should be no spaces between punctuation & the reference.

When writing about an in-universe character, location, item or concept, all information should come from issues, episodes, books or the video game. Please, when creating your reference, link to the page for the episode/issue/book from which you got your information. As additional information, you may want to include a timestamp or page number and the particular translation to help others track down exactly where your information is from.

For example: <ref>It Begins</ref>

<ref>Issue 001: Halloween, Yen Press 01: The Twelve Portals Vol. 1, page 11</ref>

In some cases, a creator/artist/writer/etc may have stated additional information about a character/location/etc. If you want to include this information on a page, you can reference what they said, but it should be noted on the page that it is word-of-god information and did not appear in the source material.

e.g. Greg Weisman has stated that he believes Nerissa to be bisexual, but no official material directly confirms this.<ref> https://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?qid=20506, archived version</ref>

For real-world information, like information about books, DVD releases and creators, all information should still be sourced but will have to be sourced from outside the wiki, and usually from other websites. When using websites as sources, please consider if it is trustworthy, as false information can be published.

When referencing a website, please link to the website. In case a website goes down or is changed, web references should also include a link to an archived version on a web-archiving it on a tool like The Wayback Machine:

<ref>https://example.com, archived version</ref>

If only the archive is still available, the reference should say that:

<ref>Example (archived version only)</ref>

If an online source is in a language other than English, this should also be indicated in the reference.

<ref>https://example.com (in Italian), archived version</ref>

Language

W.I.T.C.H. is popular internationally, but this wiki is in English, and good English should be used. This wiki doesn’t currently specify which international variation of English is used (i.e. American vs British English). We ask that within each section it remains consistent to avoid distracting the reader.

Alongside spelling variations, how dates are written varies internationally. To avoid confusion, please write dates using the full word for the month.

For example, 10/11/12 could be

10^th November 2012
11^th October 2012
12^th November 2010

For example, writing both 5^th April 2002 and April 5^th 2002 are acceptable on this wiki, though we ask that within each section it remains consistent to avoid distracting the reader.

Translations

As W.I.T.C.H. is not originally an English language property, there are many different translations for some aspects of the series.

For the comics, translation used in the Yen Press graphic novels should be used where possible, as that translation is the longest that has been officially published in English, and currently the most accessible official translation. While not all issues have an official translation to date, fan translations will have to make do for now.

The TV series was originally made in English and hence there is only one version which should be used.

Where possible, titles and headings should reflect both the comics and TV series. Where things differ between the two and other versions, they should be pointed out under appropriate subheadings.

One key spelling difference is Kandrakar vs Candracar. Generally, the spelling "Kandrakar" should be used.

Some earlier English translations used "Candracar" and it should only be used for articles on media which used that spelling such as the Chapter books and the Hyperion graphic novels. All other pages, including the TV series, should use Kandrakar, as that spelling is the original from the Italian comics, the Yen Press graphic novels and used in the credits of the TV series. The Kandrakar page should have a note about the difference in translation.

Characters should generally be referred to by the main name they go by most often in the series:

Characters who are mostly referred to by nicknames, rather than their full names should generally be referred to by their nicknames rather than their full names, e.g. Matt Olsen should generally be referred to as Matt and not Mathew.
Characters who have nicknames which they are sometimes referred to should not generally be referred to by their nicknames e.g. write Cornelia rather than Corny.
Will should generally be referred to as Will, as that is the name she usually goes by, and not Wilma or Wilhelmina, though she may be referred to as Wilhelmina to differentiate her from her brother who should generally be referred to as William.

Consistency in stylisation & terminology

Generally, phrases used, such as in articles or for categories, should, where possible be derived from page titles. As such, because the page is called TV series, articles should not refer to “TV show” “television series”, “animated series”, “Cartoons” or similar.

Individual instalments of the comics should only be referred to as issues, not chapters, volumes, magazines, etc.

Story arcs of the comics should only be referred to as arcs, not sagas.

Additionally, the name of this franchise should always be written as W.I.T.C.H. and not:

W.i.t.c.h. (as the logo is stylised)
W.I.T.C.H (without the final dot)
WITCH (with no dots)

When “W.I.T.C.H.” is at the end of a sentence, the correct way to write this is “W.I.T.C.H.” with one dot at the end, not “W.I.T.C.H..” with two dots.

Terms not used within official media should be avoided where an official term can be used, like referring to Irma’s powers as hydrokinesis or Will’s power as aether. While these can be useful on pages for the power itself to explain or compare, use on other pages can be confusing or be redundant information that bloats the page unnecessarily.

Races

On this wiki, “race” is a term used to describe the ethnicity of human characters (and characters who look human but are not from Earth). While in some fantasy settings, the term race can refer to groups like humans, elves, dwarves and orcs, those would be referred to on this wiki with the term species to avoid confusion between the two.

For example:

Cornelia’s species is human and her race is White
Blunk’s species is passling and, as no groupings equivalent to race are known in official material, he should not have a race listed
Caleb’s species in the comics is whisperer and, despite not being human he has the features of a White person so his race can be listed as White

Since the comics are implied to take place in Europe and no official location of Heatherfield was confirmed in either the TV series or the comics, racial terms which include “American” are not usually appropriate. Instead of using African American for fictional characters, use Black.

Characters who are racially ambiguous or are coded with different races in the TV series and comics should have this noted with a list of possible applicable racial terms.

E.g. Irma is coded Latina/Hispanic in the TV show but not the comics
Will and her mother may be coded non-white, but their race is never fully clarified and various possibilities have been suggested within the fandom, such as White, Mexican, Puerto Rican and Arab.

It is also acceptable to list their race as "ambiguous".

Page structure

For information on which sections pages should have and the order they should be placed, see W.I.T.C.H. Wiki:Editing guidelines/Page structure

Within the provided structure, if information differs between the TV series and comics, they should be held under two subsections, TV series and Comics.

Pictures and videos

When uploading files, please make sure that they have a sensible name, relevant to the picture. If you’re not sure what to call it, use the name of the character, object or location pictured, or what’s happening.

While you may upload pictures of any sort for use on your user page, blog posts or in the comments, please keep the pictures used in canon articles to be from official media. These images should accurately reflect the source material and as such should have minimal editing.

Screenshots from the TV series should be of DVD quality and generally remain unedited. This means that they should remain in their original size of 768x576px. For more information on this see here: User blog:Modernponderer/On screenshots.

For other media, such as the comics, manga and video game, some minor edits such as cropping images and blanking out text in speech bubbles are allowed.

Images from the comics and manga should generally not be entire comic pages and should usually be one panel at a time. If a page is just one panel, this is be allowed.

Generally, images should not be watermarked, either by TV logos, editing software or users who made the images, however, artists' signatures and official Disney (and similar) markings are permitted.

When adding new images, it is recommended that you search through existing images before uploading new ones.

When placing images in galleries, it is recommended that the following parameters should be used. In the source editor, this can be done by placing the following inside the gallery tag:

spacing="small" widths="150"

Where possible, the {{DPL gallery}} template should be used to create galleries.

Code

Where possible, in articles, do not use any HTML or CSS code, but stick with wikitext. This makes it easier for a new or more casual editor to contribute.

For templates, HTML and CSS are permitted as casual editors are less likely to encounter it. Try to only use HTML5 and CSS3 elements so that it will display correctly on all devices.

For more information on what Fandom’s policies on HTML and CSS are, look at these links:

User pages & blog posts

The above requirements don’t apply to user pages or blog posts, but all content there should be kept safe for work and friendly to other users and should otherwise meet Fandom's Terms of Use.