Aselia Wiki
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Wikis are like countries. What is acceptable in one may be unacceptable in another. Just as other wikis abide by their own rules and policies, this wiki abides by its own. Please respect these rules and policies, edit in good faith, and accept that violations of these rules and policies may result in edit reversion. Also, be mindful that every edit on this wiki is carefully monitored. The purpose of this wiki is to progress in terms of its contents, quality of writing, and informational accuracy. The following is a detailed list and description of the rules and policies of Aselia Wiki. This list is intended to cover all subject matter regarding page formatting and writing style, but most of these policies derive from Wikipedia's Manual of Style, and more detailed specifics may be found on that page.

General Writing Guidelines

Language

All articles must be written in the English language, with preference toward standard American English spelling and grammar. British English spelling and grammar should be avoided and replaced with American English variants if noticed. Do not use jargon or colloquial phrases unless they are part of the subject matter itself, and try to avoid unnecessarily complex wording. All pages should be accessible and clearly understood by readers who have a passable level of knowledge or fluency in the English language. To this end, please make certain that all text is spelled correctly with proper syntax and grammar, and use a spellcheck or grammarcheck utility if you feel inadequate with the English language.

Writing Style

All articles must be written in a neutral, third-person format. Words such as "I" or "you" are strictly forbidden. Pages must be written in an encyclopedic-style, where bias is avoided and factual information is stated in clear detail. Conversational comments are unnecessary, distracting, and have no place on what should be impartially-written essays on the given topic. Any text written in such a manner will be deleted or reworded as soon as it is noticed, and if the problem persists, you will be warned through your user talk page.

Avoid contractions like "don't" or "they're" or "would've". Always write the words in full. This is informal speech, which has no place on encyclopedia articles. It may be difficult to catch these contractions from being written into a page due to normal writing habits, but if any of these can be seen on an article, please correct it.

Parentheticals or phrases that are enclosed within parentheses should be avoided entirely on text-based pages. If the idea can be expressed as a separate sentence or comma-separated clause, then it should be reworded in that way. Parentheses should be used only as a part of Japanese translations and the occasional use of acronyms after writing the full term.

Spoilers

Spoiler content will not be labeled in any way on this wiki. The spoiler template has been discontinued, and all pages are expected to have spoiler content at any given point. The notice that exists on the front page serves as a spoiler warning for all pages, without exception. No spoiler labels of any sort are allowed, and the use of the word "spoiler" itself is forbidden, as there is no context that enables it to be used impartially.

However, this does not mean that spoilers can be thrown about on any page without regard to its content. For the pages that serve as a summary of events from an entire game, such as the articles for each game and its protagonists, any spoiler content should be presented at the same point within the narrative that a player would encounter it while playing the actual game. On pages that relate to integral plot elements, such as a specific event or term, spoilers should be limited to only those situations that directly affect or are affected directly by it, and unrelated matters should be avoided completely.

This can serve as a problem on certain pages where the "true" age or race of a character can represent a significant spoiler, and that information might be seen easily on the character infoboxes. In cases where this might be an issue, that information should be omitted from the infoboxes and described within the narrative at the correct point where the player would learn that information.

Strategies and Walkthroughs

Any strategy or walkthrough-based content is unacceptable due to not being encyclopedic content. These "guides" are not a focus of this wiki, and there are other places willing to host this sort of information, such as GameFAQs and similar websites. Resource content should be limited to statistical, list-type data, which is described further on this page. Any information regarding specific numbers such as directly-stated TP costs or level requirements should remain on those pages. Do not add them to text-based articles.

Please note that this only applies to articles written on the "main" namespace, or more specifically, pages that are not discussion-oriented and conversational by nature, such as user pages or forums. If you feel that what you have to say is interesting and merits some discussion or you just want to make the information available somewhere, you may post that information on the article's talk page. Some of us might even comment on it. Ensure the same information does not find its way onto the main article, where discussions like this do not belong.

For a list of Tales walkthroughs on GameFAQs, see Walkthroughs.

Speculation and Assumptions

Similar to the above, guesswork through unconfirmed speculation is unacceptable. This wiki only deals with clearly defined facts. Any mentions of references to materials outside of the series must be clear and direct homages to those other works. All theories or interpretations regarding various story events cannot be stated unless they have been confirmed as truth. There should be no guesswork involved when recounting the events that actually happen in a story or relationships among different characters.

Again, similar to the above, speculations and other unknowns can be added to talk pages, where these ideas can be put to discussion. Some theories are interesting and sometimes even plausible, but they cannot be displayed alongside things that are factual, as it can become difficult for readers to determine which is which if it is all mixed together on the same page.

Glitches and Exploits

Details regarding bugs, dummied information, and other things that are not available under intended gameplay should not be mentioned on articles. Pages should list only things that are available in the game without resorting to cheating devices or hacking utilities. Any data that can be seen only through decompiling the game files does not relate to the game as a finished product, as seen by the typical end user. While such information might be nice to know, this wiki's policy is to leave those things unannounced within articles. Once more, these details may be added to the talk pages of those articles. As long as it is not included on the main articles, there is no real problem.

Canon Materials

Each game's storyline is considered to be canon in its own universe. Certain games share the same universe and timeline, allowing them to build off each other's canon. With this idea in mind, all crossover games take place in separate universes, where the protagonists of different games are copies of their original selves and all of them find themselves in the same world. This does not affect the "original" protagonists of each game, who never left their home world or experienced anything different from what they would have encountered normally. Everything they do in the crossover timeline has no effect on these "original" realities, because their actions affect only the copies of their worlds.

