Stargate Wiki:Standards and conventions/Prose

This part of the standards and conventions series deals with spelling, numbers, and how to deal with subjects in articles.

Spelling and Numbers
Please use the American English spellings of words as much as possible in the English version of Semantic Stargate Wiki. This is arbitrary, but a call had to be made for standardization. If you are British, please feel free to add your contributions in the "Queen's English" if this makes it initially easier for you to contribute. However, please do not re-edit correctly spelled American English edits (including edits to your own contributions) to their British counterparts unless you are rewriting whole paragraphs, sections, or articles.

Ranks are only capitalized when used as title, i.e. "O'Neill talks to Colonel Carter," but "Carter is promoted to colonel."

Numbers should use a period (.) for decimal places and a comma for marking every three digits (e.g. 3,600 or 54,345,277). For ease of reading, such use of commas is encouraged. Numbers less than 15 should generally be written out long hand (i.e. seven, not 7).

Use an apostrophe-S ('s) for all possessives, unless the noun is plural:
 * "Apollo's fuel reserves are low." (singular possessive)
 * "The F-302s' ammunition would not fire." (plural possessive)

Character names
Characters should be introduced with both first and last name the first time they are mentioned in an article. Subsequent referrals may abbreviate to the last name. Never use only the first name when the last name is known (ie, "Samantha Carter" or "Carter", but never "Samantha").

There are several currently active characters who share the same last name. These characters include the Carters, the O'Neills, the Millers, etc. It is often tempting to refer to the supporting characters by their first names, and (Jack) O'Neill and (Samantha) Carter by their last. On Semantic Stargate Wiki, we find this somewhat condescending.

Where necessary, characters sharing the same last name should both be introduced using full names, and may subsequently be referred to with first names. For example, in a single article or section where the characters interact with each other, characters such as Samantha Carter and Jacob Carter should be introduced by their full names. The character's first names may be used to differentiate in article sections and topics where the characters interact directly with each other in the course of an event. If Samantha and Jacob appear in the same article but are not interacting directly, the full names or titles should be used to differentiate.

An exception to the "last names only" convention is on a character's biography article. The character's last name may have precedence over all other characters of the same name. All others with the same last name may be referred to by their first name in biography articles. (For example, "Carter talk to her father, Jacob, about her career.")

Other acceptable mean for disambiguation includes rank (Colonel Carter vs. General Carter).

Ships
Ship names should always be italicized (e.g. Apollo). Italicization of ship names should not include the possessive marker and other endings added to a ship's name (e.g. Apollo 's, not Apollo's), nor articles.


 * Note: To avoid any Wiki code rendering issues, encase the apostrophe S in tags, like so: 's  .

It is usually unnecessary to use the modifier "Deadalus-class ship" (as in "Daedalus-class ship Apollo") more than once in an article for the same reason it is unnecessary to say "starship Enterprise" or "battleship Yamato" throughout any text. Using the ship's classification repetitively in this fashion is distracting and also adds unnecessarily to the size of an article. Using "the Daedalus-class ship Apollo" is acceptable in this case, as the article does not directly refer to the ship's name.

Typically, ships are treated as feminine objects. The use of "she" and "her" in referring to a ship by pronoun is encouraged, though not mandated.


 * (Note: Many of these guidelines are inspired by, modified from, or stolen directly from the US Navy's Style Guide.)

Episode, TV, and movie title formats

 * See also: Formatting: Links to episodes

When citing the title of a television episode within a sentence, a very useful template is to be used: ep. This template just needs the episode title and will format correctly the apparence of the episode title with the correct commas' placement. Here's an example:


 *  In the episode, Vala Mal Doran is stealing Prometheus. 
 * gives
 * In the episode, Vala Mal Doran is stealing Prometheus.

When citing a film, theatrical works such as a stage plays or television show in any article, place the title in italics. Book titles or similar publications, such as comics, are also placed in italics. Other merchandise is generally put into quotation marks:


 * "The last Stargate Universe series is dark and dismal compared to the first series, and is a far cry from the utopian view in Star Trek."


 * or


 * The book Stargate Atlantis: Legacy: The Furies is part of the Fandemonium "Stargate Atlantis: Legacy" collection.

When citing an article from a larger publication such as a magazine or newspaper, place the article name in quotes, but place the publication in italics:


 * The citation was found in the article "Stargate comes back", from the newspaper The Indianapolis Star.

Verb tense
In almost every case, the present tense should be used when relating events occurring in an episode (e.g. Keller stabs a Wraith hunter in the back in order to save Celise's life), and also for analyzing these events. This is in line with the traditional style used to discuss literary works of fiction. The reasons it is employed for those kinds of articles entirely apply here on Semantic Stargate Wiki.

The past tense is used for "historical" events, where present tense can impede narrative flow. For Semantic Stargate Wiki's purposes, a historical event involves situations that occur like this:


 * For Stargate, anything happening before the "Present Day" tag (when Catherine Langford comes to the Daniel Jackson's conference about Ancient Egypt) should be written in past tense.
 * For Stargate SG-1, anything happening before the events depicted in "Children of the Gods" should be written in past tense.
 * For Stargate Atlantis, anything happening before the events depicted in "Rising" ("Antarctica, Present Day" tag) should be written in past tense.
 * For Stargate Universe, anything happening before the events depicted in "Air" should be written in past tense.

Signing your work and other in-article commentary
Don't. Semantic Stargate Wiki is a collaboration of many writers. Be proud of your contributions, but do not take ownership of articles. Signatures, discussions, editing notes or editorials will be removed without debate. For more information on this policy, see our policy on ownership of articles and how to deal with contributors who appear to become "primary editors" of an article.