Autistic Characters Wiki:Editing guidelines

This page gives a set of guidelines for people who want to create or edit pages. Its purpose is to make sure that there is consistency in language and formatting over the different pages.

General style
In general we follow the Wikipedia manual of style when it comes to the nitty-gritty formatting. Most of it is pretty intuitive (keep consistency within a page, use a neutral tone of writing) so don't sweat it too much.

Canon characters
This wiki aims to document canonically autistic characters. The most important thing is intent - that is, the character was created to be autistic.
 * Stated in-universe: e.g. a character states they are autistic, a character says it about another character, a narrator gives this info, it is stated in a document, etc.
 * Confirmed by the staff: the director/author/show-runner/etc. gives explicit confirmation that the character was written as autistic.
 * Other official sources: a summary on the film's website, the blurb on the DVD box

Characters where it is heavily implied but never specifically confirmed will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Article structure
These are the different sections and the order in which they appear in an ideal article. Not every article will contain all sections, and it's okay to leave out sections if you can't fill them out at the moment. Adding extra sections and creating subsections is allowed (for example, creating subsections for the biography section if it is very long, or adding a relationships section).

When creating a new page, there's a little message above the editing field that you can click to preload this structure so you don't have to type it out by hand.


 * 1) Infobox - the template. This template must be present on every character page, even if it can't be filled out completely!
 * 2) Lead - a short introduction of the character, stating their full name, what title they appear in, and the general genre of the title.
 * 3) Character creation - information about how the character was written, developed and researched
 * 4) Biography - a description of the character's life
 * 5) Appearance - a description of their physical appearance
 * 6) Autism - specific source for the character being autistic and a description of the character's specific autism-related traits
 * 7) Reception - how the character was received by audiences (usually only applicable to major characters in shows that have reached a wide audience)
 * 8) Chapter/episode/mission list - a list of which chapters/episodes/missions a character appears in (this is especially important for minor characters in long-running series).
 * 9) See also - links to relevant pages within the wiki and on other wikis (such as the character page on the wiki specific for that fandom)
 * 10) References - a list of references
 * 11) External links - links to non-wiki pages that are relevant to the character

Language relating to autism
person with autism, autistic person, person with Asperger's, high-functioning vs. low-functioning - which terms to use?
 * Any terms the character uses are fair game. If a character self-identifies as a person with Asperger's, it's okay to use that term on the character's page.
 * The standard phrasing for this wiki is "autistic person". This is especially important if a character has not identified themselves with any specific terms.
 * Avoid functioning labels (unless the character describes themselves as such). Instead, try to describe the character's specific strengths and weaknesses.

Which characters do we accept?
Notability-wise, barring extreme cases, we accept any autistic character, no matter how small their role or the body of work they appear in is. When it comes to "problematic" characters or pieces of media: every character is accepted, regardless of how awful or offensive they are. Our goal as a wiki is to document, not to pass judgement.