LEGO Message Boards Wiki:Manual of Style

General

• All articles should contain correct spelling, punctuation, capital letters and language structure.
• Articles should be written from a neutral point of view (that is, objective). Pointing out features of the topic of the article (e.g. a forum) is encouraged, but using sentences such as "this forum is the best forum because..." is not. Do not add personal opinions.

Example: Don't use phrases like "this user is the most famous user", because that is simply a matter of opinion. It's better to use facts that can be verified, such as "This user has the highest number of posts".

• A subject should be linked once upon its first appearance in the article's infobox, once upon its first mention in the article's lead section. Any more links to the same article are not permitted.
• No article should contain a video due to the fact that there are no official videos for the LMBs.

User Articles

Requirements

• Rank 5 or higher/Master Reader or higher.
• If the user is lower than Rank 5:
  • If he/she has a rank, 100+ posts made since the 2012 update.

Exceptions:

• If the user is a Wiki member.
• If the user made a major impact on the Message Boards, and their significant contribution is mentioned in the article. (Only a patroller or administrators may use this exception.)
• If the user already has an archive page.

Format

• A description of the user in present tense.
• A User template with all available fields filled out. A User template should consist of the following...
  • A signature (if they have no signature, just remove to field).
  • A SourceBox with the following:
    • The source (a link to their profile).
    • Activity status - active if posted in the past 4 weeks, inactive if not.
    • A link to their profile on this wiki, if it exists (if the user has a legitimate reason for not wanting their user article and wiki account linked, then they may remove it).
  • Their badge information (leave blank if they do not have any badges).
  • Their profile, including their rank and avatar.
  • A |Username= field if appropriate.
• Their number of posts and rank.
• Information on their roleplay.
• The specific forums they post in most. If they post in several forums, then just say that there's no specific forums they post in most.
• A user article should never use the {{DISPLAYTITLE}} function. If a user has a name that a page cannot be named, add the |Username= field to the user template above.
• Recommended order of sections and section headings:

1. User Template: A page should always start off with a User template, containing all the information available:

{{User
|Username="<insert user's name here>" or blank (page name default)
|Rank="<rank number>" or "AR", "MR", "ManiacR", "A", "M", or "S"
|Avatar="<avatar URL>" (like "https://a248.e.akamai.net/cache.lego.com/avatar/head1_torso1_legs1.png", must be Akamai-based link)
|Year="<year the user joined>"
|Signature="<signature image>" (like "Sig.png", don't include "File:";)
|Badge1="<first badge>" (either "Forum Founder" or blank)
|Badge2="<second badge>" (old rank, like "JuniorBuilder" or blank)
|Badge3="<third badge>" ("RoleplayRep" or blank)
|Badge4="<fourth badge>" ("Interviewee" or blank)
|PostCount="<old post count>" (number of posts on the rank badge)
|Source="<link to user on the MBs>"
|Active="Yes", "No", "Deleted"
|Userpage="<username on this wiki>" (leave blank if they aren't on this wiki)
|"<text after signature>" (use this to elaborate on signature, if needed)
}}

2. Lead Section (no heading): Short paragraph that describes the basic information of the user, like join year, post count, etc. It's common practice on most wikis that such a lead section does not have a section heading.

3. Description: Detailed description of the user (Which topics they post in, what their roleplay status is, etc.).

User Archive Articles

• User Archive articles should be in past tense, with the exception of the introduction, which states that the subject "is a user".
• Archives should follow the same general format as a normal user article.
• Archives should not contain current information which occurred after the 2012 Update.
• Archives, like all other articles, may be edited if necessary. However, the actual information is archived, and should not be modified. Rather, the format, grammar, and appearance of the article should be updated.

Forum Articles

Forum articles should contain:

• A list of major roleplays/topics in the forum.
• A {{Forum}} template, containing the following:
  • The image or logo of the forum.
  • The description of the forum.
  • An up-to-date post and topic count.
  • A link to the forum.
  • A list of subforums.

Topic Articles

Requirements

• Chat and role-play topics must have at least 300 pages.
• All other topics must have at least 75 pages.

Exceptions

• Patrollers and Content Moderators may use common sense when creating topic articles, i.e. topics which do not meet the above requirements, but are still relatively important to a particular forum or subforum, may be created.

Format

Format rules to follow.

Image Formats

This wiki supports 3 main file types : GIF, JPEG, and PNG. These image formats have different strengths and weaknesses. Here are the recommended uses of these formats :

GIF : This format is good for small images, like emoticons. It is also the only format that supports animations. It has a limited range of colors, though, so it should not be used for anything with a high amount of color detail (photography, etc.).

PNG : This format is very good for images that contain large amounts of the same color, such as profiles and topics, where the majority of the picture is the background color. For larger pictures like these, PNG has more effective compression than GIF, so it should be used for pictures like these.

JPEG :This format is not recommended for anything on the LMBs. JPEG's strength is for photograph-like pictures, where there are tons of different colors involved. However, JPEG is not good for pictures on the LMBs, because it may result in graininess on the background, and poor compression, because the background is all one color.