Editing Guidelines

The objective of this page is to improve the quality of Wiki pages by providing a list of suggested guidelines. Keep in mind that these are only suggestions, and not stricts rules.

If you have an idea for this list, please drop it in the Discussion tab above. This list will likely change as the Wiki project evolves, so check back from time to time.

Content protocols

When adding content and creating new articles an encyclopedic style with a formal tone is important. Instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated writing, Wiki articles should have a straightforward, just-the-facts style. The goal of a Wiki article is to create a comprehensive and neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about game aspects. Ideally all information should be cited and verifiable by reliable sources.

Edit screen(s)

Editing most wiki pages is simple. The Idlescape Wiki uses modern editing through Visual Editor. This extension allows for editing pages as rich content - a visually straightforward WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment. A detailed user guide can be found at Help:VisualEditor/User_guide.

Minor edits

A check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, etc. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. The "minor edit" option is one of several edit options. Editors should not feel that marking a change as minor devalues their effort.

Major edits

All editors are encouraged to be bold, but there are several things that a user can do to ensure that major edits are performed smoothly. Before engaging in a major edit, a user can consider discussing proposed changes on the #wiki channel or the article discussion page. Once the edit has been completed, the inclusion of an edit summary will assist in documenting the changes. These steps will help all to ensure that major edits are well received by the community.

A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is major (not minor), even if the edit is a single word.

There are no necessary terms to which you have to agree when doing major edits, but the preceding recommendations have become best practice. If you do it your own way, the likelihood of your edits being rejected or reedited may be higher.

When performing a large edit, it is suggested that you periodically, and before pressing "Save page", copy your edits into an external text editor. This ensures that in the case of a browser crash you will not lose your work. If you are adding substantial amounts of work, it is also a good idea to save changes in stages.

Talk pages

Every article on the Wiki has a talk page, reached by clicking the Discussion tab just above the title. There, editors can discuss improvements to the content of an article. If you ever make a change that gets rejected by a moderator or reverted by another editor, discuss the change on the talk page! It is very important that you conduct yourself with civility and assume good faith on the part of others. Edit warring (repeatedly overriding or reimplementing contributions) is highly discouraged.

Quick tips and tricks

Read the VisualEditor User Guide

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:VisualEditor/User_guide

Use formatting

Use headers to break complex topics into smaller sections. The words "Quick tips and tricks" above is an example of a header.

Avoid short articles for basic items

Idlescape has hundreds of items, but most are slight variations on another. We don't need a page for every piece of gear in the game.

Instead, create a single page for lists of similar items like equipment, gems, or fish. More unique items like rare weapons or compost may deserve their own articles.

Wiki features

If you feel like a feature or an extension is missing, please let us know.

External Images

The <img> tag can be inserted into wikitext.

Usage

<img src="" alt="" height="" width="">

Polls

The AJAXPoll extension allows one or more AJAX-based polls on MediaWiki pages with <poll> tag.

Usage

<poll>
 Question
  Choice 1
  Choice 2
  Choice 3
  Choice 4
</poll>

GoogleDocs

The GoogleDocs4MW extension embeds Google Docs' spreadsheets into the wiki.

Usage

<googlespreadsheet width="500" height="300" style="width: 50%"> Google Docs key goes here </googlespreadsheet>

Note: To actually embed a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet needs to be published with Google's File > Publish to Web... option. It is not sufficient to just have a shareable link.
The key should look similar to this: 2PACX-1vQtPv8TPdBFvyDX-OZ6wUq4iync9vBQk9wsIJ1nliflIcrO9zv9hgqDY0ePTvqoQ_gSzqEiFOUICcm.