This page contains the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Wiki's Spell article layout. It describes content organization within spell articles, i.e. how spell 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 spells. Its purpose is to provide a quick reference for order and naming of these articles. Note that all toplevel sections are h2 headings.
Spell 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. Its purpose is to provide a short definition or overview of the spell itself; after reading it, a reader should have a basic idea of the spell. If possible, the spell's name should be the subject of the first sentence. Note: The lead section is mandatory!
- The {{Spell}} infobox. Used to display the spell image (!) and typical data like the Japanese name, classification, etc. Note: The Spell infobox is mandatory!
- Name. The meaning of the spell's name, as well as any other names the spell may be known as.
- Notable uses. List of notable occasions when the spell has been used.
- Variations. List of variations of the spell, insofar they are not prominent enough to warrant a separate article.
- 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.
- All spell articles should be filed under Category:Spells.
Preload[]
The CreateBox extension allows to create new articles with predefined content ("preload"). Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Wiki utilizes a combination of preloads and template substitution to simplify creation of new articles of the most common types.
To create a page for a new spell, go to Template:Preload, enter the name of the spell into the appropriate input field, and click "Create". When the article editing page for a new page with the title you entered opens, fill in the template parameters with appropriate values and click "Save page". The template parser will automatically process the values you entered and create a page with fully generated page code.