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'''Previous discussions:'''
{{ArchiveTOC}}


*[[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01|Archive 1 (September 10th, 2005 to Present)]]:
== Images ==
<small>
:[[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Verb Tense|Verb Tense]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Ship Naming, Abbrevation and Capitalization Standards|Ship Naming, Abbrevation and Capitalization Standards]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Signing Your Work|Signing Your Work]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Spelling|Spelling]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Single-name Address|Single-name Address]], [[Battlestar Wiki talk:Standards and Conventions/Archive01#Episode Links and Formatting|Episode Links and Formatting]]
</small>


----
I'd like to add a provision in regard to the image galleries, since they are becoming more prevalent now. While the wording can be debated, the following points should be made:


== Image Sizes ==
# Image galleries are to be used sparingly. On smaller articles, such as those for ships, it is common to see a gallery composed of the top, bottom, and side views of the subject, in addition to other images that may note a peculiarity worth noting. This is acceptable. On pages for characters, episodes, and other articles, image galleries should '''never be used''', due to fair use concerns and the fact that [[BW:NOT|Battlestar Wiki is not an image gallery]].
# The only exceptions to the above should be with regard to the comics (and books) that have multiple covers, in addition to other merchandise, such as the [[Minimates]].
# Otherwise, Battlestar Wiki prefers that images be within the prose of the article, thus abrogating the need for image galleries.


I tend to think that images that are whole-screen captures (and thus letterbox dimensions) should be about 300px wide. This is, however, based entirely on how that looks on my browser window, which is pretty large, but not maximized on a 1280x1026 resolution. So that might look horrid on some other screen. Anyway, with that in mind, I resize all my full-screen captures to be 600px wide since that's a nice two times what I think they should be viewed at. Should I be even thinking this way, or should I just be telling the articles to be thumbs and set my preferences for larger thumbs? In the case of cropped screen-caps, though, I think 300px is too wide, or rather, often too tall. How do others think on this? --[[User:Day|Day]] 05:21, 10 September 2005 (EDT)
We should also note that images in the infoboxes should be:


:Yes, use your preference settings for this. FWIW, I'm a fan of judicious cropping. It helps make smaller thumbs more legible. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 12:28, 10 September 2005 (EDT)
# High quality with a minimum dimension of 200px in width.
# Be the newest image available.


:: If you're trying to illustrate something specific, sure, cropping is needed in most cases. However, for episode pages and, I think, when trying to show a scene, the whole screen is good for its sense of context. I could be wrong. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:09, 10 September 2005 (EDT)
The above should have the explicit caveat that common sense prevails in such cases. For instance, we wouldn't want to upload a screen shot of Kara Thrace every time a new episode airs, because that would be ridiculous.  


==Proposed Guidelines for Dispute Resoluton on Speculative Matters==
Ok, that's all I have to say for now on that subject. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 13:42, 16 February 2008 (CST)
:Looks like a plan. I recently killed an image gallery at [[Kara Thrace]] consisting of one image :D --[[User:Catrope|Catrope]]<sup>([[User talk:Catrope|Talk to me]] or [[Special:Emailuser/Catrope|e-mail me]])</sup> 16:04, 17 February 2008 (CST)


''Cooked this up with an eye toward the kind of arguments we've seen from time to time. Weigh in if you find the suggestion agreeable, or if you don't think it's necessary.'' --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 18:42, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
== Cleanup and Organization ==


Battlestar Wiki encourages speculation in areas where you believe your thoughts may be of interest to others. However, it is sometimes possible for contributors to hold two divergent and contradictory interpretations of the available material on a particular subject. This is a proposed set of guideliens for dealing with such conflicts.
I'm done with the cleanup and organization of the Standards and Conventions. I've also added summaries of each section to the main page, so to help people know what to do about certain things without reading paragraphs explaining the whys and wherefores. Thoughts? -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 23:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
:Looks good. This split was long overdue. One thing I always wondered is why do we have different standards in the Quotes? For no apparent reason, episodes are italicized and not put in quotes there. That whole section could be cut drastically, if we used the same rules as everywhere else. Though changing that now would be too much work. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 08:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
::I've always wondered that myself. But now it's too much to go through and change... call it a quirk, I guess. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 16:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


*When debate on an article threatens to consume it at the expense of other valid areas, it is suggested that the debate be spun off into its own article, with a footnote linking the existing article to the debate. An example of this is [[Cylons]] and [[Twelve Cylon Models]]. This guideline is relevant for articles like [[Cylons]] with broad coverage of many equally important topics.
== Numbers ==


*Where two or more serious, diverging interpretations exist, they should be presented in the following manner - an comprehensive and NPOV list of evidence, with quotations, episode references, cut scenes, pod cast mentions, images, etc; followed by headers for each interpretation and a persuasive argument.
"Numbers less than 11 should be spelled out, "five" for "5", etc."
May I suggest that when we find out who "Number Eleven" and "Number Twelve" are we continue to write out their numbers in full for consistency (so we don't have "Number Four and Number 11 meet" [[User:OTW|OTW]] 23:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
: Done. :) -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 23:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


