DFLegends:Manual of Style

Beyond anything, start simple. Do you see massive tables and succession box construction and are you intimidated? Don't worry about it. Start with a list. A lot of articles that have tables started with a list, some started with a simple description of the title's subject. Then build on that and don't feel constrained by a direction you see some articles heading to. Make the article's own direction or follow the pattern of more robust articles if that's easier to you. Even walls of text are appreciated. Information is important, they can be sorted through and polished later.

Formatting should be adapted from Wikipedia where possible, but also kept as simple as the wiki allows. Don't mass-import Wikipedia templates that don't work and then spam them on pages with red links (or worse, red words ). Try to make an article from scratch instead of attempting to 100% copy the Wikipedia format.

Admins should take it upon themselves to - if they don't know coding - empty the content of the troublesome template and at worst, remove the corrupted information from articles if the user that inserted it doesn't make a show of adapting it to fit fandom.com display.

Example of how a page should NOT look: .

Do not be afraid to make your own templates or lift them from other fandom.com sites - we run under the same license, after all - or from Wikipedia, but please source them inside noinclude tags - or to adapt them for your own purposes. For example, the s-start template can be used for a character's family or even its slayer, as in this article.

When refering to common-use words that have little to no effect in the game, consider linking them to Wikipedia (ex. article ), to the appropriate fandom.com page where necessary (ex. Gandalf ) or to the Dwarf Fortress Wiki (ex. Article ).

Do NOT redirect year links to Wikipedia. We're going to make them disambiguation pages here... eventually. Besides, in-game years have nothing to do with Wikipedia years.

Two-word names in title
Try to keep character names to two words, for example Bralbaard Nilthatlosh instead of Bralbaard Nilthatlosh Åm. Note that the latter can be made a redirect to the former - but why bother when the wiki autocompletes names in brackets?

There are exceptions to creatures with short names such as Egu Odanez Exzas Otsmor or those with short third "names" (which is in fact an epithet) such as Shoveth Nåzomgenlath Sar, but when in doubt, follow the two-name rule.

Tables
Everything that works on Wikipedia should work here.

For a list of companions and kills, use this article as an example. For something more, see this article.

Note that the gender icons look better centered than aligned left. So you won't have to modify the table for every such instance, use mc and fc, which redirect to male center and female center; it saves a bit of work with only one extra letter than the ultimate shortcuts m and f.

Succession boxes
For documentation, see s-start.

We have two specific new templates just for this site: s-fam and s-death. The first is for family, the second is for slayed creatures. The title and description should be self-explanatory. For an example of both usage, see Zicab Ibonuzu.

Other template problems
Everything that works on Wikipedia should be easy to import here. Where a red text asks for a missing module instead of template, simply go to Wikipedia, find the page Module:The page you are directed at, copy the contents of the source of the page, then create the exact page under the exact title here.

Categories
Rule of thumb is that if 20 items don't exist that may populate the category, do not create that category. For example, megabeasts like dragons are around 5 per world, so a category titled Dragons of World X should not be created. Instead, dragons may be mentioned in a page called "Creatures of World X". On the other hand, if there is a world modded with 100 dragons, the former category is warranted.

As emphasis to the above rule, do not create categories that are likely to only hold 1 to 5 items. Aesthetic reasons aside, they'll likely rarely, if ever, be looked in, and if too deep and unpopulated, the category tree will be a put-off for readers to care to navigate too far.

One-page categories also give the impression that a wiki is deserted. Even in the case of Wikipedia, it gives the impression that the category is useless, the subject is over-categorized or that the category could be filled but there is no interest in the subject.

Red links
Generally, link something that you believe will be created by you or someone else and use an appropriate and consistent name, so that if the subject of the link is ever created, you won't need to backtrack through your edits to make dozens of redirects.

Redirects
Characters with minimal impact that hardly merit a page should be redirected either to a dynasty page or a group page in the case of void creatures. That being said, if a creature is redirected, it does not mean that all the information that could have been added to their own page cannot be added to the page they are redirected to. See for example House of Zemel Gethdazsug.
 * Characters with minimal impact

Why redirect?
It helps to make the wiki appear more "full". Dozens of one-line pages are more likely to put off readers from the wiki - wikis aren't twitter.

See also The Tholtig principle.

