Harry Potter Books Wiki:Layout Guide

This page is considered an official policy on the Harry Potter Books Wiki.

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The Layout Guide is designed to help editors understand how articles are structured on the Harry Potter Books Wiki.

Title

To change the appearance of the article's title at the top of the page, add the following code. An example of when it is used is if the title has to be italicised.

Example:

{{Title|''{{PAGENAME}}''}}

Top template

A template is placed at the top of an article if the reader has to be notified about something. These notices are:

{{Cut content}} is for articles that have information for something that was cut out of the final publication and therefore is not considered canon.
{{Delete}} is for editors to indicate a page that they think should be deleted.
{{Guide}} will direct the reader to pages with similar or identical names in case they were searching for something else.
{{Hub article}} is to signify that the article is covering two or more subjects that only the exact same information can be applied to.
{{Image}} is let other editors know the article has no images and to encourage them to upload one.
{{Real-world topic}} indicates when an article is for something or someone that does not appear in the Harry Potter universe, e.g. a book or illustrator.
{{Rename}} is for editors to indicate when the article name is incorrect and what it has to be changed to.
{{Spoiler}} is for recent material that readers might not have read yet. These are removed six months after it is released.
{{Conjecture}} is for a topic that does not have a given name in canon and has been titled according to their description.

Infoboxes

Articles will have a specific infobox designed for a type of topic. The infobox is a compact right-aligned box at the top of articles used to present vital statistics for the topic.

The name field of the infobox is reserved for the article's title including conjecturally titled articles.
When listing multiple items in a single infobox field, use bullets to offset each item. Do not use blank indentations.
Articles should not contain empty infoboxes, which is when no fields can be filled out other than the name of the subject due to limited information. Such infoboxes should be removed from the article until such time as more information can be added.
All infobox parameters should be listed on their own line, as should the closing brackets for the infobox as a whole.
The first occurrence of each information should be a link. If it repeated, it shoukd be plain text.
Leave unknown fields empty.
Infoboxes should have a "theme=" field to change the colour of it to something that represents the topic. These are:
- Template:Witch or wizard:
  - Characters who attend Hogwarts in the time period the Harry Potter books are set should have their Hogwarts house colour.

Main image

The image should not be larger than 250px. Images smaller than the default infobox size should not be scaled up.
Images other than those on real-world articles have to be an illustration. Read the Harry Potter Books Wiki:Image Policy for further details.
If the article is for a character, the image should be a close-up of their face whenever possible.

Types of infoboxes

Animals

Animal: for an individual animal (e.g. Buckbeak or Hedwig).
Species: for a specific type of animal (e.g. Hippogriff or Owl).

Characters

Character: for a character who has an unknown blood status.
Witch or Wizard: for those with any degree of magical blood status.
Muggle: for non-wizards including squibs.

Other

Location: for any type of location.
School year: for a specific school year where lots of important events at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry happened.
Real person: people in the real-world involved in the Harry Potter universe, e.g. J. K. Rowling.
Book: for both in-universe or out-of-universe books.
Event: every type of event.
Family: for wizarding or Muggle families.
Spell: for every kind of spell, whether they are a charm, jinx, curse or general pages including Jinxes and Curses.

Family field

The list of family members should only include immediate family, i.e. mother, father, siblings, spouses, children and grandparents. It will also have only the earliest known ancestor of the character.

Quotes

Example:

{{Quote|Haven't I taught you ''anything''?|[[Arthur Weasley|Mr Weasley]]|Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets}}

Every article can have an opening quote at the top of the page relevant to the subject.
In addition to the opening quote, further quotes may be used throughout the article body.
Quotes can be said by the article's subject or by someone else.
The description should include who is saying it and they should have a source provided.

Introduction

The introduction provides a short summary of the article proper.

The opening sentence should have the name of the article in bold followed by what is it and what book or source material it first appeared in. For example, "Arthur Weasley is a character who first appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."
The second sentence has to briefly describe who they are, i.e. if they are a wizard, what their blood status is, their education or occupation or any other particularly notable attributes.
It should be no more than 100 words.
Articles do not need an introduction if very little is known about the topic.

Article body

If the article is for a character, the first heading is "Biography". The other articles should have the heading "History".
Headings and sub-headings are generally not needed for short articles.

Appearance

This section is used to describe the physical appearance of a character or creature.
The topic should only be described by the way they are presented in the text/by Rowling. The official illustrations, e.g. those by Jim Kay or Mary GrandPré, or live-action appearances, e.g. Daniel Radcliffe, do not provide appropriate descriptions.

Trivia

For any notable details that do not fit in the other sections of the article.
This can include the author's comments, any mistakes in the books involving the topic or speculation that is considerably popular among fans.

Sources

Example:

==Sources==

<references/>

Items are added to the list by placing <ref>Source goes here</ref> after the information in the article.
These citations have to be made outside of the punctuation, i.e. after the period and outside any quotation marks.
If the reference is needed more than once in an article, the source needs a "ref name". These are created by placing <ref name="short code goes here">Source goes here</ref> on the first reference, and then just <ref name="short code goes here"/> in subsequent references.
Some potential references have a template which are listed at Category:Reference short links. These are for consistency and quick typing. In particular, they are used for references to books with their chapters.
- These are added by placing {{PS1}} at the end of the information.