Help:Editing Guidelines

Priorities

(1) Copy over Monsters, Spells and Sage Abilities pages. Declare your territory and then stick to it, until it is over. Carl, I know, is working on Cleric spells. Shelby is working on Monsters. Call Illusionist Spells, Mage Spells, Druid Spells, Bard Spells or Cantrips. Or if you feel bold, call Sage Abilities — but take note, don't feel the need to expand on the abilities (leave that for me).

(2) Add links to existing pages, correct spelling errors, and please check your links if you're cutting and pasting from the old blog wiki. Very often, the links from the old wiki are broken or the names have been changed for this wiki.

(3) Someone please teach me how to tag pages that I've edited. Shelby, you mentioned how to sign off on a Talk page comment; but I missed it. Describe that process to me also, please.

You insert it by using the button that looks like a doodle. It is located in the formatting menu between the italics and link buttons. It is not available on all pages (not on this one) maybe because it is only on with the "talk:" namespace. It is still possible to insert it though. Just type four tilde symbols Sebastian (talk) 11:31, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Editorial Guidelines

Where possible, please correct minor details on wiki pages.

• Replace "~" or "-" or "--" used as a dash, please replace it with an em dash found under special characters. Please put a blank space on either side of the em dash. Do this: "if — then" not "if—then".
• Use ordinals without superscript to describe experience levels: always say, "1st level", not "first level." (a mistake I tend to make, but would rather not).
• Please do not use ' for feet or " for inches. These should be written "ft." or "in." In tables, diameter can be shortened to "diam."
• The phrase "to hit" does not need to be written inside single quotes (but link it to the page, "roll to hit").
• If a spell has an effect or duration with a base number and an added number per level, this should be written with a space between the first number and the addition: "2 +2/level" ... it should not be written, "2+2/level". This should be standard in other similar situations.
• The first time a post refers to action points, please write this as "action points (AP)"; thereafter, use "AP." If the post does not use action points a second time in the course of the post, do not include the shortened form the first time the rule is quoted.

Policies

New pages policy

All users are hereby discouraged from creating new pages if the title is not already created. At least on the main namespace. I understand templates might be more flexible (but see upper section on those). Statement pending of official revision Scarbrow (talk) 10:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Templates/ programming / arcana policy

All users are hereby asked politely to not add unnecessarily complicated wikicode / wikitext / wiki markup to the pages, until and unless Alexis has given official permission. See on Template_talk:Bestiarychart for the (always impassioned) impressions of our host about this. Statement pending of official revision Scarbrow (talk) 10:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Please note that it takes me 30 seconds to cut and paste a page from the old wiki to the new, but it takes me 20 minutes to edit, fix and add links, adjust formatting and rewrite sentences so that they make more sense. So please do a little more than just cut and paste. Don't substantially change the writing; better leave that to me; but please change or highlight any obvious grammatical problems.

Suggestion

Should we move this page to Help:Editing Guidelines? The Help namespace may be useful to keep these "non-wiki" instructional meta-pages collected. Namespaces in general could be very useful overall. --Shelby038 (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Let's leave this page and content here. It doesn't matter where we find it, as long as we can find it.

Templates

I've created a template for use for Bestiary stat blocks. I think templates are crucial for design as they allow quick changes in one location only, rather than needing to change every page where they are used. They are a big part of the wiki system. For example, we discussed the background color of the block. If we desired to change that color later, it can simply be done from the Template page. More than that, if later we wanted to format it more like the originals from the blog, that could be done without editing each creature's page. Check out the Alpaca page for an example of its use. I suggest this be done for any case where the same type of block is likely to be used: spells, for instance. --Shelby038 (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Sure. But I don't know how they work. I don't mind telling you, Shelby; my skill is in writing and design, NOT in html and programming; I'm learning all I can, but it isn't enough to just tell me something is good. I also need to know how it actually functions; what do I do with the template? Does cutting and pasting it to a new page ensure that a quick change affects all of them?

In general templates are used as:

{{templatename
| parameter = value
}}

Mediawiki finds "templatename," (in this example, Bestiarychart) and gives it the parameters and values that you've supplied. This ensures that all formatting remains the same, because Mediawiki only checks a single place for the formatting: the template source. What I will do (pending approval) is copy what I've shown on the Alpaca page, and modify it for each creature. I'd suggest to read Help:Templates but honestly it's quite dense; the "Creation" section is the only part written in half-way understandable English.

