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From Spanking Art

This page lists some conventions for the Spanking Art wiki, as a kind of style guide. As any page in this wiki, these conventions can be edited and changed by anyone, and can be discussed on the discussion page.

[edit] General

As our default for all questions, we follow the same conventions as Wikipedia. Exceptions should be explicitly defined on places such as this page.

[edit] Language

All articles should be in english. Short quotations can be in any language, but adding a translation to english after the original quote is considered good style.

Grammatical errors and misspellings should be corrected, unless they are part of a quote where they may be marked with "(sic)".

[edit] American vs British usage

This wiki allows either American or British usage (spelling, idioms, etc), subject to the following guidelines:

• We prefer consistency within a particular article, generally following the format first used in that article;
• Articles on specifically British topics are expected to use British forms, and those on specifically American topics to use American forms;
• Edits made just to change British to American spelling, or vice versa, are strongly discouraged unless they are to achieve consistency within an article following one of the guidelines above.
• Text directly quoted should remain unchanged, even if it is inconsistent with the remainder of the article. If the inconsistency seems glaring, it can be marked with (sic).

[edit] Possesives

Form the possesive singular with "'s", not just "'". Thus:

• Alex's stories, not Alex' stories
• Charles's artwork not Charles' artwork (See Strunk and White, The Elements of Style)

Do not form plurals as if they were possesives, even plurals of number or initalisms. Thus:

• The 1980s not The 1980's.
• He sent IMs or instant mesages not He sent IM's or instant mesages

[edit] Abbrevations

When an abbrevation is used, it should normally be expanded or spelled out at the first use in an article. Thereafter it can be used alone.

[edit] Narrative voice

Articles should not be written as personal essays -- they should never say "I found this" or "I remember that". Articles are unsigned, and no article should be assumed to be the work of a single person. Therefore the referent of "I" cannot be clear, and it should not be used. Quotes and statements of opinion should be attributed to a specific person or source. This is important in presenting facts from a neutral point of view (NPOV).

Articles should not directly address the reader, as by saying "Then you do this" or "You will see that." Instead, make it clear who will do or see whatever is to be done or seen. For example, "Then the birchmaker will do this." or "Then a visitor to the web site will see that." In describing the actions of a player character in an interactive game, don't say "you do this" but "the player does this" or "Joe (the character controlled by the player) does this."

In short, avoid both first and second person in articles, except in direct quotes.

On discussion and user pages, first and second person is of course perfectly okay.

[edit] Markup syntax

Wiki syntax should be used and HTML should be avoided whenever possible. For example, bold text should be formatted with three single quotes '''like this''' and not <b>like this</b>.

Tables should use Template:Prettytable

[edit] Article names

Article names should be in singular as a rule. If wished, the plural can be added as a redirect to the singular. Example: The article is named story, the plural stories either does not exist in the article namespace, or is a redirect. When the plural is used in a link, it should be properly done like this: Many [[author]]s wrote good [[story|stories]].

There may be exceptions to this rule, which should be discussed individually.

Article names should begin with a capital letter, but not every word of the name. The exception is that proper names should be capitalized normally. In short: article names use "sentence case".

[edit] Articles

While the majority of pages on this wiki will be encyclopedic articles, we also allow other content that is relevant to the wiki's subject spanking art, including:

• Howtos (e.g. practical help for artists and authors)
• Lists

Content we don't want here include:

• Stories (short quotations from stories as part of other articles are okay, as well as articles on stories)
• POV content
• Essays
• News articles such as those on Wikinews

Encyclopedic articles should explain the lemma (the term that is the article's title) and begin with a definition of the lemma. On its first occurrence (usually this will be in the first sentence), the lemma should be formatted in bold.

Articles should begin with a full sentence, not a sentence fragment.

Sections should begin with a capital letter, but not every word of the section name. For example, "Article names" above is not spelled "Article Names". The exception is that proper names should be capitalized normally. In short: section headers use "sentence case".

[edit] Categories

Categories should be in plural as a rule, for example Category:Free sites, not Category:Free site.

There may be exceptions to this rule, which should be discussed individually.

[edit] Links

For technical reasons, all articles in this wiki begin with a capital initial, but can be linked to using either an upper case or a lower case initial. For links, the case should be chosen based on normal spelling rules.

In an item list, for example the "See also" section, every item usually starts with a capital initial:

• Spanking art
• List of spanking artists

In the middle of a normal sentence, most words are in lower case, and links should follow this convention. Example: The list of spanking artists lists some artists who created spanking art.