*Although the wiki process naturally devalues individual ownership of contributions, many people grow personally attached to their opinions in cases such as these. In order to avoid offense, please be tactful and judicious in your modifications to arguments which other contributors appear invested in.
== Name and Callsign Standardization ==


: I like the way this looks in my head. I mean--assuming I'm getting it right, and I think I am. However, I don't know that it should go on the Standards and Conventions page, so much as a policy page of some sort. Maybe you can convince me it belongs here, though. --[[User:Day|Day]] 19:01, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
I know that there have been some recent concerns over phrasing a character's full name to read 'Lee "Apollo" Adama' or 'Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo'. Therefore, I wanted to start discussion on this, seeing as a lot pages on the wiki need to be standardized to get rid of the over-use of callsigns in favor of standard given last names.  


:: I think it's got merit, too. However, there may be too much jargon in what you're trying to say. "Exegesis" isn't in most people's vocabulary (it's not in mine!). For instance, if I were to rewrite the paragraph starting with "Where two or more serious, diverging interpretations exist..." it would be simpler to read as: "When two or more interpretations exist, writers should edit the page with "pro" and "con" arguments on the topic, with aired information and official statements from the producers given more weight than personal point-of-view." An excellent evolution of that was the [[Gaius Baltar]]-is-a-Cylon argument I added to that article, which extended/derived itself to the Humano-Cylon page. An important caveat to that should be, "When an argument can be fully refuted based on aired episode and official statements, the refuting information should be placed in the topic and its source. Deletion is not preferred since Battlestar Galactica is a "live" work that can and will change the information in unexpected ways." Someone today, for instance, deleted a item on Starbuck as a possible bioCylon after sufficient evidence was given in "The Farm." However, deletion there wasn't the best bet--somebody might come up with that idea again and we have that ping-pong effect of adding/deleting. This policy could resolve the matter. If we have a preferred page size, too, this could be a gauge for whether an article is going overboard. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 19:48, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
To explain where I'm coming from, I feel that the characters should ultimately be introduced with their full name (first and last name) and callsign, simply because viewers sometimes don't get the fact that "Apollo" is a callsign for Lee, particularly if they are new viewers. Also, the lesser known characters (such as [[Skulls]], [[Racetrack]], and [[Crashdown]]) are referred to mainly by their callsigns, but do have names that we know of. Therefore, we there needs to be an effort to standardize them across the board, ergo the above idea.  


::: Spence: I added another colon to the front of your post for readability. Maybe I've a simpler understanding of how things usually go, but I think it's usual to add one more colon than the preceeding post. Anyway, to topic: How long after something is disproven should we leave the proof up? I mean--right now there are very few characters about which we couldn't have a <name>-is-a-Cylon theory, but if it turns out that in the next episode there is some kind of conclusive proof that, say, Chief Tyrol is '''not''' a Cylon, how long should we leave the annotated Tyrol-is-a-Cylong theory up? If it can be proven he's not, based on aired material, then I think it's a waste of server space to leave it up long at all, really. Now, debatable stuff, which is subject to interpretation is another matter, of course... ---[[User:Day|Day]] 20:38, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
I know some of you object to this, as I've seen in your edit summaries, but I wanted to discuss it here just to make sure everyone knows where I'm coming from. Thoughts? -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 19:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
:Why don't we just link Apollo to Lee Adama? --[[User:Catrope|Catrope]]<sup>([[User talk:Catrope|Talk to me]] or [[Special:Emailuser/Catrope|e-mail me]])</sup> 19:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
::We could do that, but it just disjoints the prose. Also, it's not really encyclopedic to refer to people by nicknames or callsigns when we have their actual names, even for the sake of convenience. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 20:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


