My Singing Monsters Wiki
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Official Wiki Policy
This article shows information about the official policies of the My Singing Monsters Wiki. Please read this page, as it details how the wiki works, how you can contribute, or what kind of behavior is allowed on the wiki.

If you have any questions about the Manual of Style, please make a discussion at My Singing Monsters Wiki talk:Manual of Style or discuss with your local admins.

This manual of style details what type of content is relevant and within the scope of the MSM Wiki and how articles should be written to stay consistent. These guidelines should be followed to help keep this wiki as a quality resource for all to use. If you have any questions about the Manual of Style or want to request a rule change or addition, please contact an Administrator.

Writing Style

All articles should avoid using regional phrases and words in favor of English understood across all dialects. For example, using "kiwi" to mean "kiwifruit" is discouraged. All spellings should be in American English. Avoid using 'fluffy' sentences- using a complex sentence to form a simple thought can be confusing for readers and create unnecessary bloat. Also, remember that you are editing an Wiki, not a blog. Keep a neutral tone and avoid talking from a your perspective or the perspective of a narrator.

Names of individual Monsters, Decorations, Structures, Islands, Elements, Costumes, and Currency are all proper nouns should be capitalized. Ex: Plant Island, Mammott, Coins, Cozee Cabin. Common names for these groups of in-game items like "Monsters" should also be capitalized. An exception to this is when referring to young, adult, and elder Monsters, of which the first word should always be lowercase, unless used at the beginning of a sentence. Also avoid using “The” in front of Monster names, unless it typically is referred this way in-game or by the Monster Handlers. Examples: The Spurrit, The Wubbox.

Pronouns

Monsters are gender-neutral, so only gender-neutral pronouns should be used (such as "it" or "they"). The exception to this being Mammott and PomPom being depicted as male and female respectively in My Mammott and My PomPom. Additionally, the gender of a Monster's voice actor does not carry over to the Monster. Monster-Handler Matt is the voice actor for Fwog. Although Monster-Handler Matt is a man, Fwog remains ungendered.

Quotes

The whole quote may be written unless much of the quote has unrelated info, where it may be cut down using "[...]". For example with cutting down unnecessary info...

Complete the order of a Monster with a blue music note above its head to receive 1.5x XP and Coins! [...]
Quote from [this Facebook post]

Links

By default links should link to their appropriate respective articles. If there is an article with an MSM and DoF version, then link to whichever version is appropriate as according to the content the article is using. If it is talking about Mammotts in Dawn of Fire, link to Mammott/DoF; otherwise link to Mammott for My Singing Monsters. For the security of readers, links should clearly indicate what they are linking to. Links should add context or information, not a surprise.

Additionally, Links should be avoided in section titles.

Dates

To avoid confusion caused by using multiple date systems, all dates on the wiki should be spelled out. Additionally, dates should be spelled with normal text, rather superscript (<sup>).

Floating Button Cancel 3/15/14
Floating Button Cancel 15/3/14
Checkmark March 15th, 2014
Floating Button Cancel March 15th, 2014

Speculation

The main wiki pages are to be strictly factual. They shouldn't include personal opinion or a guesses. Any sentence that has a phrase like "this is probably because" or "people think that" probably doesn't belong in the main wiki. The same goes for any comparison about which things are "better" than other things, for example. It's okay to have such things in Discussions, blogs, and other "unofficial" parts of the wiki.

Logical conclusions based on evidence may have a place on the wiki. These conclusions can be subjected to debate and may end up being removed from an article if there isn't enough factual evidence to support the claim. For example:

Floating Button Cancel Whiz-bang will likely go to Light Island because it looks like it'd fit there.
Checkmark Monculus will likely go to Ethereal Island because a pattern of Anniversary Month sales correlates them together and its bio mentions that it is made of Krystillium, a material only known to be found in the Pocket Dimension.

Note that speculating what instrument a Monster plays before it's VST is confirmed is also speculation and should be avoided. An example of the best practice: ExampleMonster plays an unknown stringed instrument that sounds like an erhu or a lute.

Fan-made Content

Main wiki articles should only contain official materials that come from the game, Big Blue Bubble, or other sources that can be verified. Fanon, or fan created images and theories don't belong in articles, but can go in blogs, Discussions, and user pages. Additionally, fan-made videos about normal MSM gameplay should be avoided. This is done so the wiki doesn't promote YouTube creators. Videos that will always be unacceptable for article pages are videos of let's plays and simple how-to's (like breeding). Videos of full Island songs and individual Monster sounds are also not allowed on the wiki as per BBB's Copyright policy. (Note: Strangely these youtube videos seem to be excluded from this policy. The Wiki admin team is in the process of contacting BBB for clarification.)

