Help:Making a page for a furry friend

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This guide aims to walk bearchivists through the process of page creation for furry friends. It can be used either to make new pages for bears that don't yet have them, or to convert pages using older layouts to the current version. It also provides resources that may come in handy during the page creation process.



Naming the page

If you're making a page for a bear that doesn't yet have one, the first thing you'll need to do is decide on the page name. Due to the way Wikis handle shortcut links to pages, each page must have a completely unique name, so The Build-A-Bear Wiki uses a few key details to create page names that don't overlap: the floor name of the bear (i.e. the name on the placard of a store display, or what a bear would be called in a collectors' guide), the edition of the bear (for bears that have been revamped; new editions will usually have Roman numerals on their hang tags numbering them), location availability information (for bears which have otherwise similar information but were exclusive to certain locations), the collection the bear was released with, and the year the bear was released. Once you've got a page name picked that is distinctive and does not overlap with existing page names, you can create your page, either by searching for your page name of choice in the top-right search bar and clicking the red link in "Create the page "(pagename)" on this wiki!" on the results page, or by using the red link trick. You will be taken to the page creation space where you can input and preview your text.

Example bear Key detail(s)
Promise Pets Black Labrador Collection + floor name
Polar Bear (1997) Floor name + release year
Polar Bear II Floor name + edition


In general, the rule of thumb is to aim to use only the key details a reader is likely to use to identify the bear. For example, a reader is not as likely to know that the Bearemy's Kennel Pals Black Labrador released in 2001 as they are to know that it was part of the Bearemy's Kennel Pals collection, and a reader is more likely to know that Hugs So Bright Teddy was released 2012 than to know that it was part of the Slumber Pawty collection. Don't agonize too hard about it, though - page names can always be changed if need be!

Pasting the template

The Build-A-Bear Wiki uses a standard base layout for furry friends' pages. Once you've got the page creation space open, the template below can be copied and pasted directly into the text box. 

{{Infobox bear

|image=[[File:|center|250px]]
|caption=

|nicknames=
|release=
|retired=
|countries=

|height=
|weight=
|fur=
|eyes=

|price=
|tag_name=
|SKU=
}}

'''{{PAGENAME}}''' was released in year.  It is not part of any collections/It is part of the [[collection]].

==Description(s)==
''Desc''

==Trivia==
* Trivia

==Bundles==
{{PAGENAME}} was not featured in any known bundles.

OR

{{PAGENAME}} was available in at least one bundle. This is not a definitive list.
<gallery>
Example.jpg|Caption
</gallery>

OR

{{PAGENAME}} was available in several bundles. This is not a definitive list.
<gallery>
Example.jpg|Caption
</gallery>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Example.jpg
</gallery>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:year]]
[[Category:species]]
[[Category:collection]]

Filling out the infobox

The infobox is the right-aligned box at the top of a furry friend's page that features an image and some basic statistics about the friend. Filling it out may look daunting at first, but once you've filled it out once it should be pretty straightforward all subsequent times. All fields are technically optional, and if a given heading has no fields with any data then that heading won't show on the live page.

