Matrix Wiki
Matrix Wiki

The following are a few style guidelines for articles here in the Matrix Wiki, and should be followed unless there is good reason to ignore them.

These aren't set in stone however, and while this page is protected against vandalism, use the talk page to discuss any point you would like to see added, removed or changed.

In general we try to follow the style of other similar wikis and Wikipedia, but there are some specific points that need clarifying:

Reality

What is Real? How do you define Real?

― Morpheus[src]


In-universe articles (that is, all articles other than those tagged in Category:Real-world articles) should be written from the point of view of the Matrix universe as if it is real, and not alluding to real-life things like actors or the films that characters are in.

Specific sections are an exception (e.g. Trivia and Appearances, including those in infoboxes), which are the only places such things are to be kept; the rest of the article should be written without reference to our world.

History

Articles should be written as if we are documenting the history of the Matrix universe, like most other fan wikis do for theirs. This means that everything is written in the past tense. For example, instead of writing "Character X is a Zion operative", write "Character X was a Zion operative", and continue to write their history in the past tense.

The exception to this is for plot summaries, which should be written in the present tense, following the action of the story. These sections are only relevant in the real-world articles on the films, Animatrix, comics and games.

Past tense should also be used on real-world articles (such as the films of the Matrix series), whose real-world history we are also recording.

"The" capitals

Man, what a bunch of egomaniacs

― Bluepill[src]


As many things in the Matrix series have names prefixed by the word "The", a standard is needed for whether or not to include this word when referring to them, and when relevant, whether to capitalise the spelling or not.

When unique characters have it in their name (such as The Oracle, The Architect etc.) should have "The" with an initial capital, as it is part of their name, not simply a "definite article" before their job description.

Places, however, should be lower case (unless it starts a sentence of course), following "the Matrix" which is used to help distinguish it from the first film: "The Matrix".

Italics vs. quotation marks

Titles of works in the Matrix series should either be in italics or have "quotation marks" surrounding them.

As there are are only a few works in the series, it is best to follow the Wikipedia distinction between a major and minor work for these articles, and use italics for the title of all the works, with quotation marks for the names of scenes, chapters etc.

Other media, either real-world or mentioned in-universe, should follow the Wikipedia style. The following are examples:

Titles

Normally, article names avoid characters' in-universe titles (e.g. Jason Lock rather than Commander Lock, Mifune not Captain Mifune); this is a pretty standard procedure in wikis, however there are some examples that make this a bit more difficult:

In such cases, disambiguation may be needed by including the character's title when they are first mentioned. The rest of the article may then assume that the disambiguation was made clear and should proceed as is normally written unless the article has need to keep enforcing the disambiguation.

In other cases, the titles seem pretty integral to their names:

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should follow in-universe usage to help readers who are more familiar with how the terms are used within the films. To further help readers, the first occurrence of an abbreviation may be expanded.

Initials

Nicknames

If redpills are known by their hacker aliases rather than their bluepill names (it would be a bit weird if we described the plot of the Matrix films referring to Neo as "Thomas A. Anderson" throughout), how about bluepills with nicknames?

Also

Companies

Should company suffixes be included, avoided, or follow common use (/common sense)?

Unnamed

Characters with no names should their names as credited in the films and other sources.

EngVarMatrix

The American spelling of words should be used except for the following, which seems to be consistently used in the franchise:

  • Councillor
  • Theater
  • Dialog