::::For this particular matter, we could have an article on characters whose humanity is undisputed. This would be a white-list - as characters are convincingly demonstrated to be human, they'd be added. This would have to be based on a fairly strict interpretation of the evidence - Starbuck and Helo are obviously in the clear as a result of the hybridization experiments in [[The Farm]].
:My personal annoyance with this is mainly that it sounds somewhat artificial to me (it's probably just me and I'm overreacting...), especially when it's done two or three times in a row. It actually reads like it's a standard. One character is generally fine, but particularly with Racetrack/Skulls, Racetrack/Athena or Boomer/Crashdown it's always something like "Later, Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson and "Hamish "Skulls" McCall fly in their Raptor". It's just the sound of that that I don't particularly care for, for some reason :s You talk about bad prose with disjointed references. For me, ''always'' noting the full name and the callsign inbetween is bad prose too.
:I can see the point with lesser known characters, for example Racetrack who is generally referred to more by her callsign than her name. That's one reason why I left that in the recent edit. I just think, rather than making it an ironclad standard, that some case-by-case judgment should be used about when to use names only and when to add the callsign. With the [[Battle of Kobol (RDM)]] article, I felt that it's not necessary to do it for Apollo and Starbuck, since they barely play a role in that section. Apollo is only mentioned as her wingman, and only plays a role during the boarding later, and Thrace only steals the Raider. The section is really about Crashdown, Boomer and Racetrack, so it's better to introduce them fully, since their names are used more often and in both variations.
:At the same time, I think we kinda agreed that callsigns are appropriate for piloty actions. So using Racetrack exclusively in the battle article would be appropriate (though she can be introduced with callsign + name), whereas, in a scene in Joe's bar for example, her real name should be used instead. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 20:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
::The pilot vs. other stuff convention is a long-standing one that's followed pretty closely. However, I should reiterate that even ''if'' we decide to introduce people as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, we should only call them that ''once'' and use their callsign or surname (whichever is appropriate) from there on, just like we do when introducing normal people (i.e. "William Adama ... Adama ... Adama"). --[[User:Catrope|Catrope]]<sup>([[User talk:Catrope|Talk to me]] or [[Special:Emailuser/Catrope|e-mail me]])</sup> 21:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
:::No one is suggesting to use it several times for one character. It's just about the introduction, and what you say is more or less what's done at the moment. But I think doing it in every introduction already creates formulaic sentences, because it's generally done either at the beginning of a paragraph and/or a sentence. IMO this isn't something that should be standardized so clearly that it needs to be done every time, but only when really needed, so that it doesn't impede the prose. For example it's superfluous when a character hardly plays a role in the text, or if subsequent references only use the real name anyways. At least with main characters. As said, when talking about people like Racetrack or Hot Dog, who are really referred to by their names, noting the callsign makes some sense. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 21:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


::::In a subsequent section, we can note ''very strong probabilities'' - ie, anyone whose existance can be verified 30 years or more before the start of the series is ''probably'' also in the clear - (after all, the Cylons were only gone for 50 years, and must have taken a considerable amount of time to develop from "chrome toasters" to the human models). Likewise, characters whose parents can vouch for their natural birth (e.g. Apollo) are probably also safe.
== Logical punctuation ==


::::Any character in the very strong probability section who is convincingly disputed could be removed, but I am most definitely not a fan of the logical contortions that lead to Starbuck-is-a-cylon scenarios. I also don't think there's a compelling need for a paragraph in [[Humano-Cylon]] on every single character whose humanity isn't 100% verified, so that tempation should be resisted. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 21:19, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
After seeing the link in the edit summary I just noticed that [[w:Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Punctuation|Wikipedia uses logical punctuation]]. Interesting. I thought they used American punctuation, but in practice it's probably completely mixed just as here.


::::: I concur on most of that and some of iut should probably be noted on the Characters project page. Uhm... However, didn't someone have some theory about [[Kara Thrace|Starbuck]]? I don't remember it quite solidly, but I remember thinking it was odd, but not dismissable out of hand. Which is to say, I doubt Starbuck is a Cylon, but because of this theory I would not have a fit if RDM called me up and told me, no, Starbuck is actually a Cylon. Maybe the theory I'm thinking of held less water than I think it did. Maybe I dreamed it. Anyway, I guess this is getting off-topic, so to speak. I agree that we should shy away from <so-and-so>-is-a-Cylon theories because the volume could become enormous. [[Cally]] might be a Cylon. I'm not sure what advantage having someone with her personality type and limited-access would server the Cylons, but she MIGHT. We don't need an article on that, though. Certainly not on the [[Humano-Cylon]] page. Maybe, if it were going to be more than a note that her humanity was unconfirmed, it could go on ''her'' page. And, if we have a handful of people with rather elaborate humano-cylon theories, we could link their pages from the main page... ''WOW'', I'm getting off topic. I'm done. --[[User:Day|Day]] 21:27, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
I was under the impression that we mostly used American punctuation here, but it appears that the Season 4 articles, at least, use logical punctuation almost exclusively (before Passivity changed them). While the SAC says we use American punctuation, in fact there is a lot of logical one as well. Personally I generally use that as well, because I'm used to it and American punctuation just doesn't make the slightest lick of sense. It's just a stupid holdover from the days when the publications where typeset and there was a technical reason to print them inside. These days, many scientific publications for example are switching over to what the rest of the rest of the world does: place the punctuation marks where they actually belong.


::::: Yes, let's stay focused on dispute resolution. The who's-a-cylon game can continue on the [[Battlestar Wiki:Characters]]. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 21:31, 12 September 2005 (EDT)
While I'd prefer logical punctuation everywhere, I'm not really saying that we should change it over officially. Just pointing out that we have an inconsistency here. People use different styles and while one article may be consistent in itself, some others are formatted differently. -- [[User:Serenity|Serenity]] 14:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


UPDATE: Day and I have put together an example of this at [[Sacred Scrolls]]. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 03:13, 14 September 2005 (EDT)
: It's a mishmash, in practice. Generally speaking, putting commas ''outside'' of quotation marks makes tremendously more sense, and is far better stylistically. As with everything else American, we aren't exactly the greatest at making things efficient. For instance, we still haven't implemented widescale use of the Metric system, despite the fact that we're only one of maybe two or three countries who still use the "English" garbage while everyone else has converted some time ago. Anachronisms die hard, unfortunately. -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]] - [[bsp:|Battlestar Pegasus]]</sup> 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


