Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Wars/Manual of style

The following is a detailed guide to Star Wars''-related articles. For the general style guide, please see Manual of Style.

The following style guide covers everything related to Star Wars, including character articles, general lists, general rules, templates, and infoboxes. Generally, this applies to all editors, though it is mainly used as a tool to get all members of the Star Wars WikiProject together on one concrete style packet.

Related guidelines
Subjects of the Star Wars wikiproject often fall under other the purview of other wikiprojects. Be mindful, and try to strike balance, between these projects' own style guides. Generally, the guides are very similar.
 * Film styleguide
 * Books style guide
 * Comics style guide
 * Music style guide
 * Television style guide
 * Video games style guide

Notability

 * Always consider notability (importance to a general audience) when editing not only Star Wars-related articles, but Wikipedia in general. Wikipedia is a general interest encyclopedia, not an in-depth guide to everything related to Star Wars. That is the role of Wookieepedia. For detailed information on notability, please see Notability (fiction). Some topics that don't meet the notability standards might be better covered as part of a broader list of related subjects.
 * For more information on notability and tolerance within Wikipedia, please see Fancruft and What Wikipedia is not.
 * There are fine lines between splitting and merging and notability, so there will always be disputes. Please be civil and make sure your argument covers all Wikipedia and Manual of Style rules.

Style

 * Maintain a primarily out-of-universe perspective. Plot summary is important to establish a subject's context within the fictional universe, and it is appropriate to summarize a subject's role in the franchise. However, excessive plot detail is not appropriate for Wikipedia.
 * Per WP:WAF, articles should adopt the present tense, even for events described in the plot summary. Remember: if you can fast-forward to a scene, flip to a page, load a level, or otherwise encounter the content in the present tense there, then it should be related in present tense here.

Typography

 * Italicize titles, including books, movies, episodes, series, games, and albums. Examples include Darksaber, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, New Jedi Order, Knights of the Old Republic, The Phantom Menace Soundtrack, Star Wars Expanded Universe.
 * People and characters, such as George Lucas and Luke Skywalker, should not be italicised except for emphasis.
 * Song and episode titles should be placed in "double quotes", e.g. "Duel of the Fates" or "R2 Come Home".

Bolding

 * The first mention of the article or list entry's subject should always be bolded. (If the term is also the title of a work, its first mention should be bolded and italicized; subsequent mentions should be italicized, as noted above.)
 * In rare cases, minor topics may feature bold headings in lieu of subheaders. See TIE fighter for an example.

Abbreviations and truncated titles

 * Generally, all abbreviations should be avoided.
 * When addressing a game, book, console, term, movie, etc., do not abbreviate. For example, type The Empire Strikes Back or Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back instead of ESB or SW5; Knights of the Old Republic may not be abbreviated KOTOR.
 * Some Star Wars material, particularly games, are formally titled with "Star Wars" at the beginning, such as Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: TIE Fighter. It may be appropriate to use a piped link in the body of some articles to eschew the "Star Wars" piece of the title, leaving just the distinguishing title. For example, X-Wing will yield X-Wing.

Article content
These sections are generally germane to objects and concepts that contribute to the fabric of the Star Wars mythos. The layout of sections of articles about e.g. actors, studios, and filming locations -- which often have relevance beyond just their Star Wars connection -- are more aptly covered by other wikiproject guidelines.

Lead section
The lead should briefly summarize the subject, the subject's importance within the Star Wars universe (i.e. an in-universe summary), and its importance outside the Star Wars universe (i.e. recognitions or awards). Some subjects germane to Star Wars will also be germane to other franchises and domains and should be balanced appropriately. For example, while Harrison Ford is very important in Star Wars, his lead section only moderately addresses Star Wars.

In-universe: plot, depiction, and so on
While Wikipedia strives to focus on an out-of-universe perspective for elements of fiction, it is important to provide characters a sense of what a fictional subject does or means within the storyline. The deluge of critical commentary on Boba Fett is easier to understand when the reader has a general sense of the character's myriad actions within the plot line.

A subject's significant role in the most wildly consumed Star Wars media, i.e. the films, is appropriate to address. Beyond that, it is important the article is compelling, but it need not be exhaustive. Boba Fett's appearances in three films is addressed in his article, and the article acknowledges that Fett appears in dozens of other media. However, the article appropriately avoids a title-by-title account of his appearances and actions. Even without that information, the in-universe sections of the article sufficiently describe Fett's prowess as a mysterious bounty hunter.

