Dark Horse Database:Naming Conventions

Foreword

The Dark Horse Database Project contains thousands of articles and images. In order to keep the site organized we use a uniform set of rules when naming articles. These conventions cover the vast majority of situations, although exceptions may arise. The conventions are not optional as several, often unseen aspects of the site's inner workings depend heavily on consistency.

(Thanks!)

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General Conventions

Page Names

• Page names always begins with a capital letter. No matter what the circumstance or word that may start the article title. (This is a software requirement.)

• Spaces in the title of your page. If you are creating a page with more than one word in the title, using an underscore between the words is the same as a space. (This is a software requirement.) (eg. DC_Comics = DC Comics)

• The following words should not be capitalized in a page name unless they are the first word: (see above)
  • and
  • at
  • by
  • for
  • from
  • in
  • of
  • on
  • or
  • the
  • to
  • with
  • von
  • de
  • van

• Capitalize every word in the title (except as above). The convention prevents the confusion of whether certain words should be capitalized or not. (eg. Lex_Luthor_for_President, not Lex_Luthor_for_president)

• Do not use a pound symbol (#) in page names. The # symbol is reserved in html code to signify links to a specific area of a page. For more information on this subject, please refer to our help file on how to edit. (This is a technological restriction.)

• Do not begin a top-level page name with a slash (/ or \). Using the / symbol at the beginning of a page name can cause unexpected behaviour. (This is a software requirement.) Using a slash inside a page name is acceptable. If a page called 'foo' already exists, you can use a forward slash to create sub-pages of 'foo'. (eg. 'foo/bar') In this case, the forward slash symbol (/) is reserved in our software code to signify a separation between sub-pages. If 'foo' does not yet exist, the page will be called 'foo/bar' and no sub-page will be created.

• Avoid using a period (aka full-stop) (.) at the end of an page name. In certain cases having a period at the end of your page name can cause some very unexpected and unwanted results. This is not a requirement as this only occurs when the page is viewed with certain web-browsers.

Articles

Characters

• Character Entries. Character entries should be listed by the real name and world-designation of the character if possible.
  • If real name is given:
    • Real Name consists of: "First name" "Used name" (if not the same as first name) "Surname" "Jr" (if applicable). None of the names should be shortened in any way. Elizabeth Sherman (instead of Liz Sherman) and Anakin Skywalker instead of Annie (or Annie Skywalker).
    • Surnames must be the birthname, unless specifically legally changed. Luke Cage instead of Carl Lucas, Lois Lane instead of Susan Kent.
    • No degrees or titles (unless the full name is unknown or is too generic).
    • Characters use the naming convention of their own culture. The Chinese list their surname first, etc. Zhang Ziyi, not Ziyi Zhang.
  • If the real name is not given:
    • Any titles in the codename will be written completely. Doctor, Mister, Professor, etc.
    • Most well known codename is better than the latest, and the real name is better than the alias, even if it should be more complete. Deathstroke (Slade) instead of Deathstroke (Slade Wilson).
  • World-designation is given: The Earth-designation is listed after the real name in parenthesis. (Earth-One), (Earth-22).
  • World-designation is not given:
    • Universe receives either the popular name used of it, or the name of the comic book that universe first appeared in. (ABC) for America's Best Comics, (TCM) for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.
  • As long as a character has a specific universe of origin, that world-designation is given to him/her/it.

• Multiple Articles of the same name.
  • Articles receive additional parenthesis before the Earth-designation to specify the difference between two or more articles with the same name (and Earth-designation). Anakin Skywalker (Child) (G Canon)

Disambiguation Pages

• Disambig pages will be created for both, the codename most well known, and the real name of the character.
• Additional lines will be put under the entries that will tell the universe name. Anung Un Rama (Movieverse) will have Hellboy of (Movieverse) under his entry in both, the Hellboy and Anung Un Rama disambig pages.

Star Wars

• Special attention must be paid to Star Wars entries as there are, for most purposes of this wiki, four main levels of what is considered to be canon material. They are, in order of greatest to least authority: G, T, C, and S. A brief summary of what each level includes follows.
• G: Refers to the six Star Wars movies and both statements and any notes that are sourced to George Lucas himself.
• T: Refers to Television and includes both the movie Star Wars: Clone Wars movie and the T.V. series which goes by the same name.

Categories

• Categories. All Categories should be a sub-category (or a sub-sub-category) of the 'Dark Horse Database' category.

