The Vault:Article layout guideline/Creature article

	For the general guideline, see The Vault:Article layout guideline.

 

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This page contains The Vault's article layout guideline for creatures and robots. It describes the standard layout for articles about organic and mechanical creatures (e.g. animals or robots).

Guidelines describe desired etiquette and common practice in the creation, editing and organization of articles on this wiki. Any registered editor is free to edit this page to improve its readability as long as the essence of the article remains unchanged. If you would like to suggest content changes or propose a new policy or guideline, please use the wiki discussion forum. See the policies and guidelines page for an overview of this wiki's policies and guidelines.

Infobox and categories

A few additional pointers regarding the applicable infobox and categories:

• The applicable infobox for creature pages is {{Infobox creature}}. For details on its usage, please refer to the template page itself.
• A creature page is only categorized in one category. The category depends on the type of creature (organic or mechanical) and the game it appears in:
  • For organic creatures, the category to use is the game-specific sub-category of Category:Creatures (e.g. Category:Fallout 2 creatures).
  • For mechanical creatures, the category to use is the game-specific sub-category of Category:Robots and computers (e.g. Category:Fallout 3 robots and computers).

Creature article layout

The layout is composed of three tables. The top and bottom tables are standard layout items found in every article; they are only included here for completeness and are collapsed by default. The middle table contains the actual specifics for creature pages.

• Yes in the "headline" column means that the article should have a headline of that name if you want to include such a layout item.
  No in the "headline" column means that this layout item should not have a headline.
• Yes in the "required" column means that every creature article should include this layout item.
  No in the "required" column means that not every creature article needs to include this layout item.

Standard layout items (top)
Layout item	Headline	Required	Explanation
Page management boxes	No	No	Page management templates are used if you notice that something is out of order with a certain article or section and want to bring it to the attention of other editors or administrators. If the issue affects the whole article, these boxes should be placed at the very top of an article; if only a section is affected, they should be placed just below the headline of the respective section. The only exception are stub templates; see Stub templates below. For a list of page management boxes, please refer to our template overview or directly to Category:Page management templates.
Project tags	No	No	Projects are joint efforts of editors who work together to improve a set of articles that cover a certain area of interest. Some of these projects have tags or boxes which are placed on the pages which the project affects; these should be placed below the article management boxes.
"For" template	No	No	{{for}} is used to make a reader aware of other articles they may have been looking for when entering the title of the current page.
Infobox	No	Yes	The purpose of infoboxes is to summarize data relating to the article. Infoboxes should appear in the top-right corner of an article. For a list of infobox templates, please refer to our template overview or directly to Category:Infobox templates.
"Games" template	No	Yes	{{Games}} should be placed just below the infobox (if there is one). It produces small icons in the top right corner of an article which allow the reader to see "at a glance" what games or sources the article relates to or is based on. The template should be used in every article; almost no exceptions exist.

Item-specific layout items
Layout item	Headline	Required	Explanation
Lead section	No	Yes	Short summary that usually looks something like this: "{{PAGENAME}} is a creature living in the Capital Wasteland of 2277." In general, it should contain: Name of the creature (and alternative names) in bold. General area in which the creature can be encountered (e.g. Capital Wasteland or Mojave Wasteland). Time when the creature lived/is encountered in one of the Fallout games (the starting date of the respective game). For creatures in FO1 this would be 2161, for FO2 2241, for FO3 2277, for FNV 2281 and for FO4 2287. Refer to the timeline for the starting time of other games.
Background	Yes	No	If there is any background story/history for the creature.
→ Biology/Specifications	Yes	No	In-universe characteristics of the creature, such as its physical attributes, behavior or habitat in general terms. The section should be called "Biology" for organic creatures and "Specifications" for mechanical creatures (e.g. robots).
Characteristics	Yes	Yes	Game-specific characteristics of the creature. For example, details about the creature's attacks or attack patterns should be placed here.
Variants	Yes	No	Variants/subspecies of this creature. A sub-section (with the name of the variant) should be made for each variant. Each variant sub-section should contain: A description of the variant. An image (no larger than 180x150px) of the variant, floated right. The appropriate game-specific variant of {{Stats creature}} with as many rows as necessary.
Related quests	Yes	No	If there are quests which are related to this creature, list them here (just link them, no need to go into detail).
Notes	Yes	No	For interesting things about the creature which do not fit into the other categories. Try to keep this section to a minimum.
Appearances	Yes	Yes	Which games/add-ons this creature appears in.

Standard layout items (bottom)
Layout item	Headline	Required	Explanation
Behind the scenes	Yes	No	"Behind the scenes" is the place for information relating to game development and cultural references. See The Vault:Content policy#Behind the scenes for additional information.
Bugs	Yes	No	Game glitches, short "bugs", relating to the article subject should be here. See The Vault:Content policy#Bugs for additional information.
Gallery	Yes	No	If an article contains a lot of images, it is often better to place them in an own gallery section than to have them clutter the article. Please see Help:Gallery on how to use galleries and our image policy.
Videos	Yes	No	If an article contains embedded videos, they are to be placed here. See our video policy for which kind of videos are eligible to be placed in articles.
See also	Yes	No	The purpose of this section is to list links to related topics on this wiki which may not have been linked within the article content.
External links	Yes	No	Links to external (i.e. off-wiki) sites which are not references should be just above "References".
References	Yes	No	If references have been used in an article, {{references}} should be placed here.
Stub template	No	No	A stub template marks an article as being too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject.
Navboxes	No	No	Navboxes are navigational aids which allow easy access to other articles in a group the current article belongs to. They should be placed at the end of an article, just above the categories. The most article-specific navboxes should be highest and the least-specific lowest. A list of navboxes can be found in Category:Navbox templates. New navboxes can be constructed with {{Navbox}}.
Categories and interwiki links	No	Yes	Categories and interwiki links should be added at the very end of an article. A full list of categories can be found on Special:Categories. For additional information, please see our categorization guideline.

See also

• The Vault:Content organization guideline