Herding cats / Meta coordination

Hi all! Since I'm new, and I don't want to step on anybody's toes, I've gone ahead, been bold and tried a coordinating effort. Alexis, you can berate me for that. All the rest, you can berate me too! I'm just a newcomer. BUT I used to be a wiki admin. It just comes second nature. Hope nobody takes offense. Please remember, to keep the flow of conversation easy to read, to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~) Scarbrow (talk) 10:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

As a further suggestion, new suggestions (that aren't by themselves suggestions of new policies) should be added as sections below this one. Policies, however, should be listed at the top. Scarbrow (talk) 10:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions

CSS

Alexis, a suggestion. The current typeface on pages seems a little small. I think it may be tweaked through MediaWiki:Common.css. Would you mind me trying it? Or else, I can just tweak the zoom on my browser. I don't know if this is an issue for anybody else. Comments? Scarbrow (talk) 10:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed the same on my browser but it only seems to be this wiki; Wikipedia looks about twice as big, as fonts go. SimonTVesper 13:50, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Garamond is small, generally speaking, but I've noticed the same. --Shelby038 (talk) 16:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

We're not changing from Garamond; but yes, please bump the typeface up by two font sizes: 10 to 12 or 12 to 14, whatever the original turns out to be.

Category tree

Wikis can show a Category tree for the purposes of exploration. You can see it in action, for example, in [https://sryth.fandom.com/index.php? title=Special%3ACategoryTree&target=Browse&mode=categories&dotree=Show+tree my old wiki]. This tree can be expanded from any branch, but it is convenient for it to have a clear "root" category.

• Would you agree, Alexis? And if yes, what should the name of the root category for this wiki be?

Call it "Category Tree"

• Do you have any idea of a category system you plan to use? I was thinking of making one category for every "label" on the Blogspot wiki. Would that be right?

If you look at the Index by subjects, it organizes all the content on the wiki. If you must have a tree, I'd like it to bear some similarity to this page.

Scarbrow (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

I've been adding Category labels in places but I've also discussed it with Alexis and he likes the format on the Index page (an inline list separated by slashes). For now we agreed to do both. However, I think it might be worthwhile to explore Dynamic Lists (I think that's the name) to generate those as well and make full use of wiki's capabilities. --Shelby038 (talk) 16:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Is there a specific list of categories or should we refer to the old Wiki for common tags? Asking because there are different ways to refer to things like "Druidic" spells.

Placeholder category

I'd like to remove the Placeholder category. Since all of its elements seem to be bestiary entries, I propose categorizing those pages as Category:Bestiary. Thoughts? Scarbrow (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Already discussed. I made the Placeholder category and now I'm going back through all the Beasts and changing it to the Bestiary category (which I also created). I've taken on the Bestiary responsibility but there is a lot to do, particularly formatting. I'm sure you've seen the discussions on the Template_talk:Bestiarychart page. --Shelby038 (talk) 16:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

There are dozens of other posts throughout the old blog with 'placeholder.' I would like you not to remove this word for ANY post; I don't care if there's a category or not, but I intend to use the word to search for posts that need new content created.

Importing maintenance templates

I know you're against unnecessarily complicated wiki code, Alexis. But many templates are very useful, very easy to use, and all of their complexity can be safely abstracted from the end user. Even more, most of them are fully optional to use, but still useful for power users. A paramount example is Template:T, but there are many others. I had a full toolbox of those in my old wiki. Others are useful for maintaining purposes, like Template:Delete (not using the Wikipedia example here, since it's much, much too complicated for our use). Other still are used for notices, like UnderConstruction. Would you oppose the creation of some of these in this wiki, Alexis? All of them would be fully documented, and none of those would be required material, so in the worst case, you can just ignore them. Scarbrow (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Alexis: Let me be clear. I do not think that ANY effort should be spent at building formatting into the wiki at this time. The priority is to CREATE the wiki, not to format it. I am up for anything that helps us format the pages, and especially the tables, so that now that I understand how a table template works, hell, let's fly with that.

But I do not give a rat's ass about all this behind the scenes reformatting / organizing / abstracted shit. It isn't getting the job done that I want to get done, which is to ensure that there is CONTENT ON EVERY PAGE. That is Job 1. If we can't organize all this other background stuff AFTER the content is in place, then it's useless to me.

I'm perfectly aware that the three programmers here are going to cry foul at this, but if you have the time to run around and make categories and changes and adjustments to the content NOW, you'll have the time to do it THEN. You understand. I'm not making this wiki for the programmer. And from the point of view of a non-programmer, I'll never use 70% of the programming you're describing, and I doubt anyone else will, either. We're here for the WORDS, gentlemen, not the programming. Now go ahead and bitch. I have editing to do.