Crossgen Database:Manual of Style

The Crossgen Database Manual of Style is a writing guide for editors to keep the database running at a consistent standard of quality. Editors should strive to keep a homogeneous writing style, as if the entire site was written by one person. This means keeping everything as professional as possible, and living up to the values that we hold ourselves to as a site. Users should also work to correct existing articles as of the formation of this constitution so that they adhere to its code. Suggestions for things that should be added can be discussed on the talk page. If you're in doubt about anything on this page, don't hesitate to ask an administrator for assistance.

Cite everything
This should be self-explanatory. Nothing is taken for granted here. This is very strict... it's not enough just to mention that something happened, you have to mention where it happened. One of the great strengths of our site is the way that we seamlessly integrate character histories and comics, with each one complementing the other. Everything is connected. This is important because it makes everything verifiable, makes information easier to track down, and provides a more complete perspective of the DC Universe. Citations are quick, easy, essential, and they save you the work of writing up a complete itinerary of what happened in every issue by letting you summarize and link to the rest.
 * Bad example: There was a story written in the fifties where Joe Chill's murder of Bruce Wayne's parents was shown to be a mob hit ordered by a gangster named Lew Moxon.
 * Good example: There was a story written in the fifties where Joe Chill's murder of Bruce Wayne's parents was shown to be a mob hit ordered by a gangster named Lew Moxon.

Conciseness
The best writing on this site is whatever gives the most relevant information while using the least words. Remember the audience that you're writing for, and always keep significance in mind. On character pages, try to only write things that are relevant to the complete history of the character, and do your best to keep out trivial minutia... clutter and mess do not make good articles. Always summarize to the best of your ability. If the article is nothing more than a compilation of complete unedited synopses for every appearance in chronological order, then it's not a good article. That's the place for comics' pages, where people go to read every single thing that happened in a comic that's been mentioned. You are directly responsible for not wasting people's time.
 * Bad example: Superman knew he was going to have to fight Mongul, and it would be one of the greatest battles of all time. Before leaving, he stopped in Smallville to say goodbye to his parents. Pa Kent reminded him of an anecdote from his youth where a young Clark had struggled to deal with a bully, and it was a metaphor for his current situation. On the way, he thinks about Lois Lane as his greatest connection to the world of humanity, contrasting with his otherworldly nature, and what he would ever do if he lost her because of her human mortality. He also stops in Metropolis to enjoy a cheeseburger at his favorite restaurant. A flashback to his birth parents Jor-El and Lara shows them discussing sending their child to Earth, and how they believe it's his destiny to use his powers for good and protect those weaker than him. When he fights Mongul, the super-villain taunts him by questioning his heritage and asking why Superman doesn't take advantage of his great might to conquer entire worlds the way that he would use it, but Superman explains traditional American values to the alien warrior while pounding him unconscious in a very close fight, lasting exactly three hours and forty-seven minutes.
 * Good example: Superman fought Mongul and defeated him.

Copyrights
Please do not violate copyright laws. That makes us a sad database... and you don't want us to be sad, do you?

Don't make assumptions about the reader
Don't assume that every reader has an inherent basic understanding of the character that you're talking about or why they're important. We have a lot of casual readers who come here to learn about characters they've heard of but don't know anything about. Do not exclude them as an audience. Character pages ideally should start with a general overview of the character, their significance in the DCU and why anyone should care before launching into their chronology. An article about Hal Jordan that starts off with a lengthy explanation of what life was like for him in the air force does absolutely no good to a new reader, who presumably has to read the entire lengthy article and put the pieces together for themselves instead of reading a simple intro paragraph. This is not to say you should exclude more experienced readers by over-simplifying everything either, but if written correctly, you can easily appeal to both demographics.

Good spelling and grammar
This is self-explanatory. Here at the DC Database, we pride ourselves on having at least a rudimentary grasp of the English language. Please help us keep this standard up. If your edits are laden with spelling errors, they will be reverted. We hate going through and constantly having to fix other people's spelling mistakes. Everybody makes a typo or two now and again, we're not perfect creatures; but we should be able to tell the difference between your contributions to the site and your cat accidentally walking over the keyboard then clicking save while you're out of the room making hot cocoa.

Image policy
Officially in regular articles we only use images that are officially published by DC Comics, that means no fan art (no matter how good you are). Make sure your images are relevant and serve a purpose... whether it's a good view of the character in question, their costumed persona, their civilian identity, a dramatic moment important to the history of the character or maybe even something that was particularly funny. Images should be as high quality as possible, but preferably not too high resolution... that makes it difficult for users with slow connections. Everything about an image should be documented, including the illustrator(s) and especially the issue or source you got it from. Images that are really unnecessary or just plain suck may be deleted.

In-universe perspective
The histories of characters and events are generally supposed to be written as if you were an omniscient historian living in the DC Universe, not just some random guy. Try to write everything from an in-universe perspective and describe things as in-universe as you're capable of doing. This is not required where you directly need to talk about publication information.

Naming conventions
Our naming conventions are a well-designed system to keep everything on our site consistent. Having everything connected through complicated templating means that the pagenames we use are very important and the site mechanics break down if there are incongruities. The system seems slightly complicated at first, but is very necessary and makes a lot more sense when you get used to it. Before creating new character articles, make sure you're following these conventions and the page hasn't already been created.

Neutral point of view
Write from a neutral perspective, be objective and allow readers to make value judgments for themselves based on the facts presented. Don't be biased in your writing, just stick to exactly what happened and write about it without trying to glorify or vilify anything to an excessive degree.

Plagiarism
Don't steal shit from other sites... it makes us look bad. If you notice that something posted here is taken from another site, please report that oversight to us. Mistakes have been made in the past without malicious intent, and the early days of the site from several years ago saw some shameless Wikipedia cribbing that nobody is proud of (before we became an entity in our own right). This should all be gotten rid of and replaced with original content. Nobody likes a cheater.

Statistics policy
It is extremely rare for comics to publish exact numerical figures about the characters because generally most things like that tend to vary depending on the creative team. Characters usually don't have exact limits on how much they can lift or how fast they can run, because they're as strong or as fast as the story needs them to be for the plot to work. Ages are almost never mentioned because everything is on a sliding timescale... that's how the DCU has been around for over 75 years and nobody's aged more than twenty during that time. Heights and weights are given in handbook, but every artist draws the character differently. We do list these figures, but as more of a guide to information put out by the company than a concrete guide to the definitive fictional laws of reality. If you're going to change a numerical statistic on the site, you need to explain where you're getting your information from. You can't just change something because it doesn't seem right to you or because in some random issue you saw from the nineties one character looked several inches taller than he's supposed to be. Leave those numbers alone unless you have good reason.