Battlestar Wiki:Standards and Conventions/Biographies

This page is one of Battlestar Wiki's many projects. This page serves to coordinate discussion on a particular aspect of this Wiki. The formal recommendations of a project may be treated as policies.

Note: None of these guidelines are in effect yet, as consensus needs to be reached prior to widescale implementation.

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 they are done by an editor or editors.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
   • 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.
3. Do not include the birth location or 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.
4. Include the nationality, but not the ethnicity (unless the subject is notable due to his or her ethnic background).
   • Example: ... is an American actor ...
5. 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.
6. 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)