Star Trek Expanded Universe:Naming conventions

This page is considered an official policy on Star Trek Expanded Universe. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

On Star Trek Expanded Universe, we prefer simple naming conventions--the simpler, the better.

Guidelines on this page apply to both titles of articles and uses of terms in articles.

For new articles, use the name of the person, place or thing as the title of the article.

To create a new article, type the name in the search box and press "Enter". Names should be as simple and precise as possible--something everyone would recognize. If the article already exists, you will be taken to that article's page, or you will see the closest match in a list of search results. If the article doesn't exist yet, it will appear redlinked at the top of the results page, or you will see a message asking if you wish to create the article.

Avoid uses of the word "the" or "a" at the beginning of an article. Only proper nouns should be capitalized in every word of the title. For example:

Jean-Luc Picard

Dominion War

Battle of Betazed (not "Battle Of Betazed")

Do not capitalize if not using proper nouns. Use lowercase in all subsequent words (second word and thereafter), unless the title is a proper noun (name of a person or place).

Borg cube (not "Borg Cube")

Canopus plague (not "Canopus Plague")

Constitution class starship (not "Constitution-Class" "Starship")

heavy cruiser (not "Heavy Cruiser", "Heavy cruiser")

Sol system (not "Sol System")

warp drive (not "Warp Drive")

Note, articles will automatically be named with the first letter as a capital. It is not necessary for you to do this, unless using the word at the beginning of a sentence in another article.

Do not use special characters in the name of an article, unless somehow particularly relevant -- e.g., ', ", #, *, _, =, @, ;, , (comma), !, etc. Only if the title happens to be the name of a special article--say, a fictitious book or fan film episode title--should special characters be allowed. Avoid underscores ( _ ) in any case, as these are not necessary (using the spacebar on your keyboard creates the necessary spaces). Also do not use slashes (/, \). These create subpages (which generally do not qualify as "articles").

Certain events, if major, may be capitalized (Earth-Romulan War), but please keep the title as concise and short as possible. Avoid fancy wording:

Battle of the Bassen Rift (acceptable)

The Incident Between the Romulans and the Federation in 2379 (not acceptable)

Use singular nouns. Do not pluralize.

human

Klingon

Ferengi

Not:

Vulcans

Gorns

Ferengis

(Note: There may be variations on this guideline, depending on the situation.)

Spell out words. Don't abbreviate or use acronyms. Abbreviations are only acceptable in cases of widely recognized terms: FASA, RPG, etc. If referring to a canon series: TOS, TNG, etc. (do not link these).

When creating new ship articles:

USS Enterprise (proper)

Not:

U.S.S. Enterprise (improper)

If necessary to add a ship registry to the title (only in order to disambiguate--never as a first rule), enclose it in parentheses (not brackets [ ]).

USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Not:

USS Enterprise, NCC-1701

[[USS Enterprise [NCC-1701]]]

USS Enterprise NCC-1701

If there are two or more articles using the same title, they will be distinguished (disambiguated) by disambiguation pages. If your article must share this title, add an extension in the form of (extension), including the parentheses.

Vulcan (species)

Vulcan (planet)

Starfleet (mirror)

And, last but not least: Always remember to check your spelling... on everything!