Mystery Dungeon Franchise Wiki:Manual of Style (Terminology)

Terminology used by the MDFW in place of terminology we no longer use or disallow. This page will aim to educate and explain to you why we've chosen to use the specific wording choices we've decided on for the purposes of documenting this franchise. As a Wiki, we feel it's our responsibility to prevent the spread or propagation of misinformation, and this requires us to use specific wording or phrases. We also believe in keeping a professional standard for our articles, as well as a level of consistency across the project.

And

When using the & symbol, especially in page headers or links, it creates a garbled URL that we'd rather avoid. So we opt to properly spell out the word over using the symbol.

Excluded Words, Terms, and Symbols

• &

Character

NPC or 'Non-Player Character' is a videogame-only term. This precludes its use in articles for card games, manga, anime shorts, etc. So we opt to use the word "character", which is all-encompassing.

Excluded Words, Terms, and Symbols

• NPC

Hero

While we previously used to refer to the Hero in our Pokémon articles as the "Main Character" or "Player Character", we've opted to go with the word Hero as it's what Spike Chunsoft uses internally for them. The term "Main Character" also excluded the "Partner Character" who is also arguably a main character. Therefore, we opt to title our articles Hero (character) and Partner (character) respectively.

Excluded Words, Terms, and Symbols

• Main character
• Player Character

Manga

For the sake of consistency, we've opted to use the word "Manga" to refer to Japanese comics in the franchise. This is to avoid semantics arguments.

Post-credits

Post-credits is the only logical choice here. Post Game and its variations sound like something the player would do after they stop playing, not after the credits play. Post Story is also illogical, as many of the videogames in this franchise have Post-credits plots, quests, adventures, and stories. Post-Story sounds like something you'd do after finishing all of these things. Post-credits or post-credits should be used in articles to keep things consistent and logical.

Excluded Words, Terms, and Symbols

• Post Credits
• Post-Credits
• post credits
• Post-Game
• Post Game
• Post-game
• Post game
• Postgame
• postgame
• Post Story
• Post story
• Post-Story
• Post-story
• Post-Game Story

Unofficial Translation

The reason we've stopped using "Fan Translation across the wiki is two-fold. First off, not every unofficial translation is done by a fan, and there are examples of fans putting forth official translations, such as Shiren 5 for the Vita being translated to English officially because of a fan. The second reason is that we feel it's not academic in its meaning. We feel it's important to illustrate that these translations are not official translations. Meaning they haven't been officially licensed or approved by Kadokawa, Spike Chunsoft, any of their subsidiaries, or employees., and are, therefore unofficial.

Excluded Words, Terms, and Symbols

• Fan Translation
• Fantranslation
• Fan-Translation