: The sample on the Sacred Scrolls page is a good example, although long interpretations could render it something that needs a separate page. On the problem with the weight on speculative observations: There seems to be a preponderance of information that either supports or refutes a POV speculation. For instance, the Baltar-as-Cylon information is still open-ended as we still do not know what or if anything has happened to Baltar before, during or after the blast that leveled his home, and his behavior also supports this idea. On the other hand,  Starbuck's origin is all-but-sealed. For any new theories, there has to be a ''reason'' why such speculation is germane and ''evidence'' to base the speculation, whether it be data that has interpretations with different results, or new information that opens up new questions on matters recently believed as undisputable. There has to be a way to define this to a standard. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 15:03, 25 September 2005 (EDT)
== Quorum ==


::I don't think anything very practical is going to come of this. I think we should table it and archive the conversation. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:54, 30 November 2005 (EST)
Can we get rid of the standard that Quorum members must be referred to as delegates rather than representatives (under "Character Names and Titles"), given that Roslin referred to "twelve perpetually unhappy representatives" in the seventh episode of Season Four? -- [[User:Noneofyourbusiness|Noneofyourbusiness]] 15:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
 
: [[Battlestar_Wiki_talk:Standards_and_Conventions/Archive1#Quorum_of_Twelve|Review this]] for why we use "delegate," the more precise term than "representative." -- [[User:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|Joe Beaudoin]] <sup>[[User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.|So say we all]] - [[Battlestar Wiki:Site support|Donate]]</sup> 17:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
==Quorum of Twelve==
 
Are they Delegates or Representatives? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 03:52, 15 September 2005 (EDT)
 
: Well, the ''Magazine'' refers to Tom Zarek as the "Representative for Sagittaron on the Quorum of Twelve". So, I guess there's that, for what it's worth. --[[User:Day|Day]] 01:09, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::Well, here's the tally.
::''Delegate''
::#'''McManus:''' "Every delegate she's chosen so far has been a Roslin cronie."
::#'''McManus:''' "Sagittaron have chosen the delegate for the interim Quorum of Twelve."
::#'''Thrace:''' "You've been selected as Caprica's delegate to the Quorum of Twelve."
::#'''Roslin:''' "We need a candidate. Someone who will quickly win the delegates' support."
::#'''McManus:''' "A number of the Quorum delegates have now shifted their support to the scientific genius..."
 
::''Representative''
::#'''Grimes:''' "Mr. Zarek is a representative of the people, and we are the people."
::#'''McManus:''' "We’re here with Dr. Gaius Baltar, representative of Caprica."
::#'''Baltar:''' "I'm just trying to do my bit, you know, as the elected representative for Caprica."
 
::It seems like delegate is the more precise term. I think we should standardize on it. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:50, 30 November 2005 (EST)
 
== Image Credit ==
 
Okay... Most images are gonna be screen caps we get from the shows. In which case the credit should go directly to the SciFi Channel, SkyOne Network or Universal Studios. The question is, which one? Or should it be all three? Or does Universal own the two channels and so saying "Cedit: SciFi/SkyOne" is enough? Or... What do you guys think? --[[User:Day|Day]] 23:56, 21 September 2005 (EDT)
: Universal Studios.  They own the copyright.  -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 16:26, 23 September 2005 (EDT)
:: Following wikipedia's example, we don't need to credit image copyrights in-text, do we? It should be enough to note copyright status on the image's description page. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:27, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
 
== The Freakin' Quote-o-Matic ==
 
It's not very -o-Matic, is it? ;o) Anyway, I think we need a standard for how they're formatted. I prefer the following:
 
:"The line, in normal-weighted text, enclosed in double quotes."
 
:--''Rank and Name in Italics'' ("Episode Name")
 
It would also be nice to figure out how to go and look at quotes entered for days other than the current day. What do others think? --[[User:Day|Day]] 19:00, 23 September 2005 (EDT)
 
::As far as looking at previous quotes, that's a Joe question, though it would be welcome. Joe mentioned that the template info has to be added manually, but a creative wikipedia might work something out from a large database. At first I added at most 2 lines as a quote, but now I stick to one quote. I think the style you noted worked well (it did for my two contributions this week), so let's see if we all say so.  [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 14:50, 25 September 2005 (EDT)
 
::: Well, if you want to keep track of all the quotes, why not just add them to [[:Category:Quotes]]? Theoretically, every quote should then be linked from that category page. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 09:44, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:::: However, it's a bit late for quotes already put up, no? --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:49, 17 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:::: Wait. Is [[Quotes|this page]] automated somehow? If so, then a Quotes category is kind of moot. I remember looking at it a while ago, though, and it having no date information and just a single quote in it. --[[User:Day|Day]] 13:04, 17 October 2005 (EDT)
 
On second thought, I prefer this:
 
