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As this page is a "wall of text", it is understandable if some do not read this in its entirety.
In a nutshell: Use other articles to get an idea of established styling practices. Consult the style guide's talk page before implementing a new styling procedure to discuss potential amendments to the guide.
Community pages

Berserk Wiki's style guide is a set of standards and procedures designed to maintain a benchmark of high-quality across the wiki. Though the various conventions described here should be followed for the sake of consistency, one should use their own discretion when approaching wiki editing, while hopefully using this style guide as a model.

Content

Page Creation

Page creation is only necessary if there is enough related information to a subject to warrant it, and the subject is significant enough to stand on its own. Subjects containing extensive information, but conjectural names (e.g., "Guts' Traveling Party") can be created where necessary.

All mainspace articles are to be official and Berserk-related. Created mainspace articles that do not satisfy the two aforementioned requirements will be deleted.

Translations

Dark Horse translations are largely preferred. However, as Dark Horse is not perfect, some of their translations are either only roughly accurate or incorrect entirely. In such cases, more adequate and accurate translations are to be used instead.

Layout

Large-scale article content should be ordered by significance and overall relevance to the article subject. The four key segments of article content flow include:

  1. Lead – The lead paragraph should be a comprehensive, but concise, summary of the subject, capable of standing on its own as a general overview, neither omitting key factors nor divulging specifics.
  2. Exposition – This part of the article includes fleshed out, in-depth coverage of the overall subject.
  3. Recap – This is where specific aspects of the subject are detailed further.
  4. Peripheral – Extraneous content only related to the subject by association is included here.

This content flow is not mandatory for all pages, however, and is mostly exclusive to large-scale articles. In cases of subject information being sparse, an in-depth lead will suffice as exposition. Additionally, recapping is not always necessary.

Context

In general, all mainspace content added to Berserk Wiki should be Berserk-related. Any articles containing content more related to external topics than to Berserk and its constituent subjects will be deleted.

Articles should contain only information about their subjects from the perspective of said subjects. For instance, non-canonical story details unique to a video game or anime adaptation should not be directly intermixed with story details as they are presented in the original manga. Instead, such information should typically be included in a Notes section, or, if necessary, in a dedicated section of its own.

Images

Images uploaded to Berserk Wiki must originate from official sources, such as the manga, anime, or any other official material coming from Kentarou Miura or related companies.

Like article text, images should be used in appropriate contexts as well. While manga images can be replaced by anime images or other official alternatives if absolutely necessary, images should typically be used in their specific context alone. Anime images should be used to illustrate information on anime-related articles; original artwork by Miura should be used to illustrate information on articles pertaining to original Berserk source material.

Notes (Trivia)

Miscellaneous information (i.e., tangential but noteworthy) is compiled in a single Notes section. Entries should be factual, relevant to the subject, and interesting for their inclusion to be warranted. Additionally, notes should adhere to the perspective of an article; i.e., out-of-universe tidbits should only be included on in-universe articles if they are factual and notable – preferably originating from Miura himself.

"Notes" is preferred to "Trivia" in the headers of these sections, as the latter's catch-all nature typically welcomes the addition of inappropriate entries. "Trivia" is typically open to many interpretations, welcoming subjectivity, fan speculation, and other non-encyclopedic entries. On the other hand, "notes" suggests more significant, factual entries of interest.

Categories

Categories are used to organize content into specific contexts. A given category should only be included on a page if its context is both relevant and significant to the page subject in question. Likewise, category creation is only warranted if a given context is both extensive and relevant. Needless category creation should be avoided. If a context has a very small presence throughout the wiki, it does not warrant a specific category of its own, as said category would serve little to no organizational purpose. Divisions of already-suitable categories are also prohibited. In both of the aforementioned cases, opt for a more encompassing existing category.

Writing Style

Language

Formal use of the English language and grammar are mandatory when adding or revising mainspace content. Articles on Berserk Wiki aim to be as encyclopedic and authoritative as possible, which can only be achieved with the use of appropriate language. For example, "Guts is the GOAT" is informal and inappropriate in mainspace articles. "Guts is praised for his combat prowess and resilience", however, is appropriate.

This does not mandate the use of overly complex writing merely for the sake of doing so, however. Plain English and succinctness are preferable to flowery ramblings.

Article content should be written in a neutral tone, devoid of editor bias. For instance, both "Griffith did nothing wrong" and "Griffith is the worst person ever" (or anything similar) are biased and inappropriate in an encyclopedic context.

Spelling

American spelling is preferred (not compulsory) when adding and revising mainspace articles. This is merely the most predominant style to have arisen on the wiki, and as such, should be used for the sake of consistency. Contributions written in other variants of English are welcome, though they will likely be converted to American English at some point.

