Rules, guidelines and tips

ARTICLE CREATION RULES:

• Plagiarism will not be tolerated and will ultimately result in a ban for repeat offenders; the entire article must be your own, though direct quotes are accepted in most cases (as long as they don't comprise the majority of the article's content).
• Articles should be written as factually and unbiased as possible; any articles that show obvious bias will either be edited or removed outright.
• Articles should be around 500 words minimum, unless information on the topic is scarce. Longer articles are perfectly fine if there is an abundance of information on the subject, just try not to include any excessive or unnecessary content.
• Pieces of lost media are only eligible for an article if they are relevant enough to warrant one, ie. they must be relatively known amongst the general public; if unsure of a potential article's eligibility, please contact a staff member.

USER CONDUCT:

• All users engaging in flame wars, trolling, or any other kind of offensive behaviour will receive a ban; repeat offenders will be banned permanently.
• Do not spam in an article's talk page; such behaviour will lead to a ban; repeat offenders will be banned permanently.

ARTICLE FORMATTING GUIDELINES:

• The title of your article should fit in with the site's article naming convention, ie. Title of Media (status & brief description; year or time period).

-Article Title: Your article title should use capitalisation where appropriate. It should also give a brief description of what the piece of media is, as well as the year (or time frame) in which it was produced [eg. Mickey Mouse in Vietnam (1968 Underground Anti-War Short)].

-Paragraphs: Please break your article up into paragraphs, especially when dealing with more content-heavy articles. Too big a build up of text can be hard on the eyes, and could even discourage some from reading said article.

-Subheadings: Subheadings should only be used in articles of significant length. Compare The Columbine Killers' 3 Unreleased "Basement Tapes" (Recorded in 1999) and Pinwheel "Clock Man" Short (1970s/1980s Stop-Motion Animation; Existence Unconfirmed) articles for an example of the appropriate article length to warrant a subheading (or, in rare cases, multiple subheadings).

-Spell Checking: It should go without saying, but PLEASE spell check your articles before publishing them.

-Bold, Italics and Quotation Marks: The only piece of text that should be bold in any article is the title of the piece of media, as mentioned in the article heading [eg. the only thing bold in the Mickey Mouse in Vietnam (1968 Underground Anti-War Short) article is Mickey Mouse in Vietnam. You'll notice that it is also italicised; this is because it is the title of a production, and as such, should be italicised. Band names should be left as regular text, while song titles should use quotation marks, and albums, like all other productions, should be italicised [eg. HORSE the Band's "The Phantom Zone" from Ghost EP]. Similar formatting applies to episodes of TV shows [eg. the Aqua Teen Hunger Force "Boston" episode].

-Referencing: References should be made using the ref tag, and should be placed in the appropriate position, ie. the end of the paragraph/sentence/phrase that the information was used in. For example, here is an excerpt of code from the Mickey Mouse in Vietnam article, (purposefully broken with full stops to allow it to display as code, and not actually be implemented):

In a recent buzzfeed.com interview, co-creator Milton Glaser gave his thoughts on the short's rediscovery.<r.ef>[ht.tp://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/rare-1968-anti-war-short-mickey-mouse-in-vietnam-resurfaces June 20, 2013 buzzfeed.com article including an interview with Milton Glaser.] Retrieved 30 Jun '13.</r.ef> Additionally, in order for the reference to display properly, <refe.rences/> (without the full stop) should be placed at the end of the article, preferably under a References heading.

Here's how it displays when properly implemented:

In a recent buzzfeed.com interview, co-creator Milton Glaser gave his thoughts on the short's rediscovery.[1] ↑ June 20, 2013 buzzfeed.com article including an interview with Milton Glaser. Retrieved 30 Jun '13. -Hyperlinking: The only time hyperlinks (ie. non-reference hyperlinks) should be used in an article is when linking to another Lost Media Wiki page.

Hopefully that has cleared up any confusion regarding article formatting. Thanks guys :)

-dycaite