Comics Section

Page Names

• Naming Comic Articles. All comics should be named according to the following format where possible:

'x Vol y z' where x is the comic title, y is the volume number and z is the issue number. (eg. Superman Vol 1 3)

• • Please Note: There are no # or . symbols in the title (see above).
    • Previously, we used the format 'Superman 3 (Volume 1, 1968)', where this is issue #3 of volume #1 and this issue was first printed in 1968. This method turned out to add unnecessary complexities and is no longer followed.

Annuals

• Annual issues should be named according to the following format where possible:

'x Annual Vol y z' where x is the comic title, y is the volume number and z is the issue number.

• • The Title field name should match the name of the series, the Volume field should be the same as the series with which the Annual is associated, and the Issue number should contain the number of the Annual (eg. Annual #3)

Categories

• Categories. All comics should be tagged with the 'Comics' category and, where possible, the appropriate time category. (i.e. 'Category:2005, October' and 'Category:2005')
  This is usually handled automatically by the comic template.

Miscellaneous

• Appearances. A character's appearance will be credited by the "realname (universe)" used in that comic book. (Kal-El (New Earth)|Superman (Kal-El))
  • Special circumstances will be added in parenthesis after the entry, such as appearances as a corpse, in a flashback, etc, although templates exist to help create uniformity among these notes. See Category:Comic Appearance Templates for all existing templates.

Images

Page Names

• Use descriptive titles. Images should be named following the conventions as set out below.

Comic Images

Comic title_Vol_volume number_issue number.jpg (Please use .jpg, .gif or .png format, in lowercase.)

Example: Detective_Comics_Vol_1_233.jpg

Volume number is required, even if it is volume 1, and volume 2 does not yet exist.

Example: Detective_Comics_Vol_1_233_Variant_1.jpg

Variant numbers can be appended in the form Variant_variant number. (Does not apply to textless covers, see below)

Example: Detective_Comics_Vol_1_233_Textless.jpg

Textless covers should be named as in the example above, simply by appending Textless to the end.

Images taken from inside a comic should be named as above, with an appended, incremental number:

Example: Detective_Comics_Vol_1_233_001.jpg, Uncanny_X-Men_Vol_1_233_002.gif, etc

Volume number is required, even if it is volume 1, and volume 2 does not yet exist.

Character / Team Images

Primary subject_incremental number.jpg (Please use .jpg, .gif or .png format, in lowercase.)

Example: Bruce_Wayne_(New_Earth)_0001.jpg, Bruce_Wayne_(New_Earth)_0002.gif, etc

The incremental number must be 4 digits long to ensure there will be sufficient numbers for future use.

Miscellaneous

• Avoid Abbreviations. The title of a file for Superman: Man of Steel #30, should not be 'SMOS30.jpg', but rather more fully written out like 'Superman Man of Steel Vol 1 30.jpg'. This helps our search feature more easily locate these images later. It also avoids possibility of conflicting names. The first example is ambiguous and could be interpreted as either Superman: Man of Steel #30 or Superman: Man of Steel Vol 1 #30

• Do Not Use Special Characters. Special characters in the title of the image can produce unexpected / unwanted results. Some web-browsers (IE6, Firefox, Opera) may handle names differently and what you see, isn't necessarily what everyone else sees.
  Avoid: @ # % & * ~ and characters with accents, if possible.

Sub-pages

• In order to keep related pages grouped together, sub-pages are often utilized. Sub-pages exist in the same namespace as their parent page and can usually be found from automatically generated links in corresponding article templates.

• Some subpage examples include:
  • Character/Appearances
  • Character/Fan_Art
  • Character/Gallery
  • Character/Quotes
  • Comic/Covers
  • Item/Appearances
  • Location/Appearances
  • Staff/Artist
  • Staff/Colourist
  • Staff/Cover Artist
  • Staff/Editor
  • Staff/Editor-in-Chief
  • Staff/Inker
  • Staff/Penciler
  • Staff/Writer
  • Team/Appearances
  • Team/Fan_Art
  • Team/Gallery
  • User/Blog
  • User/Collection
  • User/Favourites
  • User/Gallery
  • User/News
  • User/Sandbox
  • User/Wishlist

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Please submit any questions regarding special circumstances or any other concerns to the wiki editors forum for review and we will either establish a new, relevant convention or direct you to the existing convention that would be applicable in that case.

Thank you again!

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