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Help:Guidelines

From The Namco Tales Forum Wiki

We would like to keep a clean, organized and well-formatted wiki. As such, I have outlined some simple guidelines to follow for all articles; you are asked to observe them at all times. Note that these guidelines do not cover how to edit, but only style and other conventions. It does not treat the technical aspect of the wiki code unless necessary.

Please read this document, or at the very least the "Editing" section, before editing. If you are familiar with Wikipedia's Manual of Style and policies, then most of this will be familiar to you. You are nonetheless encouraged to take a look at this document to become familiar with the minor differences for issues exclusive to this wiki.

For complaints regarding privacy, personal attacks or edit warring, please see #Complaints, below.

Contents

[edit] Editing

[edit] Mind your manners

  • Please make use of the Edit Summary in order to describe an edit.
  • Please sign your comments on Talk pages only using four tildes: ~~~~
  • NO PERSONAL ATTACKS against somebody in either articles or Talk pages. Really, do we need more eDrama because some idiot decided to attack someone in their article and the subject gets offended? If it's an honest-to-goodness truth, try to keep it in a neutral tone.
  • Respect privacy. A user is free to request that any personally identifiable information (whether it links them to their real-life persona or to other online communities) be removed, although proof of their Tales identity is the user's burden.
  • Complaints: Don't confront a user if it will obviously lead to flaming, edit warring, etc. If you have sufficient proof that the other user is at fault, file a complaint with an administrator instead.
  • Do not blank articles. It's considered vandalism and horrible etiquette.
    • If an article is full of crap with nothing salvageable, put it up for deletion (see Deletion guidelines, below), but don't blank it.
  • Three Revert Rule ("3RR"): Do not revert an article more than three times in a given day (except in obvious cases, such as blatant vandalism). This is to prevent edit warring.
  • Edit warring: Avoid edit wars. Instead, discuss changes on the Talk page. If needed, please call an active administrator to mediate the argument or deal with the problem.

[edit] Language

  • Reread your articles.
  • Observe proper English rules.
  • Check your style. Articles should be written in formal English; they shouldn't be written in a casual or colloquial form.
    • Keep a neutral, encyclopedic tone.
    • Write in the third person and try to avoid addressing the readers (i.e. avoid using "you/your").
    • Exceptions can be made for humor. Colloquialisms and oral grammar aside, such humor must still, however, be proper English.

[edit] Article content

  • Stick to the facts.
  • Cite your sources using footnotes. Since this wiki mostly references the Tales forums, a lot of citations should be posts or topics—these should use the {{cite topic}} template in footnotes (click for more information on its use).
  • Minimize PoV. This goes both ways: neither glorifying nor attacking/bashing should be present in articles.
    • Some exceptions will be made for tone and mild PoV. Humor, in particular, will generally be allowed as long as it remains in good taste and does not constitute a personal attack.
  • Try to keep external links in the "External links" section of an article and external links as citations in reference tags (see Wikipedia:Footnotes on Wikipedia).

[edit] Formatting

Note: Some types of articles have more specific conventions. For more, see Help:Formatting.

[edit] Introduction

  • The first section (or, for short articles without sections, first paragraph) should only introduce the subject. Details should be left to the rest of the article.
  • Name the subject and synonyms/other names, both in bold, near the beginning of the first sentence. Do not bold every instance of the subject in the text, however.
  • Limit the amount of wiki-links in the first sentence.
  • Sections should start using the second-level header (two equal signs on either side). Don't use level one, because the title of the article is already a level one header.
    • Note that the article title is automatically displayed; it is not necessary to add a header at the top of the article.

[edit] Links

  • A link to a term should only be made the first time it is mentioned (or only every once in a while if it recurs many times in a long article).
  • Note that links, categories, templates, etc. are case sensitive except for the first letter. Observe proper capitalization rules, even when making links; if a linked article's title causes a problem, use a piped link, like this: [[Article name|display text]].
  • Thread links: If you mention a thread, do not link its name to the thread. Instead, use a reference footnote and the {{cite topic}} template. Place the reference right after the thread's name.
    • Exception: Follow the conventions for articles on topics.

[edit] Use of bold

The use of bold font should be in accordance with Wikipedia policy.

  • In the first paragraph of any article, put the article name and any synonyms (including acronyms) in boldface.
  • The Wiki software automatically puts headings (section titles) in boldface.
  • Use italics, not boldface, for emphasis. Use bold only in special cases:

[edit] Use of italics

Italics should be used in the following circumstances:

  • In accordance with the Wikipedia Manual of Style.
  • Use sparingly as emphasis.
  • For the name of topics/threads on the forums.
  • For titles of books, video games, films, plays, television series, and other long works.
    • Don't use for short works.
  • Don't italicize quotations, unless the original quote calls for italics at some point.
  • Italicize words when you're writing about words as words or letters as letters. For example:
    • Deuce means ‘two’.
    • The term panning is derived from panorama, which was coined in 1787.
    • The most common letter in English is e.