Tense and Perspective

Articles on Berserk Wiki are written from two perspectives: in-universe and out-of-universe (i.e., real world).

In-Universe

For most articles, which are manga-centric, past tense is used for any story details occurring before Guts and the Band of the Falcon's "first contact" – the castle siege in "Golden Age (3)"; extensive story details occurring before this point are written in a Background section. Everything else, occurring during or after the aforementioned "first contact", is written in present tense; extensive story details occurring during or after the "first contact" are written in a Story section.

Exceptions to the above are manga episode articles, whose story details are always written in present tense.

Out-of-Universe

Information covering real world Berserk-related subjects (e.g., merchandise, anime, people, etc.) are typically written in past tense.

Capitalization

Headers and article titles are written in title case. That is where title casing ends, however. Standard capitalization should be applied in subsequent text, in accordance with the rules of common and proper nouns. The word "apostle", like "human", is a common noun describing a general type of character, and should not be capitalized mid-sentence; "beherit", like "diamond", is a general term, and should not be capitalized mid-sentence. "Crimson Beherit", as a specific beherit with no confirmed duplicates, should be capitalized.

Titles given to individuals are also capitalized, such as "Princess Charlotte" or "Supreme Commander Griffith". This also applies to shortened title names stemming from proper title names, such as:

  • "the Beast" (derived from "Beast of Darkness");
  • "the Immortal" (derived from "Zodd the Immortal");
  • "the Idea" (derived from "Idea of Evil).

Punctuation

Berserk Wiki uses logical quotation when punctuating quotations. All punctuation marks should be placed inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not. To reiterate and clarify: This punctuation system does not require placing final punctuation marks inside the quotation marks every time, but rather maintaining their original positions in (or absence from) the quoted material.

Wiki Markup

  • Redundant wiki markup, such as [[Griffith|Griffith]] and [[Griffith|Griffith's]], is unnecessary; [[Griffith]] and [[Griffith]]'s will suffice, respectively.
    • This also applies to links written to denote a plural: do not write the link as [[human|humans]]; instead use [[human]]s.
  • File link parameters should be formatted as such:
[[File:<filename>|<format>|<positioning>|<size>|<caption>]]
filename – self-explanatory
format – typically 'thumb' (for thumbnails) if a caption is to be included; not mandatory
positioning – designates the right, left, or center float alignment of the file
size – custom pixel size for a file; typically omitted, for screen resolution compatibility
caption – A succinct summary of what the file is meant to illustrate within a given context
  • Never use level 5 headings (===== Like this =====) in articles, as they cannot be distinguished as headers, given their small font size (e.g., Header 5 font size).

Underscores

The inclusion of underscores in wiki links should generally be avoided, as they are unnecessary to the wikilink. The source version of pages is cleaner and more human-readable when underscores are absent from wikilinks. An exception to this is a hyperlink: In http://twitter.com/berserk_project, the underscore towards the end is necessary for the hyperlink to be correctly parsed.

Dashes

There are three variants of dashes that are acceptable on Berserk Wiki: the en dash (–), and the em dash (—), which can be generated with their respective HTML entities, &ndash; and &mdash;. While unspaced em dashes are allowed—like this—spaced en dashes – like this – are preferred. The proper HTML entities should be used for en dashes and em dashes, as they better convey which dash is being used compared to the actual dash symbols, avoiding any source mode confusion; i.e., both en dashes () and em dashes () appear the same in source mode.

Referencing

Most referencing is done with the use of {{qref}}. As the manga is the ultimate reference on Berserk Wiki, {{qref}} includes all currently released manga episodes as references. For manga episode references, the first parameter should be in an "e<num>" format, such as "e306" in reference to episode 306:[1]

{{qref|e306}}

... which produces a quick reference to episode 306, "Fantasia"...

  1. ^ Berserk :: Volume 34, "Fantasia"
  2. The same reference can be reused by inputting the reference name in the first parameter again (e.g., simply using {{qref|e306}} again).

    Miscellany

    • Speculative information of any kind is not welcomed in the mainspace and will be removed.
    • Edit summaries are not mandatory, but it is recommended that they be included to better validate your revisions.
    • Realize that this is an encyclopedia aiming to be of the highest quality, and that your revisions will be under utmost scrutiny.
    • Article talk sections exist to discuss the articles themselves. Theory and opinion comments are subjected to deletion and repeat offenders may be blocked.
      • Kindly use Discussions and follow its guidelines if you wish to talk about characters, events, etc.
      • In order to avoid cluttering these sections, use already existing talk threads that cover the matter you intend to write or ask about.
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