:"The line, in normal-weighted text, enclosed in double quotes."
:--Rank and Name in Normal (''Episode Name'')
 
For full exchanges I think something like this would work:
 
:'''Rank and Name 1:''' Humorous battle banter aimed at Speaker 2.
:'''Rank and Name 2:''' Scathing insult.
:'''Name 1:''' Pithy retort.
:--''Episode Name''
 
What do you guys think of this? If no one replies in a few days, I'll start soliciting opinions on people's talk pages and via AIM. After a few more days, I'll simply make an executive decision and put this policy up. I think it would be best to link it at the head of the [[Quotes]] page, too. When the time comes. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:05, 28 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::Day, I've been adapting that format (per your original thoughts) and I find it works well. My only problem is insuring a proper break between the quote(s) and the name and episode for single-quotation blocks. I think this thing has languished long enough to put up a quick vote or 5-day consensus/no-objection period, where we can make this the practice (and retrofit all recorded quotes to match if necessary). --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 08:42, 1 November 2005 (EST)
 
::: COnsider this that period. Also, do you mean you like the break, but you're concerned about adding it for some reason that I do not understand, or do you mean that your dislike &lt;br/&gt; tags? --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:46, 1 November 2005 (EST)
 
:::: Okay. I'm about to put my above policy up. I think I'll have to play with it for a bit to get the display format the way I want it for ease of copying and for users who know nothing of HTML. --[[User:Day|Day]] 15:02, 11 November 2005 (EST)
 
::::: I would suggest putting this policy (when it is finalized) and a note about not repeating quotes right on the [[Quotes]] page where the "This is a list of quotes..." statement is. [[User:Nwobkwr|Nwobkwr]] 19:59, 17 November 2005 (EST)
 
I noticed that people have started putting in quotes from the original series.  I think this is great but in terms of standardization I would follow the same idea as used on the [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Main_Page Memory Alpha wiki]:
* If it is an original series episode, quote as [[TOS]]: <nowiki>[[episode title]]</nowiki>
* If it is a 1980 series episode, quote as [[1980]]: <nowiki>[[episode title]]</nowiki>
* If it is a re-imagined series episode, quote as [[RDM]]: <nowiki>[[episode title]]</nowiki>
[[User:Nwobkwr|Nwobkwr]] 13:46, 21 November 2005 (EST)
 
:Not a bad idea, Nwobkwr, but it might get cumbersome. Might I suggest we use only the "TOS" flag for TOS and 1980 episodes, and leave the RDM episodes as-is? This gives a slant to the current series, but then, we will have many more quotes from RDM than from the old series since transcripts of the TOS/80 shows are far less available than the current. It also saves on visual complexity. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 13:30, 30 November 2005 (EST)
 
::I think we should put the dab in the episode credit, and only when there are episodes in each series with the same title. (basically, "The Hand of God".) --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 23:53, 30 November 2005 (EST)
 
== Links ==
 
So, in my opinion, the first occurance of nearly any proper noun should be a link. Even the thing an article is about. This means that the first occurance of an article's topic will be in bold, which I think is nice. For longer articles, I think linking becomes kind of discretionary. If someone hasn't been mentioned (or linked, maybe) in a while, then they could/should be linked. Also, episode credits at the end of an event description should ''always'' be linked. --[[User:Day|Day]] 15:19, 27 September 2005 (EDT)
 
:Using links-to-self to bold title text is discouraged by the Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles|Manual of Style]]. In general I think we should defer to Wikipedia for guidance except where we feel a justified need to explicitly contradict them. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:02, 27 September 2005 (EDT)
 
:: Ah. I think that's probably wise. Should we, then, manually '''bold''' them (or, in the case of ship names, '''''bold-italicize''''' them), or leave it out all together? --[[User:Day|Day]] 17:40, 27 September 2005 (EDT)
 
:::Manually bold. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:41, 2 October 2005 (EDT)
 
==Namespaces==
There isn't much confusion on this, but just to clarify: When content must be disambiguated based on continuity, the appropriate namespaces are:
*(TOS) - Original series
*(RDM) - Re-imagined series
*(Video Game) - 2003 Video Game
*(1980) - Galactica 1980
*(SDS) - Singer/DeSanto continuation
*(SC) - Richard Hatch's "Second Coming" attempt
 
I'll leave this for comments for a few days before posting it. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:41, 2 October 2005 (EDT)
 
: Just added the (SC) above. Hope that's alright. --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:48, 1 November 2005 (EST)
 
==Disambiguation==
There are two approaches to disambiguation between series currently in practice:
*The most popular is to namespace (TOS) content and leave the RDM content at the un-namespaced location - this is currently done for most categories, for example. Under this schema, disambig pages should be namespaced (e.g., "Pegasus (disambig)") and RDM content should not (e.g. "Pegasus", not "Pegasus (RDM)").
*The other practice employed here is to namespace both TOS and RDM content when a collision occurs, and use the non-namespaced article to disambiguate.
 
I don't personally plan to contribute to much outside of the RDM continuity, but given that this Wiki is given over to all four major incarnations of the show (TOS, 1980, the Video Game, and the current series), I'm not sure its appropriate to give the current series preference.
 
