Lana Del Rey Wiki:Policy

Lanapedia has various policies when it comes to browsing and editing the wiki. There are very few policies which apply across all Wikia. These can be found on the Central Wikia at Wikia:Category:Policy. Any suggestions, queries or explainations for certain policies can be directed at any of the administrators, policies are decided by the community as a whole and can be changed over the entire lifetime of the wiki. Policies work best when people edit co-operatively and assume good faith. While it's good to try to adhere to these policies, any accidental transgressions are fine, all editors make mistakes occasionally and they are usually fixed by other editors later.

Creating pages

Lanapedia is a wiki that intends to act as an encyclopedic reference for the Lana Del Rey fanbase, as such all pages created on the Lanapedia should be focused on the subject's relationship with Del Rey. For example, James Franco is a notable actor who has appeared in many successful TV shows and films, however on Lanapedia his page is focused on his friendship with Del Rey and his career is mentioned briefly for context. It is allowed to discuss subjects less focused on Del Rey but this should be kept to user pages, comments and talk pages, not a main article.

Getting started

Main article: Help:Getting Started

If you're unfamiliar with editing, use the sandbox to test out Wikia's editing tools and familiarize yourself with them. Press edit on articles with features you want to replicate to see how they've been done both in visual mode and source mode (two tabs at the top of the editing area) and then try to recreate them in sandbox. If you're having a particularly difficult time, contact an admin or another user you've seen with proficient editing skills on their user page and ask for help.

Choosing an article to create

Firstly, search the wiki to see if an article already exists, if not consider if the article is relevant to Lana Del Rey - is it Lana Del Rey's song, is it Lana Del Rey's album, is it an issue of a magazine that prominently featured (i.e. front cover) Lana Del Rey? These are good questions to keep in mind before starting an article. If the subject of the article is real and not rumour or speculation, if there is enough to say about it to justify a whole article and if the article is relevant, you're good to go.

Structuring an article

Articles should, where possible, begin with a lead paragraph that consisely delivers facts or an explaination about the article's subject. More in-depth information is usually included later on in the page under relevant headings. For example, films, songs, albums and other projects often will have a "Background" heading, which covers information about the early stages of a project.

References

There is never a bad way to have references in an article, although it's not always necessary. If something would be obvious to and uncontested by the main body of the audience reading the article, such as the statement "Lana Del Rey is a singer", it isn't necessary to include a reference. For more contentious facts, such as Del Rey's album before Born to Die being called Lana Del Ray, there should be a link to a non-fan source. Fan sources are often discredited as they are notoriously unreliable. Articles and interviews from magazines, social media messages from Del Rey, her team or label and visual or audio interviews (such as from TV, radio, podcasts etc.) are all good sources to reference.

If, when creating a page, a large body of text is being taken from Wikipedia, it is important to use the Wikipedia template so as to credit the original authors.

Unreleased songs

Del Rey, like many artists, has recorded material never released officially by her or any other legal vendors, however these materials are generally notable and deserve pages. If a song has leaked and is clearly by Del Rey a page can and should be created for it under the title of the registered name (if there is one), then the most agreed upon name. Any alternate titles, both official or simply prolific, can be listed after the main title in the opening body of the article in parentheses (see the article for "Trash Magic" as an example). When writing the lead paragraph, it's usual to include the title, alternate titles, the recording artist, and, if known, the writers and producers, date the song was leaked, year the song was recorded and if and where it is registered on any music registration sites.

If a song has been registered, or has an official source, such as a direct mention from Del Rey, a producer, her label, her team, interviews or magazine articles and so on, it can usually have a page of it's own with reference to the source where it came from be it the song ID on the site it was registered to or the place it was first mentioned. Only in special circumstances do song titles that are unleaked and unregistered with no mention from any producer or Del Rey herself qualify for a page, and this is usually only when a snippet of the song leaks. Other "unconfirmed" and unleaked song titles are added to the page List of unconfirmed songs, all other unreleased titles are added to a similar page, List of unreleased songs, for reference. 

Style guide

Lanapedia has a general set of rules used by many in the community when it comes to how articles are named and written for the sake of consistency and to clear up confusion. As an encyclopedia, the content written on the wiki should attempt to be as clear, concise and objective as possible.

