This page documents an official Avatar Wiki policy.
It is a widely accepted standard that should normally be followed by all editors.
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Content
Fanon • Fanon standards • Images • Categories • Templates
Guides and advice
Creating a fanon • Fanonbenders
Templates come in handy to beautify a page and give it a more professional look. In order to achieve this goal, there are several templates that can be used on the fanon portal.
General info[]
Fanon and canon templates[]
To aid the maintenance of both the canon and the fanon portal, templates specifically for the fanon portal have been designed and they are distinguished from templates used on the canon side by their format. The names of fanon templates always start with "Infobox" followed by the name of the template. These are the templates meant to be used on the fanon portal instead of their canon counterparts.
- E.g. "{{Infobox character}}" is to be used on fanon pages; "{{Character infobox}}" is to be used on canon pages.
Nation parameter[]
The templates will have a parameter saying "nation", which is not to fill out the actual nationality, but it acts as a color switcher. Use "air" for orange, "water" for blue, "earth" for green, "fire" for red, "neutral" for purple, and "spirit" for gray. If the field is not filled out, then it will default to our site colors, brown.
Note that capitals should not be used. If a capital is used, e.g. "Fire" instead of "fire", the color switch will not work and the template will remain brown.
Images[]
As opposed to the images on the canon templates, the images added to the fanon infoboxes need to be added as a link, with the prefix "File" and the image size behind it. In order for the image to come out nice and clean, no "thumb" parameter should be included in the link.
- E.g: [[File:Katara.png|250px]]
The preferred image size for infoboxes in fanon main pages is 300px and 250px for all the other pages.
Parameters[]
Not all parameters of the template need to be filled out. In the case a certain parameter doesn't apply or the author simply doesn't wish to fill it out, leave that line blank or delete it from the template, and the parameter will not show up on the page.
Mandatory templates[]
In order to maintain a sense of harmony on the fanon portal, some templates are mandatory to be added on every fanon page.
Property[]
The {{Property}} template must be added to every main page and every chapter page of a fanon. The most important parameter of this template to be filled out is the "rating" parameter. More information about ratings can be found here.
Propertyother[]
The {{Propertyother}} needs to be added to any other fanon page that isn't a main page or a chapter page.
Author[]
The {{Author}} template is to be added on every single fanon page a user has written. This template will provide a quick link to the author's main category with holds all the works written by that author, so it's easy for people to peruse through the works of an author they like and read more from him/her.
Defaultsort[]
Not exactly a template, but it still should be added to the page. The purpose of this is for sorting reasons only, to aid readers who are perusing the A to Z (fanon) category by providing an alphabetical list based on the page name.
By adding {{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}} at the bottom of a page, that page will be sorted on its actual name, rather than on the prefix Fanon:
.
- E.g. {{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}} will sort "Fanon:When Air Nomads Walked the Earth" as "When Air Nomads Walked the Earth"
- E.g. {{DEFAULTSORT:Two Separate Lives}} will sort "Fanon:Chapter 1: Two Separate Lives (When Air Nomads Walked the Earth)" as "Two Separate Lives"
Note that whatever you've listed as the DEFAULTSORT on your page, should be identical to what you've listed behind the A to Z (fanon) category. More information about this category can be found here.
Other templates[]
Even though these templates are not mandatory to add, in many cases, they will be added by others because they give a cleaner layout to pages.
- {{Infobox series}} - To be added to the main page of a fanon.
- {{Infobox chapter}} - To be added to chapter pages. This template allows easy linking to the previous and next chapter than the one the template is added to.
- {{Infobox character}}
- {{Infobox battle}}
- {{Infobox event}}
- {{Infobox government}}
- {{Infobox location}}
- {{Infobox organization}}
Template creation[]
In order to keep the templates on the fanon portal organized and to maintain a sense of harmony, the creation of new individual templates -this means templates specifically designed for a certain fanon- is not allowed. All the fanon templates have been adjusted with the "nation" parameter, allowing the author to chose from seven different colors for each template, which should suffice to meet any author's preference. Any newly templates created will be deleted.
In the event that an author is unsatisfied with the templates at his/her disposal, he or she may create a template to their liking in their userspace. In the case they would want to host it on the actual wiki, the creator of said template should contact an administrator and ask permission to create the new template on the wiki as well. In most cases, however, the solution will be to alter the already existing templates to accommodate the new wish. Any requests for color changes will not be granted.
There are, however, two types of templates that may be created freely on the wiki without the need to contact an administrator first, namely the navbox templates and the icon templates.
[]
Navbox templates are specifically designed templates to list a fanon's chapters and/or characters and/or other fanon related pages. They are the only templates on which the author is completely free to chose the coloring without any restrictions. A helpful list for colors can be found here.
Fanon icons[]
Icons are little pictograms displayed at the top right corner of the page. They can be used to indicate the bending style or nationality of a character, organization, or a location. The icon should be created on this page, after which it should also be added to this one. If help is needed when creating an icon, contact an administrator.
As with the other icons templates, there is a distinction between the canon used icons, displayed by {{Icons}}, and the fanon used icons, displayed by {{Fanon Icons}}. If icons are used, they should be displayed by using the fanon template only, namely {{Fanon Icons}}.
Notices[]
There are several "notices" that can be added to a page to alert readers of specific things. Any notice added to a page should be added underneath the property templates as they are supposed to be the first thing readers see, in order to fully notify them that they are reading a fanon page, and are no longer reading objective information about the series.
In order to keep the page looking clean, the author may decide to hide these notices from sight in the case there are too many -this is usually the case when there are three or more notices on the same page. This can be done by adding the {{Notices}} template before any other notices on that page.
- {{CompletedFanon}} - When a fanon story has come to its end, this template is added to the story's main page.
- {{Spoilers}} - To warn any readers that a page may contain spoilers for the story. This template is usually added to character pages that contain information that hasn't occurred yet in the story.
- {{Inactive fanon}} - When the authors hasn't updated his or her fanon for over three months, this template is added to the story's main page.
- {{Discontinued}} - When the author hasn't updated his or her fanon for over six months, this template is added to the story's main page.