Undertale Wiki:Language

Language used in wiki articles is an important aspect to consider when editing. Using unclear or inconsistent language makes articles harder to read. Writing from a biased perspective goes against the wiki's purpose as a resource for canonical content. Writing in a non-encyclopedic tone makes the wiki feel less like a wiki, and more like someone's personal blog.

This standard aims to specify what kind of language is preferred on the wiki, and give examples of what is acceptable and what is not.

General

• Undertale and Deltarune were released in American English, and thus the wikis use standard American English.
  • No: In a Dark World, Kris's skin becomes cyan-coloured, and their hair changes to navy.
  • Yes: In a Dark World, Kris's skin becomes cyan-colored, and their hair changes to navy.
• The spellings epilogue, monologue, dialogue, etc., are preferred over epilog, monolog, and dialog.
• Japanese can be used to provide more context from the game's translation. If using quotation marks for Japanese text, Japanese quotation marks ("「」") are preferred.
• Present tense should be used whenever possible.
  • No: Interacting with the Bibliox in the overworld will instead have him say "... the ticket... it's under the ball machine..."
  • Yes: Interacting with the Bibliox in the overworld instead has him say "... the ticket... it's under the ball machine..."
• Do not use second person narrative ("you") when writing articles.
  • No: To find it, you must backtrack between the room with the Starwalker Bird and the darkening room after it.
  • Yes: To find it, the player must backtrack between the room with the Starwalker Bird and the darkening room after it.
• Language must be clear and understandable. Use simple language and sentence structure to benefit all readers.
• Avoid informal and casual language commonly present in everyday conversation.
  • No: She lives with her kids at the Dreemurr residence, located at the northern end of Hometown.
  • Yes: She lives with her children at the Dreemurr residence, located at the northern end of Hometown.
• Situations must be discussed from a neutral point of view, giving no bias, preferences, and avoiding giving unimportant issues undue weight. Avoid loaded language.
  • No: Notably, this attack freezes enemies solid instead of allowing them to flee.
  • Yes: This attack freezes enemies solid instead of allowing them to flee.
  • No: Interestingly, Miss Mizzle boasts of her beauty primarily as the HolywaterCooler, regarding her beauty within it as entirely objective.
  • Yes: Miss Mizzle boasts of her beauty primarily as the HolywaterCooler, regarding her beauty within it as entirely objective.
• Characters should be referred to with in-game pronouns. If characters use multiple pronouns in-game, their most frequent in-game pronoun should be used. Singular "they" should be used for an unknown character, or a character that is not referred to with any pronouns in-game. The reflexive form of the singular "they" used on the wikis is "themselves".
  • No: Susie is also loyal, readily wanting to assist a friend if he/she is in danger or troubled.
  • Yes: Susie is also loyal, readily wanting to assist a friend if they are in danger or troubled.
• Locations and characters with proper-noun names are not addressed using article determiners unless specified in-game.
  • No: King then allied himself with the Knight, followed by the latter's creation of the Eastern Fountain at the Card Castle.
  • Yes: King then allied himself with the Knight, followed by the latter's creation of the Eastern Fountain at Card Castle.

Punctuation

• Avoid grammatical contractions.
  • No: If Berdly's arm was injured during the fight with Queen, he finds he can't use his arm in the Light World.
  • Yes: If Berdly's arm was injured during the fight with Queen, he finds he cannot use his arm in the Light World.
• Oxford comma should be used for listings. Example: "Kris, Susie, and Ralsei".
• Logical quotation should be used for quotes outside of citations and choice prompts to preserve the original text. Dumb quote is the preferred quotation mark. Italics must also be used for a quote. Example: "apple-scented shampoo".
• Ending punctuation is omitted for incomplete sentences, such as in image captions.
• When making possessive forms of singular and proper nouns ending with s, add 's at the end.
  • No: Sans' name is derived from the typeface in which he speaks: Comic Sans.
  • Yes: Sans's name is derived from the typeface in which he speaks: Comic Sans.

Terminology

• Both wikis do not use the term "player" when referring to the characters controlled by the player, but only when referring to the entity playing the game. This is because "the player" is shown to be a separate entity from the protagonist(s) in both Undertale and Deltarune.
  • On Undertale Wiki, the character controlled by the player is referred to as "the protagonist" instead of "player" or "Frisk". This is because the name "Frisk" is a spoiler, and it is unclear whether or not the character is Frisk at certain points of the game.
    • No: Using the ITEM menu gives the player a Bad Memory if their inventory is not already full.
    • Yes: Using the ITEM menu gives the protagonist a Bad Memory if their inventory is not already full.
  • On Deltarune Wiki, the controlled characters are collectively referred to as the "party", unless only Kris is in the party at the time.
    • No: After the Delta Warriors defeats the Jigsawrys, they progress to a box puzzle with a locked gate.
    • Yes: After the party defeats the Jigsawrys, they progress to a box puzzle with a locked gate.

Article title

• Canon names: When picking article names, we try to be as close to canon as possible. If a subject is referred to in-game, use the most frequent in-game name for the subject as the article name. Otherwise, look up their name from game assets, developer commentary, or the newsletter. If the article name origin is not immediately clear, place a note next to its name in the introduction paragraph to clarify this origin.
• Item names: Item names are prioritized in the following order: spoken dialogue, obtaining an item, inventory name, then narration. In case of Deltarune, if a name is consistently different in a later Chapter, that name is prioritized.
• Sentence case: If the game consistently refers to an article subject using certain casing, that casing should be preferred (e.g. "Dark Candy"). Conjectural article names (e.g. "Susie's healing") or general article names (e.g. unused music tracks) should always be written in sentence case.
  • No: Toriel no longer answers the phone if called at the second floor at the start of the Chapter, which depicts her in her Church attire.
  • Yes: Toriel no longer answers the phone if called at the second floor at the start of the Chapter, which depicts her in her church attire.
• Singular title: By default, article titles should be in the singular form. MediaWiki allows for characters to be appended to links to facilitate pluralizing ([[item]]s comes out as "items"), but singularizing an article with a plural title requires piping ([[Darkners|Darkner]]). List articles such as "Unused attacks" are exempt from this rule, as most pages will link to a specific section instead of the main page (Horizontal Spades), and the plural title conveys the page's intent and scope better than a singularized title.

Undertale Wiki

• The term "Genocide Route" is used instead of the alternatives.
• The term "epilogue" is used to refer to the part of the game after Asriel's fight in the True Pacifist Route.
  • No: In the True Pacifist Route ending, he recruits Shyren to be his back-up singer.
  • Yes: In the True Pacifist Route epilogue, he recruits Shyren to be his back-up singer.

Deltarune Wiki

• The term "Weird Route" is used to refer to Deltarune's alternative route involving Noelle instead of "Snowgrave Route".
  • No: The Snowgrave Route is an alternate route in Deltarune that progresses over the course of multiple Chapters via Completion FILEs.
  • Yes: The Weird Route is an alternate route in Deltarune that progresses over the course of multiple Chapters via Completion FILEs.
• The term "Shadow Crystal boss" is used to refer to bosses which drop Shadow Crystals, as opposed to "bonus bosses" or "secret bosses". This is to avoid ambiguity, as the Knight is a Shadow Crystal boss that is not secret or a bonus, and the Mikes are secret or bonus bosses that are not Shadow Crystal bosses.