Infobox field How to fill out
Image Add the image filename after "File:". If you haven't uploaded your image yet, you can write in the filename you want to use anyways, and when you preview or publish your page use the red link to navigate to the image upload. Most likely you won't have any need to alter the center or 250px tags.
Caption Leave blank for official product photos. This option is included in case it becomes useful, but it hasn't been needed yet.
Nicknames Alternate names a bear is known by. These can be official names, if a given furry friend was sold under more than one name (Example: Grogu vs. The Child, or they can be unofficial names, if a given furry friend is commonly called something else in the collector community (Example: Pumpkin Fun Kitty vs. Pumpkin Kitty).
Release The date a bear originally came out. This field should be as specific as possible, but only within reason: if you cannot verify a bear was released on a particular day, giving the release as a month, a season, or even a year is better than inadvertently giving false information. Always format dates in the American style with the month fully written out, e.g. October 27, 1997 (for more about this see Buildabearwiki:Style guide). When a bear was available in multiple regions but your release date only applies to one, or if a bear was available in store and you only have the online release date, specify this in parentheses, e.g. October 27, 1997 (US) or December 26, 2023 (Online AU). When you have multiple release dates, separate them by line breaks.
Retired The date a bear retired. For most furry friends we do not have access to information regarding exactly when they were retired, or even whether they are considered retired at all (for example, seasonal bears may sell out or be removed from the site after the season but come back the following year). Leave this section blank unless you can back up your retirement date with solid sources.
Countries The countries a furry friend was or is available in. This information can be verified by site archives, product hangtags that include country abbreviations, in-store photos, or sometimes secondhand sales. Countries are given as two-letter abbreviations, e.g. AU for Australia, CL for Chile, and ZA for South Africa, and separated with commas, e.g. US, UK, AU, CL.
Height The height listed on a furry friend's birth certificate. This is sometimes available on Build-A-Bear's product pages but is reliably on birth certificates, so things like archived Worthpoint or Ebay listings can be used as sources for this. Furry friends that can be looked up on BABW Digital Birth Cert can also have their height archived from there. Imperial units (inches) are listed first, when known, followed by a line break and the metric units (centimeters).
Weight The weight listed on a furry friend's birth certificate. See above. Imperial units (ounces) are listed first, when known, followed by a line break and the metric units (grams).
Fur The fur color listed on a furry friend's birth certificate. See above. Sometimes the color listed on a birth certificate doesn't quite line up with the way the bear appears visually, but the purpose of this section is to be able to recreate birth certificates using official information, so if there's a discrepancy there that can be put elsewhere in the bear's page.
Eyes The eye color listed on a furry friend's birth certificate. See above.
Price The value a furry friend originally retailed for. US prices are given without tax (because otherwise we would be here forever). Always include the three-letter currency symbol in parentheses after the numbers, as sometimes multiple countries use the same single-character symbol (for example, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all use the same dollar symbol for their respective dollars). Try to list prices in the same order as you've listed countries in the Countries section.
Tag_name The name given on a hangtag for a given furry friend. This is sometimes very different from the floor name of the bear; for example, Día de los Muertos Bear's tag name was E DOD BEAR.
SKU The numerical identifier used to track stock of a given bear. Due to the quirks of how Build-A-Bear formats SKUs, the initial digit is usually left off the number when written here. For more information, see SKUs.


Note about Canada: Build-A-Bear Canada no longer has a separate website from Build-A-Bear US, and does not have its own distribution center (all online orders placed by Canadians are dispatched from the US distribution center). This means that Canadians are placing international orders for furry friends from the US webstore, which does not qualify as verification that a given furry friend was available in Canada, even though Canadians technically have access to any bear that is available on the US webstore. Since Build-A-Bear Canada also does not have its own social media to announce releases, the only way to verify that a given furry friend was available in Canada is through in-store photos or hangtags that include country abbreviations. Similarly, the only way to verify a given furry friend's price in CAD is in-store photos or data. Much information about Build-A-Bears in Canada is missing for this reason.

Filling out the body text

Lead section

This is the paragraph that goes above the Table of Contents. It is a reasonably free-form section, but please remember to include the bear's name, the year it released, and if it was part of a collection (a basic set of sentences covering this information is included in the template above). Aside from this, feel free to have fun with it! Other information that might go in here includes a basic description of the furry friend's appearance, whether it was exclusive to a particular location or online exclusive, or whether it had a classic outfit.


Description(s)

These should be official product descriptions from Build-A-Bear Workshop. They will usually be found on the live site or site archives, but rarely can come from elsewhere, such as scanned catalogues or the Furry Friends Hall of Fame (2006). Product descriptions in other languages should be shared in the original language they were found in, but a translation can also be included in the page if desired. All product descriptions should have their sources cited (see #Citing your sources for more on this).


Trivia

This is a bullet pointed list of fun facts about a particular furry friend. Trivia can include any sort of fun facts you can think of, including misconceptions about a given bear, incorrect information about it given by Build-A-Bear, a bear featuring in a special Build-A-Bear media or event, what number a bear was in a series, ways to tell it apart from other similar looking bears, etc. If you can't come up with any trivia for a particular bear, please omit this section entirely rather than leave it blank (it can always be added back in if someone thinks of something to add).


