User:Waitingforspring/PBstyle

This document is a proposed style / operations guide for Project Books. Please leave suggestions and comments on the talk page. After contributor consensus, these can be implemented as a wiki guideline.

Project Articles
Below are some guidelines and common practices for writing and maintaining Project Books articles.

General Considerations
The following are generally applicable for all articles:
 * Articles shall be written in English language, with US spelling.
 * Articles shall be encyclopedic in content, mentioning every aspect of the topic without bias.
 * Cite debatable information whenever appropriate (see below for details on what should be cited). Unreferenced information might be challenged and removed.
 * In references, page numbers from the first US edition of the book shall be mentioned.
 * Create links for other wiki articles whenever applicable; do not let pages get orphaned. One link for a certain other page in an article body is enough; lists and references might contain an exception for aesthetic considerations.
 * Write and capitalize the names of locations and concepts as they appear in the book (e.g. sun-drown-place instead of Sun-Drown-Place, Gathering instead of gathering etc).
 * Use in-universe terms, such as "sunhigh" instead of noon, "moon" instead of month.
 * On the Talk page of each Project Books article, the project-books template shall be posted with the appropriate grade.

Books
These articles form the bulk of the project. The following articles should be created on a book:
 * Main Article, describing the book in general
 * Cliffnotes, containing detailed chapter-by-chapter summaries
 * Gallery, presenting images of the book covers for various editions (if applicable)
 * Allegiances, listing the allegiances as presented in the opening of series books (if applicable)

For instance, for Into the Wild, the naming of these articles will be:
 * Into the Wild
 * Cliffnotes Into the Wild
 * Gallery Into the Wild
 * Allegiances Into the Wild

Articles on unreleased books may be created once the book's title is confirmed; please see this policy.

Main Article
The main article shall contain the following items:
 * The book infobox, filled out correctly. Author, cover artist, jacket designer, and publish date shall be referenced.
 * An introduction, mentioning what series does the book belong in, and which book it is in the series. If confirmed by official sources (warriorcats website, Erins' websites, or an Erin Hunter chat), the cat(s) on the cover shall be named and referenced.
 * The title shall be both capitalized and italicized (since it is both article title, and book title).
 * A The Blurb section, transcribing the blurb on the bookjacket or back cover of the US edition.
 * A Praise section, listing the praises this specific book (not the series in general) received. Each praise shall be attributed and referenced.
 * Blurb and Praise sections shall not be sub-sections of a "Bookjacket" section, like it used to be.
 * Blurb and Praise shall not contain links to other articles.
 * A Detailed Plot Summary section, describing the main events in the book in the sequence they are presented.
 * Aim for a summary that is neither too short, nor too long. It should be detailed enough to give a good overview of the book, but not as long as to get lost in details.
 * Summaries should contain links to other articles when applicable, and should be written in a clear and concise style, broken into paragraphs as necessary.
 * Summaries shall have spoiler tags at the beginning and the end.
 * Paragraphs in Blurb, Praise, and Summary sections shall be indented with one tab.
 * A Trivia section, if applicable, listing trivia items with references.
 * An Awards section, if applicable, listing awards and nominations with references.
 * A Publication History section with a bulleted list all US and foreign releases of the book, if applicable.
 * A See Also section, linking to Allegiances, Character List (category), Cliffnotes, and Gallery.
 * A References and Citations section, containing the reflist template.
 * An External Links section, pointing to off-wiki resources, if needed and applicable.
 * The Warriors Book navigation box.

Cliffnotes
Cliffnotes pages should describe in adequate detail (not too short, not too long) what happened in each chapter, using bulleted lists. Note that list items do need periods.

Gallery
Gallery pages shall list the front covers of all editions of the book, both US version and foreign translations (see the translation list for a list of foreign versions). The gallery is constructed with the cover template and its sub-templates. Cover images must be named according to this policy. If confirmed by official sources (warriorcats website, Erins' websites, or an Erin Hunter chat), the cat(s) on the cover of the US version shall be named and referenced.

