Memory Beta:Style

This page is meant to be specific to the style of the Memory Beta. Wikipedia:Style should also serve as a guideline, but it is not required reading before contributing to this wiki. It is also a good idea to consult similar existing pages for typical layouts headings and templates. See featured Articles for examples of what the community considers to be well made articles.

General style

There are some basic formatting rules every page should use:

The title/subject of the page should appear as close to the beginning of the text as possible and be emboldened. After it's first use though the title should appear within the text as normal text, only in bold for it's first appearance.

Point of view

There are two types of pages on Memory Beta, those which deal with information on subjects within the Star Trek universe, and those which look at real world subjects (novels, authors, etc) that are related to the Star Trek universe.

Articles about subjects within the Star Trek universe should be written from an in-universe perspective, in the past tense, assuming everything within the universe is real and all those events occurred in the past. This also applies to real world subjects in-universe, for instance the article on mining is written from the in-universe point of view, rather than a general real world article on mining (for which one should consult wikipedia).

On the other hand, Star Trek production related real-world articles should be written in the present tense from a real-world point of view.

Citing sources

It is very important for other users and fellow editors that contributors provide complete and accurate citations for all additions. Citations should be added to end of each paragraph or section in the following format: (SERIES media: Title). There are a set of templates available to maintain standardisation and to allow easy addition of citations, for example:

ex: ({{au|TOS|Cacophony}})
     (TOS audiobook: Cacophony)

ex: ({{c|EV|Flesh of My Flesh}})
     (EV   comic: "Flesh of My Flesh")

ex: ({{eb|CoE|Turn the Page}})
     (CoE  eBook: Turn the Page)

ex: ({{e|DS9|Tears of the Prophets}})
     (DS9 episode: "Tears of the Prophets")

ex: ({{g|TNG|Armada II}})
     (TNG video game: Armada II)

ex: ({{m|TOS|The Wrath of Khan}})
     (TOS movie: The Wrath of Khan)

ex: ({{n|ENT|The Good That Men Do}})
     (TNG   novel: A Time to Be Born)

ex: ({{n1|TNG|All Good Things...}})
     (TNG  novelization: All Good Things...)

ex: ({{n2|TOS|The First Artifact}})
     (TOS   novella: The First Artifact)

ex: ({{r|ST|The Worlds of the Federation}})
     (ST reference: The Worlds of the Federation)

ex: ({{rpg|TOS|The Andorians: Among the Clans}})
     (TOS  module: The Andorians: Among the Clans)

ex: ({{ss|VOY|The Difficulties of Being Evil}})
     (VOY  short story: "The Difficulties of Being Evil")

ex: ({{web|TOS|Starfleet Shipyard}})
     (TOS website : Starfleet Shipyard)

Most of the above templates feature an additional optional field to input a miniseries or anthology title, for example:

ex: ({{c|TNG|sub=The Space Between|History Lesson}})
     (TNG -  The Space Between  comic: "History Lesson")

ex: ({{ss|TOS|sub=Constellations|Fracture}})
     (TOS -  Constellations short story: "Fracture")

For magazine articles the format is altered slight: (Publication title issue number: "Article title"), for example:

ex: ({{mag|Star Trek Magazine|140|Rewriting History}})
     (Star Trek Magazine  Issue 140: "Rewriting History")

Images

Images should be place using the thumb format. For instance [[Image:USS Enterprise.jpg|thumb|The USS ''Enterprise'']] creates the image to the right. Thumbnail images automatically appear to the right of the page (but can be set to left if it would benefit the layout of the page) and are set to the user-set preferred image size - because of this editors should avoid dictating an image display size for thumb images unless it is necessary for the image to be fixed at one size only for some purpose on the page. For especially tall images users should also use the "upright" command, which scales the image taking into account it's vertical dimensions as well.

Images placed in sidebars at the top of the pages should not be thumbed and should be set to 220px.

Using canon information

Though the emphasis is of course on non-canon material, it is encouraged to include canon information where appropriate. For example, "USS Bozeman (NCC-1941)" includes a brief synopsis of the TNG episode Cause and Effect to explain the Bozeman's history, but the purpose of making the article was to note that she later appeared in The Return.

Linking to other sites

While researching using other sites is encouraged for completeness, plagiarism is forbidden. If another site, such as Memory Alpha, has a more complete article, link to it at the bottom of the article.

Do not link to a page about another topic within the main text of an article. Instead, make a wikilink to that topic, even if it doesn't exist yet.

Stories

Novels (including eBooks) should always include the the template {{novel}}. The template below generates the box at the right. When creating an article for a novel, use this example as a guide.

Separate tags with |.
Include "ISBN" in the ISBN number.
Tags (such as "title" and "author") are case-sensitive.
Only list the first publication. Additional publications can be listed in the main article.