On the other hand, the RDM series is the only one currently producing new content, and namespacing everything can be tedious. What are your opinions? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:49, 2 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:Obviously, most of the people looking up "Battlestar Galactica" in google, amazon, or wiki, or anything nowadays are probably looking for info on the new series.  We should make that information as easy to access as possible.
::''[[User:Jzanjani|Jzanjani]] 17:41, 5 October 2005 (EDT)''
 
:::I'm in favor of using namespaces only when there are articles whose names appear in both TOS and RDM. For "Pegasus", "Galactica" and "Battlestar", namespacing was obviously needed. But for "Ovion" and episodes like "The Living Legend", no, since they are uniquely TOS articles. Since information here wasn't intended to naturally slant to RDM content (though for obvious reasons it is), we should strive to keep the balance by adding related TOS links to similar articles as possible. "The Hand of God" RDM page, for instance, should be namespaced since it has an identical name to a TOS episode, and that RDM article has a link to the TOS article (buried, however). I'm becoming a big proponent of helping to make this site THE authorative reference for TOS information: If you have searched the internet for TOS information and sites, you'd find that it's really, really sparse content out there. This site is going to make me rent or buy the complete TOS series (and, Lords help me, Galactica 1980) so I can study them with the same scrutiny as RDM and get their episode and character pages ship-shape. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 17:51, 5 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::::Having given it some more thought, I tend to agree that we shouldn't treat RDM content preferentially. On a personal note, you're a braver man than I. I hope exposure to the original series doesn't permanently damage you; it would be a shame to lose such a valuable contributor. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:54, 5 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:::::When BSG is good, it's really good. When BSG is bad, it's still BSG. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 10:19, 6 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:Although I'm sure there are legions of BSG fans who are very interested in TOS and 1980, I think that a more casual viewer will be a little bit lost when he finds a disambiguation page pointing to five different pages which share the same name except for a few capital letters at the end.  A lot of people will not be able to appreciate the very clean and precise compartmentalization of one topic according to primary source, because they probably don't even care that there was some ''other'' BSG a quarter-century ago.  If we're trying to make things clean and tidy for the fanbase, then compartmentalizing like that is the way to go.  But casual fans (which the creators of the current series have said they're trying to attract) are going to stumble a little bit when they see that there was an original series, a subsequent, short-lived, non-canonical series, a video game, a mini-series, and then finally the re-imagined series which is really the only thing that's making people even talk about BSG anymore.  I really think that if we make RDM pages default, it'll allow a lot more people to take advantage of the content.  That way they don't have to educate themselves on the whole production history of the original BSG, and why the 1980's series sucks, and this, that and the other.  It's really easy to get lost in wiki just by clicking on the first linked word which you don't understand, and it's going to distract the people who are looking for the '''''real''''' BSG, if you will suffer my usage.
 
:: I think people would know what "RDM" means just as much as "TOS", "TNG", "DS9", "VOY", or "ENT". ---Ricimer
 
::: I think we should use (RDM) for RDM stuff, rather than assume it as default. Otherwise we have to cross-link everything to the (disambiguation) page, rather than have the disambig page show up when the search is run. What if someone's doing research about TV shows from the 80s or something. I agree that people will know, or quickly figure out the abbriviations we use here. I didn't know who Ronald D Moore was before I started working on this Wiki and it didn't take me very long at all to figure out how things are. It's not some intricate, color-and-alpha catalogging scheme. --[[User:Day|Day]] 04:40, 6 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::::Do we have enough consensus on this to make it a guideline? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 00:28, 14 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:::::Can someone write up the proposed consensus from all of this? I'm ill and it's hard for me to do this at the moment. [[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 23:31, 17 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::::::I will tomorrow. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 01:18, 18 October 2005 (EDT)
 
===Proposal===
 
Where articles from two different continuities exist with the same or easily confused titles, they should be namespaced with a reference to the series in parenthesis. Appropriate namespaces are:
 
*(TOS) - Original series
*(RDM) - Re-imagined series
*(Video Game) - 2003 Video Game
*(1980) - Galactica 1980
*(SDS) - Singer/DeSanto continuation
 
The page at the non-namespaced title should serve as a disambiguation page. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 19:24, 21 October 2005 (EDT)
 
: I concur; looks good. Should we note the Richard Hatch "Second Coming" info in some way, as it has more material in fact than the DeSanto works. :) --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 01:34, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::Got a catchy acronym handy? --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 02:12, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:::Either "SC" (obviously) or "DRM" (for "dream" as "in your dreams") :) Perhaps RH as well. --[[User:Spencerian|Spencerian]] 04:05, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::::"SC" and "RH" are the diplomatic alterantives, gentlemen. Others enthusiasts do view this site. --[[User:Watcher|Watcher]] 06:07, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:: Personally, "SC" works for me. "DRM" is confusing, as this is an acronym for [[Wikipedia:Digital Rights Management|Digital Rights Management]]. (In addition to the point Watcher made regarding its potentially insulting connotation.) -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 14:43, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
::: Ditto, Joe. DRM is also easily confused with RDM. I like SC. Otherwise, looks real good, Peter. --[[User:Day|Day]] 18:11, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
Okay. Since no one's dissented with Peter's proposal, I'm gonna wait a few days, then put it up on the main page with the addition of (SC) for Richard Hatch's "Second Coming" attempt. --[[User:Day|Day]] 12:11, 31 October 2005 (EST)
 