When a term is used more than once in an article, particularly when it is used more than once in the same paragaph or in adjacent paragraphs, only the first occurence should be made a link. If a term is used near the top of a relatively long article, and then is not used again until near the bottom or mouch farther down (more than a screenful at common display standards, say), a link on the second usage may be helpful.

[edit] Links to Wikipedia

Often it is desireable to link to an article from Wikipedia either on the subject of an article on this wiki, or on a related subject. Our standard way of doing this is to put such links in a See also section (leaving the Links section for links that are outside of this wiki and Wikimedia Foundation projects, such as Wikipedia and Wiktionary); and to use Template:Wikipedia, which formats a link for inclusion in such a list. For example, to insert a link to the Wikipedia article on Spanking, type: {{Wikipedia|Spanking}}. This will display as:

• Spanking on Wikipedia

Using this method standardizes the appearance of such links. Also, by using "what links here" from the template, it allows us to see all the places where links to Wikipedia have been placed.

[edit] Links to Wiktionary

In some cases it is useful to include a link to Wiktionary, to show the definitions of the article's lemma (subject term) or a related term. As with links to Wikipedia, our standard way of doing this is to put such links in a See also section, and to use Template:Wiktionary, which formats a link for inclusion in such a list. For example, to insert a link to the Wiktionary entry on Spanking, type: {{Wiktionary|spanking}}. This will display as:

• spanking in Wiktionary

(Note the lower case usage. Unlike Wikipedia articles, Wiktionary entries can begin with upper or lower case.) Using this method standardizes the appearance of such links. Also, by using "what links here" from the template, it allows us to see all the places where links to Wiktionary have been placed.

[edit] Links to Wipipedia

Links to Wipipedia (a BDSM wiki) follow the same syntax as links to Wikipedia. To insert a link to the Wipipedia article on Spanking, type: {{Wipipedia|Spanking}}. This will display as:

• Spanking on Wipipedia

[edit] "See also" sections

The see also section collects links to other relevant articles which do not appear elsewhere in the article, and which might be of interst or use to the reader.

The see also section will normally contain:

• Links to other articles in this wiki
• Links to articles on Wikipedia, using Template:Wikipedia (as above)
• Links to entries in Wiktionary, using Template:Wiktionary (as above)
• Links to articles on Wipipedia, using Template:Wipipedia (as above).

Links to other extrnal sites will normally be contained in a "Links" section, and references to off-line sources in a "References" or "Further reading" secton

When there is a link to another article within the body of an article, we do not normally list the second article in the "See also" section. For example, there is a link to Parent in the body of Sibling. Therefore there is no need for Parent to be listed in the "See also" section of Sibling. This also means that when a link is added to the body of an article, it may be appropriate to remove a corresponding link from the "See also" section.

In some cases, where the reference seems particularly important, and the link is a bit obscure (such as if it is in the middle of a long article or if it is piped so that it is not obvious what is being linked to), it may be desireable to retain a link in the "See also" section in spite of a matching link in the body of an article.

In a rare case, where a long article is divided into multiple sections, a section may have a "See also" sub-section, which lists links relevant only to that section.

[edit] Links to external adult sites

Links to external adult sites should be followed by a standardized warning: {{18+}}. This will create the following: Warning:

Some adult sites explicitly say they are only for users above 21 years of age. For these, use {{21+}}, which will create Warning: .

[edit] Attributing content

[edit] Direct quotes

Direct quotes should be identified as such, and their author(s) and source(s) should be cited. Short quotes hould be placed inside double quote makes like this: "Spanking is much to good to be wasted on children." (Anonymous). Longer quotes should be indented, using the Template:Quotation markup, like this: {{quotation|This is an invented sample quotation. If this were an actual quotation you would be instructed by the citation afterwards where to go to verify the quotation. Since I just made this quote up, it doesn't matter here.|[[User:Mercy60a]] in ''Wikis to die for''}} which becomes:

[edit] Indirect quotes

When a statement is based on a published (or unpublished) statement by an identifiable person, that should be noted with as much detail as is available, preferably enough to allow a reader to find the statement in its original context.

[edit] Reuse of GDFL content

When content from a source released under the GFDL is used, this fact should be noted, and the original source should be indicated, preferably with a link.

[edit] From Wikipedia

When an article includes content (text) copied directly from an article on Wikipedia, indicate this fact by using Template:Wikipedia-text. For example, to indicate that an article contains content from the Wikipedia article "Hairbrush", include {{Wikipedia-text|Hairbrush}} at the bottom of the article. This will display as:

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Hairbrush. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Spanking Art, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

In the event that an article includes content taken directly from more than one Wikipedia article, include as many calls to Template:Wikipedia-text as may be needed, one after the other.