Sourcing

The My Singing Monsters Wiki has much more relaxed sourcing policy than other wikis or Wikipedia. Generally things shouldn't be cited if something can be easily verified by looking in-game or proved by linking to another page that is cited properly. Information obtained through other means, such as social media or livestreams should be cited or accompanied by a relevant image. Most cases citations will be in the Notes section.

Adding References

You can add a citation, or reference, by using these following tags while in the Source editor: <ref>clarification or link here</ref>. At the bottom of the page (before the Navbox), add a section named References and then include: <references/>.

Notes

Notes are sections at the bottom of articles that include minor details and trivia. Some wikis refer to this section as "Trivia", the MSM Wiki always will refer to them as "Notes". The most important facet of Notes is that they are notable. Details that aren't important or relevant should not be there. Some common things to include in the Notes are Name origin and interesting facts shared by the Monster-Handlers. Here are tropes to avoid in Notes:

  • Secondhand/former notability - being the second or former most expensive Monster is not notable
  • Giant lists - if you can think of 5 other Monsters that also share a trait, it likely is not notable
  • Repeating earlier content - Details from Bios or release dates are already in the article
  • Observations - like making a physical description of something (unless it is about very noticeable changes across updates, such as the design changes of Hawlo, G'day, or Clavavera)
  • Arbitrary facts - like the first Monster whose name starts with the letter E to release

New Articles

When in an established category like Monsters or Islands, articles should follow the Sample Articles (to be created) provided. The New Content Checklist also provides how to add new articles of these types to the wiki.

When adding a non-standard article, it's important to determine if the article is needed or if it already exists using a different name. Common article creations that should be avoided are 'guide' articles. These articles usually can exist in a condensed form on another page and typically are written in the format of a blog instead of a wiki page. If you are unsure on how to approach a new article creation, make a Discussions post in the "Wiki Editing" category.

Templates

Infoicons

Infoicons are little icons that can be placed within the article text. They are usually the same size as the font itself, with some exceptions. They typically are used to represent currency or Monster elements

These templates can bring a lot of value to an article when utilized correctly, but when used incorrectly, can be detrimental to readers. As a general rule, icons should not replace text in main article sections. For example: "Mammott is a Cold elemental" reads better than "Mammott is a Cold Element elemental". The main exception to this is when using currency icons when paired with numbers. For example, "100 Diamonds" is acceptable, but not "Scratch tickets can reward Diamonds".

This is done to allow those with slow internet connections, read-only modes, or those unfamiliar with the MSM currencies/icons to still comfortably read the article.

Notice Templates

These templates are notices that are placed at the top of an article or section to show a message within an article. See Maintenance Templates for a list of these templates and how they are used.

User Templates

Templates for use on your personal pages should not be in the main wiki space. Instead, consider adding the template through a user subpage instead.

Image Descriptions

For more documentation relating to Images, see Help:Images (Mediawiki)

Descriptions can be added to images on pages for users that may use a screen reader or braille reader. These should be done on most viewed files on images, such as for Monsters images on Monster pages. These descriptions should be a physical description of the image. It should be short, but concise. You can add these descriptions by using the alt field. (Be sure to add a description with alt, otherwise it will show up as a normal caption.

Example: Note that this works with a caption
[[File:Mammott.png|thumb|200px|alt=Mammott is a white, hairy humanoid creature with a huge mouth and a cool skateboard.|Image of Mammott]]

Files

Main article: My Singing Monsters Wiki:File Policy

Naming

Most files on the My Singing Monsters Wiki should follow a set naming scheme. Names for official or possible future Monsters or similar content should also be reserved for official images. For example: "Epic Yawstrich.png" is a possible future Monster, and show should not be the name of a fanon image.

Categorization

All files should also be categorized (as shown on My Singing Monsters Wiki:File Policy#Categories.

Sound Samples

In accordance with Big Blue Bubble Copyright Policy, sound samples of Monsters are to be less than 5 seconds (or somewhere around this boundary +-1 seconds). This should demonstrate how the Monster sounds with the balance of shortness and quality of representation of the Monster's music. If an official sample exists (i.e. a memory sound or Monster Book sound), that should always be used instead.

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