Allegiances
Allegiances must contain the cats as listed in the book in proper format, with the following items:
 * Clan cats shall be listed using the roster template, in sections, with the sequence ThunderClan, ShadowClan, WindClan, RiverClan, followed by other groups if applicable (Tribe, Ancients).
 * Cats outside Clans shall be listed in a Cats Outside Clans section using a bulleted list.
 * Other animals shall be listed in an Other Animals section using a bulleted list.
 * The page should end with the Allegiances navigation box.

Notes:
 * Link all character names to their respective articles.
 * List only cats and creatures that appear in the book Allegiances. Other characters, even if they appear in the book, shall not be listed here.
 * Field guides and manga does not list characters, therefore they do not have Allegiances articles.

Short Stories, Plays, Essays

 * Official Short Stories and Plays need a main article and a Cliffnotes page. These should be constructed similarly to Book articles. Main article should contain a link to the script, if available.
 * Official Essays are presented in an article summarizing them. Article should contain a link to the essay, if available.

Adventure Game
Each scenario of the Warriors Adventure Game (published in recent books) shall be presented in separate articles. These shall contain the following items:
 * An introduction, with a brief description of the scenario.
 * A Requirements section, presenting game requirements, such as number of players, origin of characters etc.
 * A Location section, noting where does it take place.
 * A Progress section, briefly describing each step in sub-sections.
 * A flowchart (optional)
 * An Ending section, mentioning the bonuses or penalties the characters receive after completing or failing the mission.
 * See Also, References and Citations, and External Links sections, if applicable.

Other Articles
There are some other articles belonging in Project Books, such as reference articles. Common sense should be used and all distinct and debatable information should be referenced.

Housekeeping
The following tasks should be carried out by project coordinators or contributors in regular intervals:
 * Check the Concerns list on the main page and update as necessary.
 * Check if new books and new browse insides were released, and create and update project articles accordingly.
 * Check if new foreign translations were released, upload new book covers, update publication lists and translation table. For some tips on how to search for foreign editions, check this tutorial. Such information can be also found on fan forums.
 * Archive the PB Talk Page messages when needed. Note that Join Requests and Discussions go in separate archives. Join archives should contain 30 sections, Discussion Archives 20 sections (after which a new archive should be created).

Nominations
For an article to be considered for silver, it should fulfil the criteria above (completeness, references etc).
 * For a main book article to get silver status, the allegiances, gallery and cliffnotes must be already silver (or proposed for silver at the same time as the main article).
 * Allegiances and Cliffnotes can get silver status independently of the other articles related to the book. A Gallery can never get silver rating independently of the main book article; it will always be proposed for silver when the main article is.
 * Most of the time, we propose all articles of a book for silver at a same time (i.e. cliffnotes + gallery + allegs + main), but this is not necessary. For instance, one can propose only the Cliffnotes, and take care of the other related articles later.

After the contributors agree that the vote can be put up, and there are no concerns voiced, a five-day vote shall be initiated, and linked to the talk page. All members can vote, regardless of their project membership. If there are no votes in five days, the vote shall be extended by another five days.

Once a nomination passed:
 * The grade on the Talk page of each related article shall be updated.
 * Update the Quality Articles and Concerns section on the project page.
 * Note: If adding articles to the Gold list in Quality Articles, do not forget to remove them from the Silver list.
 * Update the Grades List with the new grades.

Feature Articles
As Project Books has features on the main page, a feature article should be selected each month. This is done via a discussion on the talk page where people give suggestions. If a suggestion is supported by the majority of the contributors, a vote should be put up where people agree or not if the article in question should be featured (and possibly get gold status). The discussion and subsequent vote should be concluded by the end of the month (so the discussion should be started in mid-month). Once decided, the leads should write a short summary for the feature box on the main page.

The entire book "pack" (i.e. main + cliffnotes + gallery + allegiances) is voted on and featured, not just an individual article (however, the FA template is added only to the main book article).