Bundles

This section is meant to hold a gallery of bundles a given furry friend was available in, if indeed it was available in any. Three options are given in the template above for phrasings you can use - "not featured" for no known bundles, "at least one" for approximately one to five bundles, and "several" for more than five bundles. Please try to limit this gallery to about five photos; if you have many more you'd like to include, consider making a Gallery subpage instead by creating a new page entitled Bear page name/Gallery (example: Happy Hugs Teddy IV/Gallery), putting all the photos you'd like in there, and reducing the gallery on the bear's main page to just your favorite five images. If you do add a Gallery subpage for bundle photos, please add a sentence at the bottom of the Bundles section saying "For more bundles featuring (bear name), see [[Bear page name/Gallery]]."


Bundles are given with captions by default; for captions, use the product name of the bundle, or the product name of the bundle minus the name of the furry friend whose page you're working on (it's slightly redundant in context and can make the captions long and clunky).


Gallery

This section is a less constrained gallery of photos of a furry friend. It can include any available product photos, screenshots or scans from official collectors' guides, screenshots or scans of birth certificates, or "candid" photos of a bear in real life. Please be sure to only upload content officially published by Build-A-Bear (or the company collaborating with Build-A-Bear) into this section, unless you have permission to use a particular photo or scan (or if it's yours). Please also try to limit this gallery to about eight or nine photos; if you have many more you'd like to include, consider making a Gallery subpage instead by creating a new page entitled Bear page name/Gallery (example: Happy Hugs Teddy IV/Gallery), putting all the photos you'd like in there, and reducing the gallery on the bear's main page to just your favorite eight or nine images. If you do add a Gallery subpage for unconstrained gallery photos, please add a sentence at the bottom of the Gallery section saying "For more photos of (bear name), see [[Bear page name/Gallery]]."


This gallery is without captions by default, but if you feel that a photo requires a caption, you can use the same notation as in the Bundles gallery, of including a vertical pipe and the caption after the image filename, e.g. Example.jpg|Caption


Categories

At minimum, you'll want to add categories for a given bear's release year, species, and collection, if applicable. Release years are formatted just as the year, e.g. [[Category:1997]]; for the others, check Template:Categories to find the relevant categories (the category names match the page names!). You may also want to include maintenance categories; for more on those, see Help:Build-A-Bear Wiki maintenance.


Remember that while you can browse category pages such as Category:1997, adding a category label to a furry friend's page isn't the same as adding the furry friend in question to the category's collection page (e.g. List of furry friends released in 1997 or 25th Anniversary Collection); you'll need to manually add it in before or after you've finished with your furry friend's page.

Citing your sources

Any time a particular piece of information didn't come directly from you, please cite it! What sets wikis apart from other archival resources is the ability to cite sources easily, and we want to take full advantage of this.

Build-A-Bear Wiki utilizes a template called Reflist for the majority of its citation/referencing work. All you need to know to use it is:

  • To cite a source, write <ref name="(refname)"></ref> after the material you need to reference, and enclose your citation within the brackets. The reference name should be short, sweet, and specific; for example "releaseUS" or "prodpageUK."
  • Where {{Reflist}} appears on your page (it is already placed in the right spot in the template above), the site will automatically arrange your citations into a tidy numbered list.
  • More often than not, your citations will be in the form of a link, which means formatting them like a normal link.
  • If you want to add a citation to a page that doesn't directly link to any piece of text, you can include it in a bullet-pointed list underneath {{Reflist}}.

For more information about styling citations and formatting for links and lists, see Buildabearwiki:Style guide and Help:Basic formatting and_functions.

Note: Photos do not need to be cited in the References section of a page. If they are official graphics published by Build-A-Bear they do not need to be cited (though we would never say no to a well-sourced photo!); if they are community sourced photos or custom graphics made by a community member they should be cited in the description of the photo itself so the citation can be easily accessed anywhere the photo is used.
IMPORTANT NOTE: To combat link rot, please try to save captures of all pages you cite from Build-A-Bear's various country-based websites OR active listings on sales websites such as eBay, Mercari, Depop, or Vinted, on Wayback Machine, and cite the Wayback Machine version of the webpage. Build-A-Bear has a habit of removing product pages before they can be crawled by bots and automatically preserved on Wayback Machine, and sales listings are rarely crawled at all, leading to permanent loss of the data these pages once contained. Manually saving snapshots for each page you cite helps to prevent the source of your information from being lost to time.