However, if a character recounts his or her past to others in these crossovers, these past stories are considered to be canon. All versions of the same character have a shared history until a certain point of divergence in which they are copied and pulled from their universes, so all information about their pasts are the same as those who continued in their own timelines normally.

All novelizations, manga, and drama CD material that takes place before or after a story in its own universe is also considered canon. However, any part of this material that serves as a modified retelling of a game's story is not canon. Only the games can be considered as the base stories, and only the things that are added to the stories without replacing them are seen as part of the official timeline. Any of these materials that take place during a story must not interfere with existing events that happened in the games if they are to be classified as canon events, such as things that happen at the same time in other locations that are not visited at that point in time or expanded details of those events from the games.

Remakes and sequels of games are the only things that can replace and override preexisting canon of older games, creating a concept known as retroactive continuity, or "retcon". This can cause consistency errors in some stories in which a choice had been provided in the original game, and these issues should be stated on the appropriate articles.

Page Organization

Estelle Manual (ToLink)

For more information regarding page organization in terms of content and resource page formatting, see Page Outlines.

Titles and Section Headings

The title of a given article should use the full name of the character or term, regardless of spoilers. In the case of named characters, the page title should not include any titles or styles that might be held by the character. This information should be written into the first sentence of the opening paragraph instead. If the character holds an alias, the page title should use the name with which the group is most familiar.

On pages that relate to names or terms that have been translated differently in separate games, the most frequent localized name should be used. If there is a tie in the number of localized names, preference should be given to the localized name currently being used. If no localized name exists, any Japanese term that has received an official romanization within the game or promotional materials will be given priority.

Page titles and sections should be fully capitalized in the same way a book title would be written. Special characters such as brackets and Japanese text are acceptable within section headings of list-type pages, but links within section headings should be avoided to prevent accessibility issues. If a link is necessary, it should be provided through the first mention of the same word or phrase within the section itself. Avoid using special characters in the section headings on text-based pages.

When creating section headings, use the == (two equal signs) style markup for main headings, equivalent to <h2> in HTML script. Do not use a single =. This is because a single = creates an <h1> heading which is already used by the page header and is considered to be bad webpage coding.

First Mentions and Linking

All terms that exist as the primary topic of another page elsewhere on the wiki must be written out in full and linked to at first mention. This includes full names of characters, limited only with regard to potential spoilers at the time they are first encountered by the group within the story, such as the full names of Ras or Mithos. Titles and styles held by a character may be included as part of this first mention if they are relevant. All successive mentions of that name or term may be shortened to more familiar abbreviations, such as the use of first names or nicknames. On pages where a story is not being described, such as individual arte pages, spoiler reservations are ignored and full names are provided always at first mention.

If a topic already has a link earlier on the same page, later mentions of that name or term do not have to be linked and preferably should not be. If the term has not been mentioned within the previous section or two on text-based articles, then a new link to the same term is acceptable, but it must be written out in full once more. As a rule of thumb, if it requires a link, use the full name as it appears on the page to which it is being linked. If the full name looks awkward because it was mentioned not much earlier on the same page, then a link is unnecessary. Avoid linking to the same thing too many times on one page; one link is enough for most purposes. Do not link topics that should never require their own page, considering that, if they do not already have one, there is a possibility that one is not needed.

This linking policy does not apply to list-based articles, where every instance of a term should provide a link, no matter where it is on the page. This linking policy does, however, apply to image description boxes, where a topic should be linked at first mention in an image description box, but not again other image description boxes. More information on this can be found here.

Redirects

Redirects should be created for all situations in which a reader might search for an alternative term and expect to find the correct page. On this wiki, this applies to all Japanese terms that have a localized equivalent. Only the romanized Japanese transcriptions can be used as a redirect; Japanese text is not viable as a redirect keyword. See this section for this wiki's romanization policy. Additionally, any localized terms that have been replaced with newer names should be represented as redirects. The primary article should always use the most recent localized name for any given topic.

Double redirects, or redirect pages that lead to other redirect pages, should be avoided. The wiki software automatically prevents double redirects from accessing anything beyond the second redirect as an error-trapping feature, preventing the possibility of infinite recursion when two redirect pages point to each other to create a loop. Ensure all redirects point to the intended main article.

Bolding

Bolding is typically used to emphasize the page title and alternate names for the page title. In the case that a redirect does not satisfy as a proper link to another page, and if the term does not warrant a page in itself yet holds significance, the term should be bolded at first mention and not again (in the same manner as linking). This applies to image descriptions as well, where a topic should be bolded at first mention in an image description box, but not again in other image description boxes. Again, more information on this can be found here.

Disambiguation

Disambiguation pages should only be created when two or more topics share a similar name, such as if two characters share a surname. If multiple pages exist for a single location or term that exists in multiple games and have the same name in the original Japanese text, these pages should be merged together. In most cases, if a reader might be searching for a term that relates to more than one topic, a notice should be added to the top of each page to lead that reader to the correct page. Use the following format for this situation:

This article is about the Swordsman arte "Tempest". For the spell, see Tempest. For the game, see Tales of the Tempest.

A template may be provided in the future to streamline this notice and make all variations of the same consistent throughout the wiki. This section will be updated if or when this happens.

Categories

All pages and images should be categorized to provide an organized structure that enables future readers and contributors to find the pages. Categories should be added to the end of each page, below any navigation templates. In some cases, the navigation templates provide categories automatically; these categories should be omitted from the page. Pages should provide all categories that apply directly to the subject matter of an article. A full diagram of the category trees can be found on this page.

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