{{Novel|
| type        = novel
| title       = A Time to Kill
| cover image = [[Image:a_time_to_kill.jpg|220px]]
| series      = {{ST|The Next Generation}}
| miniseries  = [[A Time to...]]
| minino      = 7
| author      = [[David Mack]]
| format      = [[Paperback]]
| published   = [[2004|August 2004]]
| pages       = 344
| ISBN        = ISBN 0743491777
| date        = [[2379]]
|}}

Making articles for short stories with {{short story}} similar to novels:

{{Short story
| title       = "Adventures in Time and Jazz"
| series      = {{ST|The Next Generation}}
| author      = [[Kelly Cairo]]
| anthology   = [[Strange New Worlds VII]]
| pages       = 96-102
|}}

There are a number of other templates available, many with instructions.

Layout template

The following is a standard template for a story page. Details of exactly what should be placed under each section are described in the guide below. This template should be adjusted for the media type, for instance prose works do not commonly have illustrations so will not require the images section, and short stories rarely have external links.

==Blurb==
;
:

==Summary==

==References==
===Characters===
:
===Starships and vehicles===
:
===Locations===
:
===Races and cultures===
:
===States and organizations===
:
===Other references===
:

==Appendices==
===Related stories===
===Timeline===
===Images===
<gallery>
</gallery>
===External links===

Introduction

At the top fo the page a very brief description of the story can be placed, to give a very basic outline of its position amongst other Star Trek stories and a brief description of the story, but please, no spoilers here. For example, on the page for A Singular Destiny:

A Singular Destiny is a 2009 Star Trek novel by Keith R.A. DeCandido. The novel is the first of several books set after the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy, exploring the fallout of the Borg Invasion. The book centers around the character of Sonek Pran, a Federation diplomat, and his mission on the USS Aventine.

Blurb

If the story has an official blurb it should go in this section. For novels this will come from the back of the book, while for comics it might be sourced from solicitations. The source of the text should be identified and emboldened, with the blurb itself indented below using the ; and : coding.

Summary

A longer summary highlighting the key elements of the story, the most specific details should be written about in individual articles, remember a summary is intended to summarize.

References

A horizontal listing of references, spaced with •'s , subdivided under the following headings:

Characters
Starships and vehicles
Locations
Races and cultures
States and organizations
Other

If any section becomes extremely numerous then you may wish to add additional sub-divisions to that section. For instance dividing characters by their posting or affiliation, or making separate section for locations in space or on a planet. In these cases use the following code:

;Deep Space 9 personnel

which generates

Deep Space 9 personnel

under which the listing should be placed.

If the others sections becomes extremely numerous then you may wish to add additional subcategories to break it up. "Foods and drinks", "ranks and titles" or "science and technology", for example.

It should be noted whether or not references were actually featured in the story or just referenced within the story. For instance "The strange new alien rather reminded the Captain of a Gorn", references a Gorn without one actually appearing in the story. Referenced only references should be listed in sub-section of the main references section, headed with the {{ref}} template.

So for the following example of a races and cultures reference section:

:[[Human]] • [[Cardassian]] • [[Horta]] • [[Borg]]

{{ref}} [[Bolian]] • [[Catian]] • [[Gorn]] • [[Tholian]] • [[Vulcan]]

Generates:

Human • Cardassian • Horta • Borg

Referenced only: Bolian • Caitian • Gorn • Tholian • Vulcan

Which tells us Humans, Cardassians, Horta, and Borg all appeared in the novel, but Bolians, Caitians etc were only referenced within it.

Appendices

This section is used to collect information about the page, listing background information, related stories, chronological and release orders and links, internally and externally, to related articles.

Information should be a bulleted list (add * to every line) of facts and information not included elsewhere on the page. Information on production, availability, continuity problems and any other facts relevant to the page should be listed here.

The appendices section can accommodate many different features, such as quotes and internal link navigation boxes. Some other common sub-sections of appendices include:

Related Stories

This sub-section should list related stories, for instance if the novel was a sequel to an episode or the only other appearance of certain species.

The relations can be linked either by individual stories, for example on the Unity page:

Conspiracy (TNG episode) - The parasitic aliens of Unity made their first and only TV appearance in Conspiracy, which established their appearance and many of their abilities and practices.

Or alternatively if there are a lot of linked relations under the linked theme, for example on the Probe page:

George and Gracie - The lives of the humpback whales bought to the 24th century in The Voyage Home and briefly seen in Probe are depicted in the Strange New Worlds short stories "The Hero of My Own Life" and "Scotty's Song".

The timeline box should be placed here. See {{timeline}} for instructions on its use.

Images

For episodes, comics and games there might well be images on the wiki; these can be displayed in a gallery on the page. For instance from The Fires of Pharos, this generates the gallery below:

 <gallery>
 Image:Hal Wyeth.jpg|[[Commodore]] [[Hal Wyeth]]
 Image:Raeger.jpg|[[Ensign]] [[Raeger]]
 Image:Cayman.jpg|[[Cayman]]
 </gallery>

Note, appropriate images should be placed within the body of the summary with the Images section giving a place for any additional images.

External links

A bulleted list of external links with brief descriptions. Some suggested sites for linking to are:

Memory Alpha, the wiki of Star Trek canon.
Psi Phi, a reference site for the Pocket Books novels. (with covers!)
The Complete Starfleet Library, a complete list of all Star Trek-related books. Note that many of these are not licensed, and so should not be included in this wiki until further notice.

Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki