Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions/Biographies
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The objective of this Standards and Conventions page is to establish style guidelines for all biographical pages on the Battlestar Wiki, so as to maintain consistency for both the information offered and the form in which said information is offered.
Any changes that should be made to this style policy are to be discussed on the talk page.
Basic guidelines
As discussed on the primary Standards and Conventions page, be sure to:
- Cite your sources.
- Ensure that you are using a neutral point of view, as opposed to the Ben Kenobian "certain point of view".
- Use American English. You may initially use British English should that make you more comfortable, but you should not revert conversions from British to American English once made.
Opening paragraph
The opening paragraph, also known as the lead, is to prepare the reader for the deeper subject matter. Therefore, it is to contain the following:
- Full name of the subject, along with any additional names (such as stage names), or how the person is commonly credited or known as. Include proper title abbreviations/salutations, such as Dr. or Sir. The full name should be bold faced.
- Dates of birth and death, if known. Enclose the date of birth and death in parentheses immediately after the full name of the subject. The date should be in the Month Day, Year format.
- If we only know the birth date, enter (born May 21, 1945).
- If we only know the date of death, enter (died January 31, 2008).
- If we know both, enter (May 21, 1945—January 31, 2008). Note: "born" and "died" are absent as both are unnecessary in this instance.
- If a date is questionable, then the addition of a question mark after the date is acceptable, like (born May 21, 1945?).
- Do not include the birth location or formally declare a gender. The birth location is to be included in the main biographical text and the gender can typically be determined by feminine or masculine words, such as "actress" or "actor" respectively. Note the differences in the texts below, emphasized in italics.
- For instance, you do not want to say: Richard Hatch ... is an American male who acts and writes books...
- Instead, the sentence should be written like so: Richard Hatch ... is an American ({{flag|US}}) actor and writer. Hatch is best known for his roles ... as well as his attempts to revive the series ...
- Include the nationality, but not the ethnicity (unless the subject is notable due to his or her ethnic background).
- Example: ... is an American actor ...
- Their role in the series and, obviously, which series.
- If the role is that of a character, wiki-link to the character, but do not describe the character in the lead, as that information is included on the character's page.
- Any other roles that they may be notable for. Be sure to rely not on personal preferences, but on citable sources.
Example
Richard Hatch (born May 21, 1945) is an American (
USA) actor and writer. Hatch is best known for portraying the role of Commander Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica, as well as his attempts to revive the series, notably in the form of his promotional trailer, Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, as well as his various novels. He would later portray Tom Zarek in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica in 2005.
The body of the article
The following are things to keep in mind when writing a biographical article.
Verb Tense
Biographies of deceased people should be written in past tense. Biographies of people who are presently alive should be written in the present tense.
Name convention
Never use only the first name of the subject, always use the subject's last name.
Sectioning
Depending on the length of the article, it is encouraged to split the article into different sections. Obviously, articles in stub-like format should avoid the use of sections, since one or two sentence sections give the article an uneven flow.
If the article is multiple paragraphs in length, the body of the article should be split up based on a chronological order. For instance:
- Childhood
- Early career
- Work on Battlestar Galactica
- Later career
While the above is an example, the section headers should not be slavishly obeyed. Instead, it is up to the contributor(s) to determine logical progression and appropriate section headers.
Also, it is recommended that each section have at least three paragraphs.
A note about the lead paragraph
There should be no sections for an overview of the article. The lead should be above any Table of Contents and, as such, is to be left unsectioned.
Date sensitive information
Information that can become inaccurate in time -- for (hypothetical) instance, "Grace Park is expecting a child in ..." would become inaccurate after said occured. Therefore, it is important to specify that the information is as of a certain time. For instance, always avoid inspecific terms such as "currently", "most recently", "presently", "this year" or "latest" and use "as of 2024" or "in 2024".