The Godfather Wiki:Manual of Style

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This article consists of basic style guidelines to follow when editing or creating new pages for The Godfather Wiki.

For information on the most basic writing techniques and styles, which are used here, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Note that many of these guidelines were composed from other wiki's.

Layout guide

In-universe

All in-universe articles should be structured as follows:

Title/Infobox
Main article
Stub
Personality and traits
Influences
Behind the scenes
Trivia
Notes and references
See also
External links
Category
Interwiki links

Out-of-universe

All out-of-universe articles on crew, actors, etc. should generally be structured as follows. This list is typically more flexible than main articles.

Title/Eras/Infobox
Main article
Stub
Appearances
Behind the scenes
Notes and references
See also
External links
Category
Interwiki links

Naming articles

There are some rules regarding how articles on The Godfather Wiki should be named.

Article names should be in singular form, not plural.
The titles of articles about individual characters should be the name by which the character was most commonly known in The Godfather universe, with later names preferred to earlier names, and full names preferred to partial names or nicknames. Titles, such as ranks or titles of nobility, should be omitted.
Unless the name of the article contains (or is) a proper noun, none of the words should be capitalized.

Perspective

The people, places and events in the films and novels are described as in-universe; they belong to the world of the Corleone family. Other elements of interest reside exclusively in the real world, and are termed out-of-universe (or OOU). So a character like Michael Corleone, for example, is in-universe; while the actor who portrays him, Al Pacino, is out-of-universe.

Of course, there is a great deal of overlap between the Corleones family's world and the real world, and that is part of the appeal of the franchise. For example: characters such as Al Capone, Salvatore Maranzano or Fulgencio Batista and the Cuban revolution. For the purposes of this wiki, though, the fictional world must take precedence. Historical figures & events and real world locations, appearing in-universe, should be treated the same as other in-universe subjects.

In-universe articles, such as those dealing with characters or events, should be written from an in-universe perspective; that is, as though the author inhabits the world of the Corleone family. In this context, out-of-universe (or "behind-the-scenes") information should be noted as such. Out-of-universe articles—about actors, movies, books, etc.—should obviously be written from an out-of-universe perspective.

Article layout

One of the most important parts of wiki editing is how to structure an article. The structure is a powerful thing: it dictates what information the reader reads and when he or she reads it. It can influence what people contribute, where it goes, and how it might be written. Structure has the power to inform or confuse the same way good or bad writing does. Keep a well structured article, and you're more likely to have a high quality one.

Organize sections in an article in a hierarchical structure like you would an outline. Keep it logical, but feel free to forsake strict logic for readability. Wherever possible, try to have an introduction for each section. Just like the article as a whole, the section should start with an introduction and then have its subsections below it. Try using a shallow structure rather than a deep one. Too many nested sections usually leads to a confusing or unreadable article.

Above all, keep your layout consistent. Don't throw your reader a curve ball too often. The following sections will offer some good advice on keeping your articles clean, consistent, and clear.

Lead section

Unless an article is very short, it should start with an introductory lead section before the first subheading. The lead should not be explicitly entitled == Introduction == or any other header. The table of contents appears after the lead section and before the first subheading.

The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable. It should be between one or two paragraphs long, and should be written in a clear and accessible style so that the reader is encouraged to read the rest of the article.

If possible, make the title bold and the subject of the article's first sentence.

Follow the normal rules for italics in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics.

Section headings

You can make a section header by typing two equal signs, the title of the header, and then two more equal signs,
like == Example==. To make subsections, use progressively more equal signs. For example,
use === Subsection of Example ===. Do not italicize or use links in subject headings. When edited, these sections become confusing in the edit history because of the link code. Consider instead putting the word in the first or second sentence of the section and linking it there.

If you mark headings this way, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article. Avoid overuse of sub-headings.

Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. For example, use "Founding and history," not "Founding and History."

Avoid special characters in headings, such as an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]). In place of the ampersand, use the word "and" unless the ampersand is part of a formal name.

Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to your page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings, i.e. avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on. Also, try to avoid giving identical titles to different sections.

Images

Images make an article memorable and pretty. Pictures can speak where words fail. At the same time, misplaced or untidy images can take away from an article. When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up.

Large images such as screenshots should use the "thumb" (example:[[Image:CoolImage.png|thumb]]) option which displays large images as thumbnails. Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability by allowing a smooth flow of text down the left margin - the "thumb" option does this by default. If an infobox is not being used in an article, a right aligned picture in the lead section is encouraged.

For more information, see Help:Images.

Galleries

When an article has many images, or can be improved by having more, and having inline images be detract from the readbility of an articles, the use of a <gallery> section is encouraged. Be sure to end it with </gallery> at the end.

In the gallery, you can put captions to emphasize/describe the image.

Quotations

To make a quotation, use the {{quote}} template. In order to make a quotation complete, one must add the text and speaker. For example, use {{quote|Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.|Michael Corleone|The Godfather Part III}}. This quotation should appear as

"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."

―Michael Corleone^[src]

Usage and spelling

Though the readers and editors of The Godfather Wiki speak many varieties of English, we prefer standard American English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word usage. This is the variety of English used in the first printings of most primary sources.

Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar standards to ensure clear communication. Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article.

Tense

Tense should be carefully considered for all in-universe articles. Events should be treated as history, and described in the past tense. As of the beginning of the 21st century, almost all characters should be presumed dead, and should therefore be described strictly in the past tense. However, it may often be appropriate to introduce locations, artifacts, and other elements in the present tense, before clarifying the time period and elaborating upon the description in the past tense. (For instance, "Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States" is preferred over "Washington, D.C. was the capital of the United States.")

Capitalization

Titles such as "Don" start with a capital letter when used as a title: for example, use "Don Vito Corleone" not "don Vito Corleone" When used generically, titles should be in lower case, like 'caporegimes', 'underboss', 'consigliere', 'soldato' etc.

Names of organized groups, such as the "Mafia", the "Mob" or the "Commission", could be capitalized, although it's not necessarily required.

Titles

Italics are always used for the titles of the films and novels such as The Godfather and The Godfather Returns.