Adding photos

The Build-A-Bear Wiki recommends utilizing the red link trick to add photos to your bear pages: type the filenames into the text input as if they already exist, and when you preview or create your page, open these red links in separate tabs to upload the correct images. Images uploaded this way will automatically load with the filename you've written into the webpage, so you don't need to worry about editing the filename to make sure it points to the correct image.

For more information about uploading images, including the red link trick, see Help:Basic formatting and functions#Inserting images. For more information about filename styles and consistency, see Buildabearwiki:Style guide.

In cases where it's not immediately obvious, for the primary photo (i.e. the one in the infobox), you should try to choose an image that features the furry friend in question with as few additional accessories as possible, in a relatively neutral position. For most modern furry friends, this will be a seated position that prominently displays the Seal of Pawthenticity.

Troubleshooting

If you're having trouble getting a piece of text to appear as desired, it's possible it's accidentally invoking some type of formatting supported by The Build-A-Bear Wiki.

HTML entities

HTML entities are sets of common and easily accessible characters that HTML will convert into symbols. Sometimes Build-A-Bear's URLs contain these, which can break links when The Build-A-Bear Wiki tries to convert them to symbols. To fix this, the initial ampersand (&) in the HTML entity will need to be written out as its own HTML entity: &amp;. Example: to prevent &reg; from being converted to ® (and breaking links that are actually spelled "&reg;"), type it out as &amp;reg;.


You type It renders as
[https://web.archive.org/web/20031210071143/http://www.buildabear.com:80/acb/showdetl.cfm?did=9&Product_ID=11410&CATID=1&Se_By=FF_Feature_14in.Lil%27Cub&reg;Butterscotch Build-A-Bear Workshop &reg;: 14 in. Lil' Cub&reg; Butterscotch] (2003) Build-A-Bear Workshop ®: 14 in. Lil' Cub® Butterscotch (2003)
broken link
[https://web.archive.org/web/20031210071143/http://www.buildabear.com:80/acb/showdetl.cfm?did=9&Product_ID=11410&CATID=1&Se_By=FF_Feature_14in.Lil%27Cub&amp;reg;Butterscotch Build-A-Bear Workshop &reg;: 14 in. Lil' Cub&reg; Butterscotch] (2003) Build-A-Bear Workshop ®: 14 in. Lil' Cub® Butterscotch (2003)
working link


Wiki markup

Wiki markup is a special coding shorthand that Wikis have built in. Similar to HTML entities, sometimes unfortunately-placed punctuation marks can fluff up either the link or the link formatting. When the markup is preventing the link from encoding properly, the HTML entity for the problem characters can be used instead (a list of HTML entities can be found here). When it is breaking the link formatting (such as a link title with square brackets [] prematurely ending the link), the problem characters can be enclosed in <nowiki></nowiki> tags.


You type It renders as
[https://www.reddit.com/r/buildabear/comments/18xz5u0/uk_cappybara_listing_has_appeared_onsite_listed/ [UK] Cappybara listing has appeared on-site, listed as "Coming Soon" - 4th January 2024 : r/buildabear] [UK Cappybara listing has appeared on-site, listed as "Coming Soon" - 4th January 2024 : r/buildabear]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/buildabear/comments/18xz5u0/uk_cappybara_listing_has_appeared_onsite_listed/ <nowiki>[UK]</nowiki> Cappybara listing has appeared on-site, listed as "Coming Soon" - 4th January 2024 : r/buildabear] [UK] Cappybara listing has appeared on-site, listed as "Coming Soon" - 4th January 2024 : r/buildabear
[https://web.archive.org/web/20141108102904/http://www.buildabear.com/shopping/store/[new]-PINEAPPLE-SCENT/productId=prod11150096 SCENTiments™ Pineapple Scent | Build-A-Bear Workshop] (2014) [new-PINEAPPLE-SCENT/productId=prod11150096 SCENTiments™ Pineapple Scent | Build-A-Bear Workshop] (2014)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20141108102904/http://www.buildabear.com/shopping/store/&lbrack;new&rbrack;-PINEAPPLE-SCENT/productId=prod11150096 SCENTiments™ Pineapple Scent | Build-A-Bear Workshop] (US) (2014) SCENTiments™ Pineapple Scent | Build-A-Bear Workshop (US) (2014)


Note: <nowiki></nowiki> tags will not prevent HTML entities from displaying as symbols.


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