Evolutionary:Style guide

This page explains how articles on the Evolutionary wiki are written and laid out, so the wiki reads as one consistent encyclopedia no matter who wrote each page. When in doubt, look at how an existing article does it — or ask on this page's talk page.

Voice and tone

• Write like an encyclopedia inside the universe. Describe things as facts of the Evolutionary universe, in the third person ("The Draconis koi communicates through…"), not as a story or from the author's view.
• Use present tense for things that still exist (species, planets, organisations) and past tense for events and things that are gone.
• Out-of-universe notes — inspirations, design notes, ideas that aren't decided yet — go in a section called Behind the scenes at the bottom of the article.
• Use metric units (metres, kilograms, °C). Give Earth comparisons where they help: "about the size of a house cat".

Naming pages

• Name species pages by their common name (e.g. Draconis Koi, Hurricane Fungus). If a species has no common name, use its scientific name.
• Use sentence case for everything except proper names: Floating algae colonies, not Floating Algae Colonies — unless the words are the proper name of the species or place.
• Create a redirect from the scientific name and any other names to the main page, so links and searches find it. A redirect is a page containing only #REDIRECT [[Main page name]].

Scientific names

• Write scientific names in italics, with the first word capitalised and the second in lower case: Chlorophyta carbo, Dolor piscium.
• The species infobox italicises the scientific_name field for you — type it without the italic marks there.

How an article starts

• The first sentence says what the subject is, with the page name in bold:
  The '''Draconis koi''' (''Dolor piscium'') is a semi-sapient fish native to the Sigma Draconis system.
• Put templates in this order at the very top of the page: notices ({{WIP}}, {{Stub}}), then the infobox, then the first sentence.

Article layout

Use the sections that apply, in this order, and skip the rest:

Species

Description · Biology · Behaviour · Habitat and range · Society and culture (sapient species) · History / Discovery · Behind the scenes

Planets and moons

Overview · Geography · Climate · Life · History · Behind the scenes

Star systems

Overview · Planets · Life · History · Behind the scenes

Use == Section == for sections and === Sub-section === below them. Don't use single = headings — that's the page title.

Linking

• Link the first mention of another species, planet or system in each article; don't link every mention.
• It's fine to link to pages that don't exist yet — red links show what still needs writing (see Special:WantedPages).

Images

• Upload with Special:Upload, using a descriptive file name (Draconis Koi swimming.png, not IMG_2041.png).
• Only upload images you made or have permission to use, and say where it came from in the upload description.
• Every image in an article should have a short caption.

Templates

In the visual editor, use Insert → Template and search for the name — each one shows a form with every field explained. All fields are optional, and empty ones are hidden.

Template	Use it for
{{Infobox species}}	Any living organism — plant, animal, fungus, microbe or sapient species. Adds the page to Category:Species.
{{Infobox planet}}	Planets and moons.
{{Infobox star system}}	Star systems.
{{Stub}}	Articles that cover the basics but need more detail.
{{WIP}}	Articles someone is actively writing. Add a name: {{WIP|YourName}}.
{{Notice}}	A one-off notice banner with your own text.

Edits and discussion

• Write a short edit summary when you save ("added diet section", "fixed typo").
• For big changes to someone else's article — especially one marked {{WIP}} — ask on the article's talk page first.
• Canon questions (is this part of the universe or not?) go to ItsChugg.