[edit] Use of double quotation marks

  • Use for direct quotations.
  • Use for shorter works, i.e. any kind of work that doesn't fall under italics. This includes articles, essays, short stories and poems, chapters, episodes, songs and singles.

[edit] Naming conventions

  • Titles use normal case, not title case. In other words, only the first letter of the name (which is automatically capitalized by the Wiki software) and proper nouns should be capitalized; all other words should be lowercase. Some early categories or templates may be exceptions, but all new entries must follow this convention.
  • This applies to all titles:
    • Article names
    • Section names in articles
    • Category names
    • Template names

[edit] Categories

[edit] Templates

  • There are various templates that you can use as needed on pages. While some of them can be used just by adding the template, others have particular syntax; check the documentation on the template page for that. (Also note that some are not working properly; this will be indicated in bold letters at the top of the documentation.)
  • A list of templates can be found at Category:All templates.
  • The basic syntax for a template is: {{template}}
  • A template that accepts arguments uses vertical lines to separate its arguments: {{template|argument 1|argument 2|argument 3}}
  • A template can also have named arguments. In this case, the argument's name is typed, followed by an equal sign then the argument itself. Example: {{template|date=May 2007}}.
  • Notable templates:
    • Stubs (see below)
    • {{wrongtitle|correct title}} - Use for articles whose title is not correct for some reason. The first argument is the correct title of the article.
      • Related: {{lowercase|correct title}} - Use for articles whose title's first letter should be lowercase. (Remember, the wiki software automatically capitalizes it.)
    • {{fact}} - Shows a small message asking to check a statement for truthfulness. Use in article text after statements that seem doubtful to ask to have it checked.
    • {{verify}} - Use this at the top of articles when the whole article seems false or doubtful.
    • {{tag|tag text}} - Make tags in the same style as {{fact}}, when a suitable template does not exist.
    • {{unsigned|name|date and time in UTC/GMT}} - Use to note unsigned comments on talk pages. The first argument is the user's name (or IP number for anonymous users), and the second is the date and time in UTC (also known as GMT).

[edit] Stubs

  • A stub is a short article that could easily be expanded with new information by nearly anyone who knew something about the subject.
  • As a general rule, an article is no longer a stub when it contains multiple paragraphs and/or can be or is divided into multiple sections containing at least the equivalent of two large paragraphs each. Lists do not count, and adding two paragraphs to a two-line article only makes it a bigger stub.
  • A stub is not a blank article with a stub template on it. These blank articles are useless and spammy and will be deleted on sight.
  • Stub templates go at the bottom of a page. Preferably, put it right above the categories.
  • Use {{stub}} for general stub articles.
  • Use {{user stub}} for stub articles on users.
  • See Category:Stub templates to see if any other stub categories have been made since this list was last edited.

[edit] Administrators

  • A list of administrators and their status (active or inactive) can be found at The Namco Tales Forum Wiki:administrators. You can also find a list of administrators generated by the Wiki software at Special:Listusers/sysop (it doesn't specify activity, however).
  • If you have any problems with other users (e.g. a personal attack or edit war), please call one of the administrators of the wiki to moderate the argument or deal with the problem.
  • Likewise, if you require page protection or another service from an administrator, feel free to contact one of them. Note, however, that page protection or semi-protection will only be granted when absolutely necessary: heavily vandalized pages, pages in an edit dispute to allow for the participants to calm down and discuss the problem, common pages whose vandalism would affect many users (e.g. heavily-vandalized templates, Javascript utilities for users), etc.

[edit] Complaints

  • If possible, try to discuss the problem with the user calmly. Don't continue on if it'll visibly lead to trouble, and don't resort to flaming or edit warring.
  • If you cannot resolve a problem with another user, you are encouraged to contact an active administrator via their Talk page to help you resolve the problem.
  • Please only report major problems with personal attacks, edit warring or disagreement on content that apparently won't be resolved through discussion, and privacy issues.

[edit] Deletion procedure

  • To put a page up for deletion, put a delete template at the top: {{delete}}. Do not replace the page contents with this tag. Then go to Category talk:Candidates for deletion, create a new entry with the name of the article and title as the header, and state your reason. Don't forget to sign your post.
  • If you disagree with a deletion, do not remove the template. Either argue your point at Category talk:Candidates for deletion, where there should be an entry for the page in question, or improve it and bring it to the users' attention by posting on said page.
  • Blanking the page is considered very bad etiquette, even if you're putting it up for deletion. Besides, how can anyone review and discuss it if there's nothing there? — It's more convenient to leave the content there.
  • If the content is obviously problematic, an administrator may remove it at will. However, this should only occur in cases of major personal attacks or privacy issues, and obvious vandalism or spam.

[edit] See Also

Retrieved from "http://namcotales.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Guidelines"