Help:Wiki Guidelines

This article is currently only a proposal

The features or design guidelines described in this article are only a proposal made by one or some persons. It has not been evaluated or accepted by the core development team yet. Feel free to add your personal opinion about them or make counter proposals.

Outdated template, please use Template:Status Under Construction to mark pages as unfinished.

This article is to bring a little bit more order into the wiki.

The purpose of the wiki

The wiki is meant to publish:

• Ideas about various aspects of the game
• Design documents and roadmaps
• Design guidelines
• References for current and potential developers
• Help documents for players

Commenting articles

Discussion pages are meant for discussing articles. Putting comments right on the article page where they are much more prominent is much more productive for the development of a topic. But the habit of some people to write comments directly into the text is a bad method because it harms the readability of the article a lot.

So comments about articles should not be written into the article itself but collected in discussion page or as another subsection labeled ==Comments== at the end of the article.

Every comment has to be signed and dated. You can automatically add your username and the present time and date by typing :

--~~~~	--Nard 08:48, 22 November 2012 (CET)
~~~~	Nard 08:48, 22 November 2012 (CET)

Comment on comments should be indented so that the discussion structure is visible. You can indent a paragraph by adding ':' in front of it.

Example for a discussion:

I like the color blue --~~~~
:I don't like blue. I would prefer red.
::Red? No, that is too aggressive.
:How about green?
::Green would be an alternative.
:::No, green sucks. Blue is the only alternative.

results in:

I like the color blue --Nard 08:48, 22 November 2012 (CET)

I don't like blue. I would prefer red.

Red? No, that is too aggressive.

How about green?

Green would be an alternative.

No, green sucks. Blue is the only alternative.

Using the approval and disapproval template

This protocol is actually underused and not pracical, it also make the number of categories and template inflate with no useful consequence. To discuss a page or group of pages please use forum instead, eventually with a poll option.

The approval and disapproval template is a general barometer of the acceptance of a certain idea in the tmw community. Everyone is allowed to put himself either in the list of approving people or opposing people.

When you add yourself to the list of approvers or opposers you should also explain your reasons for approving or disapproving the article in the comments.

Note that this isn't a democratic voting. The list of supporters and opposers of a proposal is only a suggestion to the people who are in charge of implementing the proposal. It is up to the development team how they value the opinion of each person.

Example for an opinion template:

{{Opinions
|
{{Pro|Supporter1}}
{{Pro|Supporter2}}
|
{{Contra|Opposer1}}
{{Contra|Opposer2}}
}}

When someone is added to the list of approvers or opposers of an article by using the {{Pro|X}} or {{Contra|X}} template, the article is automatically added to the category "Approved by X" or "Opposed by X".

Note that all supporters are listed between the first and second pipe, while all opposers are listed after the second pipe. This is important because otherwise you will be listed on the wrong side of the table no matter if you use the {{Contra|}} or {{Pro|}} template.

Internal links

Internal links are important for the easy navigation of the wiki. Whenever you reference another article you should link to it.

When you create an article that is a counter proposal to another article, you should create a link to the article you are opposing and also put a link on the linked article back to your article at an appropriate place.

When you create a proposal that is based on another proposal (like an article about a race that fits into the backstory) you should also link back to the article you are based on and also create a link in the base article itself.

Also feel free to create links to articles, that do not exist yet, but should exist in your opinion, to encourage someone to create them.

Using status templates

Status templates show how serious the article is treated by the development team. Every article should start with one of the following templates:

Red

The {{Status_red}} indicates that the contents of the article are a proposal made by someone and that the development hasn't discussed about using the proposal yet.

It should be added to every new article you write. The only cases in which you may start an article with another template are:

• You document something that is a consensus in the whole development time for a long time.
• You document something that has already been implemented without writing a wiki article about it.

The article is referenced in Category:Proposal, Category:Unevaluated Proposals.

Yellow

The {{Status_yellow}} indicates that the developer that is in charge of the mentioned aspect of the game as decided that the proposal mentioned will be done in the game as described. The template should only be placed by the developer in charge or after getting his/her permission to place it in the article. The article is referenced in Category:Proposal, Category:Evaluated Proposals, Category:Compatible Proposals, Category:Accepted Proposals.

Green

The {{Status_green}} indicates that the aspects mentioned in the article are already in the game. Articles that explain how different aspects of the game work, style guidelines (when they are ratified) or tutorials fall into this category, too. The article is referenced in Category:Reference.

Outdated

The {{Status_outdated}} article indicates that the article is either a status green article that is no longer correct or a status red or yellow article that has been rendered depreciated by a contradicting developers decision. The article is referenced in Category:Outdated.

Under Construction

This template is intended for Concepts (concepts are under construction), To indicate that the page content is unfinished, use preferably the Template:Status Under Construction.

The {{Status_construction|message =*}} template explains that the current article is in development. It has to contain a notice how to take part in the development of the article. Replace the asterix in the example above with a description how to contact the developers. The article is referenced in Category:Under Construction.

Examples:

{{Status_construction|message =Come to the IRC channel #tmwart on irc.freenode.net}}
{{Status_construction|message =Visit the following forum thread [link]}}
{{Status_construction|message =Add your opinion to the comment section}}

Status Under Construction

(Should be renamed "page under construction")

Template documentation:

This is to be used for Labelling and categorizing under construction documentation. It will show the following banner:

❝ This article is currently under construction.❞

or

❝ This article is currently under construction.
Your message❞

Usage:

Copy the following code into your page. By adding "|your text goes here" behind "{{Status Under Construction}}" you can write a message giving more details about why you marked a page as under construction. This is optional.

{{Status Under Construction}}

or:

{{Status Under Construction|Your message}}

The pages where this template is used will be categorized in the "Under Construction" category

Improving Wiki

Making templates

• Verify some one didn't already do the job : Special:Allpages choose Template Namespace or [1]
• Document your templates so the may be used easily by other users

Categories

Categories are intended to retrieve information easier; almost every page, template and even category should be categorized. Choosing the names as generic as possible is not easy.

• Document the categories
• List Categories here: Special:AllPages choose Category Namespace or : [2]

Comments

A proposed addition to this page is being developed in User:Octalot/Wiki_Guidelines_ReEditing Every X_Guidelines page should have links to all pending proposals to change X_Guidelines (already mentioned here in "Internal links"). Would it be worth putting a standard template at the top of the page for links to all pending proposals?. --Octalot 19:18, 25 October 2008 (CEST)

---

As Nobody opposes to these guidelines I suggest that they are approved. They can also be updated when needed. ( see discussion) --Nard 18:26, 2 September 2012 (CEST)