The Tholtig Principle
Let us take Tholtig Momuzidek, a legendary dwarven queen. She is responsible for killing over 2000 elves. At the time of the principle's originally outline, this wiki has 600 pages. Now, consider we make a table for all the names of the elves she killed. There are at least 3 ways to handle the content:
 * 1) The names are not pipe linked.
 * 2) All names are pipe linked and all links get their own article. Say we only concentrate on those over 2000 links and make one-two line pages for each. This would mean someone who uses Special:Random would arrive 3 out of 4 time to a two-line page about an otherwise insignificant elf killed by Tholtig. This is madness and a great put-off for whoever browses the wiki.
 * 3) All names are pipe linked, but each redirect to their group page. This allows various aspects of each elf to be chronicled without clogging the wiki itself and would allow the reader to find out the same information as if each had their own page, but in a more centralized manner.

Redirects from English names
Wherever possible, English names should redirect to their original ones. For example, Sumost Bastionshields should redirect to Sumost Shodeccemir. This should also be done in the wikitext of a page. Examples:
 * Incorrect: Sumost Bastionshields was a Law-Giver of Omon Obin.
 * Correct: Sumost Shodeccemir was the second Law-Giver of Omon Obin.
 * Incorrect: Sumost Shodeccemir was the second Law-Giver of Omon Obin.
 * Incorrect: House of Zemel Gethdazsug was the second Law-Giver of Omon Obin.
 * Incorrect: Sumost Shodeccemir was the second Law-Giver of Omon Obin.

This helps not only keep Special:WhatLinksHere pages be less chaotic, but also redirects have an impact on Special:MostLinkedPages. If you linked Aco Rinvuli as Aco Rinvuli, it would only add one single page to what links to that article and no links to Aco Rinvuli. Furthermore, if we will say Aco Rinvuli has 100 links and they would be divided between "Aco Rinvuli" and "Aco Growlimes", they would both get 50 links in Special:MostLinkedPages and confuse the reader into believing they are different characters with half the notoriety Aco, who is a single person, has.

Exceptions

 * Where you do not have the last original name and where autocomplete does not help you, it is acceptable to use English last names. For example, because for Orid Xem history has been hidden, we don't know the last original name of Zemel Splatteredtire, so we refer to her as such.
 * The Great War of Orid Xem currently redirects to Mishthemdeduk. However, these links should not be replaced with simply Mishthemdeduk, because the subject is of major import for Orid Xem. An article may spawn that is not completely subsumed to Mishthemdeduk and these links prepare for it. Until then, a redirect to Mishthemdeduk is the most appropriate since it is the group that started the World War. Moreover, such links help distinguish the group from the event in Special:MostLinkedPages as explained above.
 * Sandstone 22nd, 49 should not redirect to The Destruction of Señamatem. This is because while the date is most known for this event, other events may happen in that date in other worlds. Moreoever, the date is often link under year of death for those caught up in the Destruction of Señamatem, so an explanation for the date is possibly more appropriate than an outright redirect.
 * Monarchs - creatures that belong to an "official" civilization - and chosen necromancers should always have their own pages, regardless of how little information is known about them.
 * Immortal creatures: Immortal creatures, either naturally or unnaturally so, are important fixtures in worlds. While Urist McRandomDwarf may not warrant a one-line article, immortal creatures usually do.
 * Artifacts: As (near-)indestructible items, artifacts more often than not deserve articles. Though not all artifacts are important to a world, there are those of epic proportions or which have had wars fought over.

Diacritics
Currently, diacritics are sorted after the last letter of the Latin alphabet, that is, after Z. To avoid confusion, the following should be respected:
 * Where a page starts with a diacritic, at the end of the page this following form should be used:, where "Page name" should be the name of the page without the initial diacritic (Example: if the page is Ûsbu Sosturar‎, at defaultsort you need to write Usbu Sosturar‎).
 * If a name starts with a diacritic in a table and it is linking to another page, the linked article should be written properly and the display name should be without the starter diacritic, so the table can order the list properly. For example, for the above-mentioned Ûsbu Sosturar‎, link like this: Usbu.
 * Article titles that start with a diacritic should have a redirect from the title without diacritics. This is because fandom.com's autocomplete doesn't recognize the diacritic as the same letter without diacritic.