== HTML ==
 
I, ah, didn't think this was exactly necessary, but, uh... I think, now, it might be. Do we need to make a note about preffering <nowiki>''</nowiki> to &lt;i&gt;? I see various posts that have several changes, but leave the HTML intact. --[[User:Day|Day]] 16:51, 21 October 2005 (EDT)
: Agreed.  Wiki sytnax should always supersede HTML sytnax. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 14:29, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
: Adendum: By the way, I created two templates: {{tl|s}} and {{tl|u}} for {{s|striking out}} and {{u|underlining text}}, respectfully. -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 14:36, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
::HTML isn't exactly tasteful, but isn't it preferable to templates? HTML and wikisyntax both retain their formatting if moved to another wiki, but anything formatted with templates won't. --[[User:Peter Farago|Peter Farago]] 17:17, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
::: Good point, Peter... Maybe "hacking" MediaWiki might be an option, so as to create wikisyntax for underlining? Yes, this would undoubtedly create similar problems, but if a patch was submitted to the MediaWiki developers then they may introduce it (or something like it) into future versions of the software. Just a thought... -- [[User:Joe.Beaudoin|Joe Beaudoin]] 18:58, 22 October 2005 (EDT)
 
:::: What would you have the Wiki Markup be? Underscores and dashes, maybe? Might be dangerous, but perhaps it would require two of each in a row? Or three? I was thinking that _underline_ would render <u>underline</u> and that -strike- would render <s>strike</s>. However, I don't want underscores to mess up URLs or for strike-outs to mess up use of the em-dash, which is often substituted by the double-en dash (--). I'd just as soon use the HTML tags (except that it would get in the way of validating the HTML of the Wiki in XHTML 1.0 Strict, if that's a concern). Maybe we could use !!underline!! and !!!strike!!! or something. Ohoh! What about ``underline`` and ```strike```. Of course... you could go nuts and <nowiki>'''''`````italic bold underline strike`````'''''</nowiki> for '''''<u><s>italic bold underline strike</s></u>'''''. Sounds like a fighting more from some anime. Heh. --[[User:Day|Day]] 05:52, 23 October 2005 (EDT)

Latest revision as of 17:02, 30 October 2010



Images

I'd like to add a provision in regard to the image galleries, since they are becoming more prevalent now. While the wording can be debated, the following points should be made:

  1. Image galleries are to be used sparingly. On smaller articles, such as those for ships, it is common to see a gallery composed of the top, bottom, and side views of the subject, in addition to other images that may note a peculiarity worth noting. This is acceptable. On pages for characters, episodes, and other articles, image galleries should never be used, due to fair use concerns and the fact that Battlestar Wiki is not an image gallery.
  2. The only exceptions to the above should be with regard to the comics (and books) that have multiple covers, in addition to other merchandise, such as the Minimates.
  3. Otherwise, Battlestar Wiki prefers that images be within the prose of the article, thus abrogating the need for image galleries.

We should also note that images in the infoboxes should be:

  1. High quality with a minimum dimension of 200px in width.
  2. Be the newest image available.

The above should have the explicit caveat that common sense prevails in such cases. For instance, we wouldn't want to upload a screen shot of Kara Thrace every time a new episode airs, because that would be ridiculous.

Ok, that's all I have to say for now on that subject. -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 13:42, 16 February 2008 (CST)

Looks like a plan. I recently killed an image gallery at Kara Thrace consisting of one image :D --Catrope(Talk to me or e-mail me) 16:04, 17 February 2008 (CST)

Cleanup and Organization

I'm done with the cleanup and organization of the Standards and Conventions. I've also added summaries of each section to the main page, so to help people know what to do about certain things without reading paragraphs explaining the whys and wherefores. Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 23:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. This split was long overdue. One thing I always wondered is why do we have different standards in the Quotes? For no apparent reason, episodes are italicized and not put in quotes there. That whole section could be cut drastically, if we used the same rules as everywhere else. Though changing that now would be too much work. -- Serenity 08:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I've always wondered that myself. But now it's too much to go through and change... call it a quirk, I guess. -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 16:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Numbers

"Numbers less than 11 should be spelled out, "five" for "5", etc." May I suggest that when we find out who "Number Eleven" and "Number Twelve" are we continue to write out their numbers in full for consistency (so we don't have "Number Four and Number 11 meet" OTW 23:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. :) -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 23:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Name and Callsign Standardization

I know that there have been some recent concerns over phrasing a character's full name to read 'Lee "Apollo" Adama' or 'Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo'. Therefore, I wanted to start discussion on this, seeing as a lot pages on the wiki need to be standardized to get rid of the over-use of callsigns in favor of standard given last names.