In-universe content is generally a collection of non-interpretive plot summary. As such, it is appropriate to attribute the content to primary sources. Articles can indicate the origin material in the prose or as part of an inline citation.

Out-of-universe: development and reception
An article's in-universe content is best bolstered by a "before and after" impression of the subject: what thinking and design went into creating the subject, and how did the world react to the end product?

This type of information necessitates citation to third-party sources. The absence of information about a subject's reception may indicate it does not meet the notability requirements; a wealth of third-party commentary handily eliminates notability concerns.

Wikilinking
( In a list, major characters and terms may be wikilinked multiple times in that list. For example, List of Star Wars spaceships links Millennium Falcon in the text for multiple entries in that list.
 * A wikilink should only be used at the first mention, unless it is a template.
 * Do not wikilink non-Star Wars words unless they are not extremely common (e.g. do not wikilink device or disease, but do wikilink Death Star).

Categories

 * Category:Star Wars features numerous sub-categories, which should be studied in order to ensure proper categorization.
 * Do not categorize things twice unless it applies (e.g. do not categorize X-wing fighter into both Category:Star Wars starfighters and Category:Star Wars spaceships.
 * If a new category is to be created, it must feature at least five (5) entries that are not covered in existing sub-categories.

Article naming

 * Refer to Naming conventions for the general policy for article titles.
 * Most article titles should be singular (unless they are lists or merged topics).
 * Except in titles of works or in official names, avoid the definite ("the") and indefinite ("a"/"an") articles at the beginning of a page name.
 * Generally, one should avoid overuse of parenthesis in article titles, except in cases where disambiguation is needed; for example, Galactic Empire (Star Wars) is differentiated from the Galactic empire article, which discusses the use of the trope in other fictional works.


 * Film articles should be named according to the film's common name at the time of release, and should not reflect any subsequent re-titling. See also: MOS:FILM and WP:NCFILM.
 * For the original trilogy, this means simply Star Wars (for what has since been known as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back (for what has since been known as Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back), and Return of the Jedi (for what has since been known as Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi). Please see this move discussion for more info. Exceptionally, in accordance with WP:PRIMARYFILM the article about the 1977 film Star Wars is entitled Star Wars (film) in order to disambiguate it from the Star Wars article which discusses the wider franchise.
 * For the prequel trilogy, this means Star Wars: Episode # – Subtitle; note the en dash (–) in the title, not a hyphen (-) or an em dash (—)
 * For the sequel trilogy, this means Star Wars: Subtitle
 * If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article (as opposed to putting it in the predicate). In any case, the title should appear as early as possible in the article — preferably in the first sentence.
 * The first time the title is mentioned in the article, bold it. Do not put links in the title.

List naming

 * Refer to Naming conventions for detailed information.
 * All list must begin with "list of..." to distinguish that they are a list. An exception is a merged topic with many subtopics included in the article, such as Imperial stormtrooper.
 * A list's title/name should match the content of the article. For example, if an article is about Star Wars melee weapons, the title would be List of Star Wars melee weapons.
 * Most lists are not completely singular (e.g. List of Star Wars melee weapons).

Article introductions

 * All articles should have a one- to three-paragraph lead section that introduces the topic in a succinct manner and explains its significance within the Star Wars universe and the real world.
 * Articles about fictional items or concepts should begin with "In the fictional Star Wars universe, topic is (brief description)...." or "topic is a (brief description) in the fictional Star Wars universe".
 * If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article (as opposed to putting it in the predicate). In any case, the title should appear as early as possible in the article — preferably in the first sentence.
 * As displayed above, the first mention of the article topic must be bolded. (It should also be italicized if it is the name of a work.)
 * Do not start articles with a quote. It is unencyclopedic. Consider making quote-related contributions to Wikipedia's Wikiquote sister project.

List introductions

 * A list should begin much in the same way as the article, except that the article subject is not bolded. Instead, lists often begin with "The following are (list's topic) in the fictional Star Wars universe".
 * List entries (the multiple topics that make up a list) should be bolded upon first mention.
 * List entires do not need to feature the "...in the fictional Star Wars universe" disclaimer, for it is already written in the list's opening sentence.

Images

 * Images must either be in the public domain or meet the criteria to include non-free content. Articles about objects or characters within the fiction often struggle with NFCC item 8, which requires that an image's inclusion significantly add to readers' understanding of the subject, or that an image's exclusion impede reader's understanding.
 * The image depicted by non-free content should itself be the subject of commentary in an article. For example, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed discusses the actual concepts depicted in concept art in the article.

Templates

 * Templates

Specific article types
The following are links to sub-guides for each type of article.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION