Kovopedia:Manual of Style

Welcome to the Manual of Style for Kovopedia! If you have any questions regarding content standards, this manual should have the answers. Repeated violations of any of these policies after warnings may be considered blockable offenses. Keep in mind that this manual is a heavy work-in-progress, as certain standards are still being experimented with, and many have not been clearly defined. If you would like to see any content in this manual amended, or wish to have a rule clarified or established, create a thread in the Talk Page.

Top Navigation

The vast majority of articles on the site will be divided into 2-5 separate pages where applicable: the mainspace page, an art gallery, a sprite gallery, and one or more party member page or enemy page. The top navigation of all of these pages will be identical to one another, sharing the same theme as the infobox.

Infobox

A page's infobox theme should always match the latest game in which that content appeared. For instace, Mokka appears in both Magical Vacation and Magical Starsign, but his infobox uses the latter's theme exclusively. Set the theme by setting 'theme' to 'mv' or 'ms'. This does not apply to characters who are only mentioned in a later installment, like Pistachio. This also applies to the top navigation.

Images used in infoboxes should never be sprites of the character; not even in-game screenshots. If a character has no official artwork to accompany their in-game appearance, they will not have a cover image and their portrait sprites will be placed in the appropriate fields. Where applicable, these images should also have a perfect crop. That is, whatever canvas the source image is on should be cropped to the edge of image's first non-white pixel in all four directions. That includes transparency. Often these images may only be published in guidebooks, in which case this rule may or may not apply.

Quotes

Ensure that you always use the Quote template when quoting any material. A quote should be placed at the beginning of nearly all pages, with very few exceptions. Do not use <blockquote> under any circumstances.

Cover quotes do not require sources, but any quotes in the body of an article do, as well as proper attribution to who is speaking and who is being spoken to. The party of a game is considered an applicable attribution absent any others if applicable.

Linking

In the first instance of any item with a page in a section being mentioned, it should be linked to its respective article. In some sections, it may be linked multiple times, though never in the lead or biography/history.

Bold and Italic Fonts

Bold fonts should be used to identify the subject of an article in the lead. It may also be used stylistically throughout the article on occasion, though never in the biography/history.

Italic fonts should be used to identify media, whether in-universe or out-of-universe, although the latter is more common. This includes game and book titles in every instance.

Canon

In the English localization of Magical Starsign―and the European localizations by extension―various names, descriptions, and dialogue are either altered, mistranslated, or omitted, and may not reflect what is established in the original Japanese version. The same applies to the fan-made English translation patch for Magical Vacation by magicalpatcher. For consistency's sake, articles should use the names and terminology featured in the English versions of both games, seeing as they are currently the only versions accessible to English-speaking players. However, it is generally preferred that Biography and History sections follow the canon established in the original Japanese scripts.

Any alterations or discrepancies can be explained in an article's Notes (via {{Notelist}}) using <ref group="lower-alpha"></ref>. If you are uncertain about changes to the game's canon in non-Japanese versions, consult with an administrator or Kovopedia's translator, Magicwindsock.

Perspective

Articles on the wiki are comprised of two perspectives: In-Universe and Out-of-Universe. Due to the nature of the series as being comprised of games, these perspectives are mixed more so than they would be in a wiki about a TV series or a film franchise, but there are still rules. Generally, biography sections should be written as being in-universe, with no outside perspective. The only exception to this is when a choice is presented to the player, where out-of-universe language is sometimes necessary, such as "can choose". If you are unsure of your language's perspective, it is advised that you consult with an administrator before publishing.

Images

Due to the limited nature of official images related to the series, an image may be taken down at any time if the user who uploaded it is unable to identify a source. To save other users from the trouble, it is required that a source be put in the image description. Images should always be in PNG (.png) format, including animated sprites.

Screenshots

In-game screenshots should be in the native resolution of the game with accurate colors and nothing outside of the game window. For biography screenshots from Magical Starsign, typically only the bottom screen should be displayed, though there are situations where said content also appears after a fade-in on the top screen. Gameplay-related screenshots do not have this restriction, nor do Magical Vacation screenshots in general.

All screenshots should also not have any custom names displayed, including for the other party members. Images in the game's native resolution can be easily edited to correct this without retaking the screenshot. If necessary for the protagonist's name to be displayed, they should use their canonical names as follows:

• Male Protagonist from Magical Vacation is Mash
• Female Protagonist from Magical Vacation is Mallow
• Male Protagonist from Magical Starsign is Galette
• Female Protagonist from Magical Starsign is Finanshe; in place of Financier, as that name cannot be used in English

Sprites

All sprites of a character should be 1:1 in palette with no editing done besides removing transparency. Even if you feel transparency in the sprite may be unintentional, do not try to correct it. This wiki is for the sake of preservation, even if that's not always pretty. All sprites should also be placed in the respective sprite gallery pages.

Portraits

Every character and race/NPC group article should have the portraits for said group, including both male and female when applicable. These are found within the infobox under 'portrait' and 'battleportrait'. If a character appears in and has a portrait in both Magical Vacation and Magical Starsign, you should instead use 'portraitmv' and 'portraitms' in place of just 'portrait'.

Portraits should be the left-facing variants in all cases where applicable.

Artwork and logos

Artwork, including logos and icons, should be sourced properly from the website or book they were taken from. Artwork pertaining to the series often feature color inaccuracies, which are allowed to be corrected by users if such corrections are non-destructive to the quality of the image. The original image should also be preserved at a different file name, so that the source parameter can point to that as the original image source. Images taken from books should be edited to have transparent backgrounds, and should ideally be direct scans with evenly-distributed lighting.