To explain where I'm coming from, I feel that the characters should ultimately be introduced with their full name (first and last name) and callsign, simply because viewers sometimes don't get the fact that "Apollo" is a callsign for Lee, particularly if they are new viewers. Also, the lesser known characters (such as Skulls, Racetrack, and Crashdown) are referred to mainly by their callsigns, but do have names that we know of. Therefore, we there needs to be an effort to standardize them across the board, ergo the above idea.

I know some of you object to this, as I've seen in your edit summaries, but I wanted to discuss it here just to make sure everyone knows where I'm coming from. Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 19:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we just link Apollo to Lee Adama? --Catrope(Talk to me or e-mail me) 19:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
We could do that, but it just disjoints the prose. Also, it's not really encyclopedic to refer to people by nicknames or callsigns when we have their actual names, even for the sake of convenience. -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 20:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
My personal annoyance with this is mainly that it sounds somewhat artificial to me (it's probably just me and I'm overreacting...), especially when it's done two or three times in a row. It actually reads like it's a standard. One character is generally fine, but particularly with Racetrack/Skulls, Racetrack/Athena or Boomer/Crashdown it's always something like "Later, Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson and "Hamish "Skulls" McCall fly in their Raptor". It's just the sound of that that I don't particularly care for, for some reason :s You talk about bad prose with disjointed references. For me, always noting the full name and the callsign inbetween is bad prose too.
I can see the point with lesser known characters, for example Racetrack who is generally referred to more by her callsign than her name. That's one reason why I left that in the recent edit. I just think, rather than making it an ironclad standard, that some case-by-case judgment should be used about when to use names only and when to add the callsign. With the Battle of Kobol (RDM) article, I felt that it's not necessary to do it for Apollo and Starbuck, since they barely play a role in that section. Apollo is only mentioned as her wingman, and only plays a role during the boarding later, and Thrace only steals the Raider. The section is really about Crashdown, Boomer and Racetrack, so it's better to introduce them fully, since their names are used more often and in both variations.
At the same time, I think we kinda agreed that callsigns are appropriate for piloty actions. So using Racetrack exclusively in the battle article would be appropriate (though she can be introduced with callsign + name), whereas, in a scene in Joe's bar for example, her real name should be used instead. -- Serenity 20:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The pilot vs. other stuff convention is a long-standing one that's followed pretty closely. However, I should reiterate that even if we decide to introduce people as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, we should only call them that once and use their callsign or surname (whichever is appropriate) from there on, just like we do when introducing normal people (i.e. "William Adama ... Adama ... Adama"). --Catrope(Talk to me or e-mail me) 21:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
No one is suggesting to use it several times for one character. It's just about the introduction, and what you say is more or less what's done at the moment. But I think doing it in every introduction already creates formulaic sentences, because it's generally done either at the beginning of a paragraph and/or a sentence. IMO this isn't something that should be standardized so clearly that it needs to be done every time, but only when really needed, so that it doesn't impede the prose. For example it's superfluous when a character hardly plays a role in the text, or if subsequent references only use the real name anyways. At least with main characters. As said, when talking about people like Racetrack or Hot Dog, who are really referred to by their names, noting the callsign makes some sense. -- Serenity 21:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Logical punctuation

After seeing the link in the edit summary I just noticed that Wikipedia uses logical punctuation. Interesting. I thought they used American punctuation, but in practice it's probably completely mixed just as here.

I was under the impression that we mostly used American punctuation here, but it appears that the Season 4 articles, at least, use logical punctuation almost exclusively (before Passivity changed them). While the SAC says we use American punctuation, in fact there is a lot of logical one as well. Personally I generally use that as well, because I'm used to it and American punctuation just doesn't make the slightest lick of sense. It's just a stupid holdover from the days when the publications where typeset and there was a technical reason to print them inside. These days, many scientific publications for example are switching over to what the rest of the rest of the world does: place the punctuation marks where they actually belong.

While I'd prefer logical punctuation everywhere, I'm not really saying that we should change it over officially. Just pointing out that we have an inconsistency here. People use different styles and while one article may be consistent in itself, some others are formatted differently. -- Serenity 14:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

It's a mishmash, in practice. Generally speaking, putting commas outside of quotation marks makes tremendously more sense, and is far better stylistically. As with everything else American, we aren't exactly the greatest at making things efficient. For instance, we still haven't implemented widescale use of the Metric system, despite the fact that we're only one of maybe two or three countries who still use the "English" garbage while everyone else has converted some time ago. Anachronisms die hard, unfortunately. -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Quorum

Can we get rid of the standard that Quorum members must be referred to as delegates rather than representatives (under "Character Names and Titles"), given that Roslin referred to "twelve perpetually unhappy representatives" in the seventh episode of Season Four? -- Noneofyourbusiness 15:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Review this for why we use "delegate," the more precise term than "representative." -- Joe Beaudoin So say we all - Donate 17:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
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