Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Wiki

This page contains the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Wiki's Character article layout. It describes content organization within character articles, i.e. how character articles should be structured as well as how standard content and sections should be named and ordered.

  • Policies set general rules for the wiki's administration and its content.
  • Any registered editor is free to edit this page to improve its readability as long as the essence of the article remains unchanged.
  • If you would like to suggest content changes or propose a new policy or guideline, please use the wiki discussion forum.
  • See the policies and guidelines page for an overview of this wiki's policies and guidelines.

On structure[]

One of the most important parts of wiki editing is how to structure an article. Structure dictates what information the reader reads and when he or she reads it. It can influence what people contribute, where they put it and how it is written. Good structure is likely to produce high quality articles.

Organize sections in an article in a hierarchical structure like you would an outline. Try using a shallow structure rather than a deep one. Having too many nested sections usually leads to a confusing or unreadable article.

Section order and naming[]

The following is a short overview of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Wiki standard article layout for individual characters. Its purpose is to provide a quick reference for order and naming of these articles. Note that all toplevel sections are h2 headings.

Character article[]

Note: Sections not marked as mandatory are considered good style. This means as soon as the character has enough appearances to describe the section in question the section should be added.

  • Articles should generally start with a lead section which is not more than a few sentences and two paragraphs long. Its purpose is to provide a short introduction of the character themselves; after reading it, a reader should have a basic idea of who the character is and how they fit into the continuity. Major spoilers should be avoided in the lead section. If possible, the character should be the subject of the first sentence. Note: The lead section is mandatory!
  • The {{Character}} infobox. Used to display the character image (!) and typical data like the Japanese name, occupation, etc. Note: The Character infobox is mandatory! The only exception are Unison Devices (and equivalents, e.g. Stroseks), who are treated as characters but use the {{Device}} infobox instead.
  • Name. The history of the character's name (including possible out-of-universe inspirations), as well as any aliases or nicknames the character may be known under.
  • Appearance. A description of the character's physical appearance, such as hair color, personal items of importance, and clothes. The description should contain enough detail to help the reader recognize the character without a visual aid like a picture. If the article doesn't contain a character image, this section is mandatory.
  • Personality. A description of the character's overall attitudes and behavior.
  • Biography. Not a single section, but one for each season/manga of the primary continuity the character has appeared in, detailing their involvement in its storyline. Historical or flashback information from before the time frame of the main series can be placed in a Background section before before the first season/manga one. Note: These sections are mandatory!
  • Alternate continuities. A catch-all section for the character's appearances in alternate continuities. Each major continuity (Movie, Portable, Brave Duel) warrants a separate sub-section, where major differences to the primary continuity are outlined.
  • Powers. A detailed outline of the character's magical powers (including their Style, if any), which must contain a link to their Device's article.
    • Transformation (optional). Description of the character's transformation sequence.
    • Barrier Jacket (or equivalent). Description of the character's Barrier Jacket, including all of its forms and variations.
    • Spells. List of spells the character has used. It should be generated semantically with the {{list/Spells}} template. Notable unnamed spells or magics without separate article can be described briefly after the template.
  • Gallery. Creating galleries of miscellaneous images is prohibited under the current Image and video policy, however, for prominent characters, a semantic gallery can be compiled out of images used elsewhere on the wiki. Use the {{list/Gallery}} template to do so.
  • References have to be used in every article. Without referencing, much of what is written on a page cannot be taken as legit, even if it is and can and will be removed. The reference section makes use of the {{reflist}}. Note: The reference section is mandatory! See this for general info about our referencing style.
  • Additional things to place at the bottom of a character article:
    • Factions navbox. The {{factions}} template semantically generates a table of all factions/organizations the character belongs to, as well as her fellow members of said factions.
    • Default sort. The magic word {{DEFAULTSORT}} should be used to alter the default category sorting key of the article to "Family name, Given name" (if the character has a family name), e.g. "{{DEFAULTSORT:Takamachi, Nanoha}}".
    • Category. All character article should be filed under Category:Characters. Unison Devices (and equivalents) should additionally be included in Category:Devices.

See also[]

Advertisement