Naming articles

The name of an article on songs, albums and other projects should first be written as close to the official format as possible. For example, "Gods & Monsters" was released with an ampersand (&) in place of "and" whereas "Guns and Roses" simply uses "and" - reflecting how they were titled when they were released. For songs or albums that do not have an official release, they are written in title case , and the use of "&" or "and" is decided by fan prevalence and what it was first leaked as, this is often subjective and can be contested by anyone. All articles on songs end with (song), all articles on albums end with (album), all articles on films end with (film), all articles on EPs end with (EP), this is because some of these articles will share titles ("Born to Die" and Born to Die) and thus all other articles follow suit for consistency. Articles about people use capitalization and spelling as they do. Articles which have no official title or name should be named with sentence case - the first letter is capitalized and then only proper nouns start with capitalizations (such as List of unconfirmed songs and List of unreleased songs).

Formatting and layout

Headings, like articles with no official name or title, should be written in sentence case. Articles on albums and songs should make use of the infobox template. If applicable, the lyrics section should be precede the credits section which should precede the references section. Internal links (links in an article that links to another page on the wiki) should be formatted as [[Article Name|text you want to be displayed if applicable]], use the "Add link" button in the visual editor to do this quickly. The name or subject of the article should be mentioned in the first line or so of the page and emboldened the first time.

How to refer to individuals and using internal links

After the first mention of a persons full name, it is usual to start using their last name to refer to them (Lana Del Rey is later called "Del Rey", Mark Ronson is later called "Ronson"). Exceptions apply if people have the same last name and only using a last name would cause confusion - in this case use the full name. If the person is known by a mononymous name or doesn't have a clear last name, refer to them by what is most popular.

Songs should be referred to inside double quotation marks (""), whereas albums, EPs and films should be referred to in italics.

If a page has been linked to nearby to where the title is being repeated it is usually not necessary to link to it again. In particularly long articles, however, it is normal to link to a page more than once.

Lyrics

If a song has official lyrics, sourced from Del Rey's website or an album booklet, refer back to these where possible. Occasionally, officially released lyrics will be clearly incorrect; use discretion in these cases and correct any mistakes there may be. If there are no official lyrics, it is up to the community to decipher and transcribe them. If the community cannot agree on a single interpretation, the interpretation of the majority should be used.

It is preferable to have no sign of uncertainty in lyrics, and lyrics can always be edited if and when they become clearer. If lyrics are unintelligible, mark the unintelligible passages with "[...]". For songs with multiple recordings, all versions' lyrics should be transcribed unless the lyrics are exactly the same. Remixes do not need transcribing unless additional lyrics are used. Lyrics should only be featured on the relevant song page.

In terms of formatting lyrics, sections of the song - such as verses, choruses and bridges - should be separated by a line break. Each section should be separated into lines which naturally follow the melodic and rhythmic phrases within the song. Sections should not be labeled and, if a section repeats, the repeats should be written out in full, not marked with "x2" or similar. Punctuation use in the transcription of lyrics is neither desirable nor undesirable unless the punctuation is necessary to the meaning of the song, such as quotation marks or question marks. If an editor has used minimal punctuation when transcribing lyrics, generally, other editors shouldn't edit the page solely to add extra punctuation. Similarly, if a transcription has added punctuation, there is no need to edit the page for the singular reason of removing it. There will always be exceptions and grey areas, but, as a guide, if the transcription is formatted correctly and most agree the words are accurate there is no need to edit the lyrics on a page.

Lyrics for songs with multiple versions should be ordered with the lyrics for the official or latest version first on the page, followed by any other versions in ascending order (Demo 1 first, then Demo 2 and so on - see the article "Diet Mountain Dew" for reference).

Use of media

Songs do not usually need to be linked to a source of audio (such as a Soundcloud or YouTube link). Official music videos are usually featured in the relevant song's article in a special template which lists the director, location, time of filming and so on. Live performances normally do not need to be linked to unless they are rare or a one-off. The use of pictures is encouraged in articles to elaborate on the article's content visually but it is not necessary to use many.

Categorizing

All articles must be categorized appropriately. For a list of categories that have been used in articles see here. It is allowed to create your own categories, but categories should not be too specific and should be able to cover a wide variety of articles rather than just one or two.

Summary

Policies are in place on this wiki to clear up edit conflicts and to make searching, reading and editing Lanapedia more consistent and easier for everyone. They are recommendations for how articles should be created and written that have been generated by the community and are up for discussion and change. The most important policy is to be respectful and courteous when editing, if you and another editor disagree on something discuss it together peacefully to try to reach a resolution, if it isn't possible, it's fine to ask for others' input. As long as, when editing, editors are aiming to create the best and most reliable resource for Lana Del Rey information, they are in the right.