Style Guide

This is an attempt to answer some questions about style through the wiki, and make editing simpler.

User Pages

If you're creating your user page, check out This Might Be A Wiki:Babel for simple instructions on setting up a display of userboxes. Remember, your user page belongs to you, so feel free to customize it and make it your own! Don't be ashamed to write a little about yourself, or how you found out about They Might Be Giants.

Discussion Pages

When editing an article's discussion page or a user's discussion page, the comment tab on the side of the page can be used to create a new topic. If editing an existing topic, indent your response by starting with one colon ( : ), or however many colons are needed if there are already responses.

After typing your message, click the signature button (pencil with autograph) or type --~~~~ (four tildes) to sign your post automatically with your name, the time, and the date.

Song Interpretations

If you would like to add your own interpretation for a song, click the "submit your interpretation" button. Enter a title for your interpretation (something simple, yet enough to make it stand out) in the "Subject / Header" field. Then, in the main text area, type your interpretation. When you are done, please sign your post. Click the "save page" button, and you're done!

Linking

When writing or editing a page, link everything than can be, or should be linked on the first appearance of a term. Years should only be linked if they are used in a context that is relevant to TMBG's history. Do not link subsequent appearances of the term. Don't be shy in making links. That's the power of the wiki.

See also Linking Policy for external links to media.

Capitalizing Titles

When creating a new page or linking to an existing page, please capitalize all words in the title.

Quoting Lyrics

When quoting a snippet of a lyric, use the following in this order:

1. italics on (two single ticks)
2. a double-quote (")
3. the lyric quotation
4. a double-quote
5. italics off (two single ticks)

The end result should be written ''"Something like this"'' and look "Something like this"

Song Themes

When adding new songs to a song theme page, or adding new themes to a song page, please insert them in alphabetical order with others in the list. There's no reason to just tag it on the end, after all.

Song Template

A song template exists under the link Song Template.

Lyrics

On a lyrics page, start with {{Lyrics|. The extension will dynamically insert the artist and year, but you can override that, by passing in "artist" and "year" parameters. See this example from Whence That Wince, in which the song was written by Walt Kelly, not TMBG: {{Lyrics|artist={{wp|Walt Kelly}}|year=1956|. In this case, the Wikipedia template is used, but you can also wrap the artist in regular [[ ]] wiki brackets.

Next, type in the actual lyrics to the song. There should be no end-line punctuation aside from question marks or exclamation points where necessary. When you are done, close the template, like this: }}.

If the song is an instrumental, the {{Instrumental}} template should be used, and the page should consist of this:

{{Lyrics|
{{Instrumental}}
}}

To see a list of songs in need of Lyrics pages, see the category Songs without Lyric pages.