Holocron:Guide

From Holocron - Star Wars Combine
Revision as of 22:37, 1 March 2011 by Orphaea Imperium (talk | contribs) (UK/International English)
Jump to: navigation, search

The quick and dirty guide on editing the Holocron.

SWC is not Canon

While SWC is derived from canon, the whole point of SWC is that it isn't canon and lacks all the heroes and much of the history we're familiar with in favour of our own characters and history. By all means refer to canon information where appropriate, or provide references to canon sources (e.g. Wookiepedia), but don't get canon information confused with SWC information.

Neutral and In-Character

The Holocron is the neutral, in-character wiki/encyclopaedia of the Combine (e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica). The Holocron is for actual facts of what's happening and what has happened in the galaxy. It's not a place for advertising, ego stroking and blowing up your character, or rewriting history in massive favour of your faction (e.g. Fox News). Write content as if you're writing it for the benefit of people living in the SWC galaxy. Don't throw around terms like 'faction', 'avatar' or 'IRC' - they'll have no clue what you're talking about. Similarly, if you're using categories or templates, use categories or templates appropriate for an IC, rather than OOC, audience (see below).

OOC content should be restricted to talk (Talk:), user (User:) and meta (Holocron:) pages. There is also limited scope to add OOC content if you provide an external link in an 'external links' section (e.g. linking to a rules page for a particular entity).

Don't Copy/Paste from Other Sources

Other sources of information are not always reliable:

  • Compedia is very biased towards the view of the person that originally wrote an article;
  • Galactic Archives / Imperial Archives has a pro-Imperial bias;
  • Information on faction websites is usually biased towards that faction;
  • etc.

If you find a good, informative, neutral and IC article from another source that you would like to bring in, by all means do so, but keep an eye out for problems like tense, bias, and in-character perspective. The odds are good that even the best article from another source will need some editing to fit the Holocron. If you find a good article, but aren't sure whether it needs further editing, you can tag it with one of our alerts or notices (see below). However, don't simply copy and paste pages from other sources en masse and expect others to edit them for you; this is a surefire way to lose many friends very quickly.

Also keep in mind that other sources may incorporate images or MediaWiki templates that are not on the Holocron. If this is the case, you will need to edit the page to use the Holocron's templates and upload the appropriate images to the Holocron.

The Holocron is not a Guide or Rules Page

SWC has a guide wiki already. We also have a rules section. If you're writing about e.g. a ship, don't simply regurgitate what's already on the rules page, or write a guide on how you fly ships on the sublight level (though provide a link to it if you feel it appropriate). Rather, write information about the ship, maybe prominent factions that use it, particularly famous individual ships of that type, and content of that sort.

Alerts and Notices

If you find an article or section that is clearly written from an OOC perspective, or heavily biased, or lacking in content, you may want to tag it so that others are aware of it and can find and remedy the issue(s). We have three tags for this purpose:

  • {{stub}} indicates that the page or section is a stub, i.e. it lacks content.
  • {{NPOV} indicates that the page or section is biased and should be rewritten so it uses neutral language.
  • {{OOC}} indicates that the page or section is written from an OOC point of view, and should be rewritten to be in-character.

To use these tags, simply add the appropriate text (in bold, above) to the top of the page, or section, that you feel needs work.

Categories and Templates

Before creating a whole lot of categories for your page, check what categories already exist by clicking Special pages, then clicking Categories. This will give you a list of all the categories already in use. Alternatively, find a page similar to the one you want to create, and see what categories it uses. For example, a page for an Imperial officer might have Category:Individuals, Category: Males, Category: Humans and Category: Imperials. A page for a vehicle faction might have Category:Organisations, Category:Production Companies, Category: Vehicle Manufacturers and Category: Organisations founded in Year 5.

Similarly, before creating a new template, check what templates already exist.

As above, remember to keep things IC, unless you're creating a template or category for administration/meta purposes, not for use in pages in general. Examples would be the Stub, NPOV and OOC notices above - these are for administrative purposes only. Also follow existing naming standards. For example, if you're creating a new template which is in effect a box containing information, it should be called something like 'Template: Infobox (Your Content)' e.g. Template: Infobox Battle.

Also note that categories / templates should be in UK / International English. See below.

UK/International English

The preferred language for the Holocron is UK, or International, English. For content, it doesn't really matter so long as it's consistent across the page, but categories, templates, etc. should be in UK English (e.g. Category: Organisations not Category: Organizations).

However, adhering to strict norms of spelling or grammar is not essential for the Holocron. Many members of the SWCombine are not native speakers of English and should not be discouraged from contributing by putting too much emphasis on flawless language. Still, correct mistakes that you find. If you are looking for guidance, please refer to the Wikipedia manual of style. This should also be consulted in case of a dispute.

Images

You are encouraged to add life to your article and add images to it. When you upload images to this wiki, be sure to keep in mind the following:

  • Name your image file in a unique way that could later be recognisable (such as "ryan_roche-image.png" not "my_image.png").
  • Avoid very large images and try to resize them through an image editing programme before uploading.
  • Warning: At the moment, inline resizing and thumbnails do not work for PJG and PNG.
  • After you uploaded your image you found out it was the wrong one, or would like to replace it - do not upload it again! Use the function in the current image's page "Upload a new version of this file". This will allow you to edit the image and keep the file name. If you'd like to change the file name altogether, upload a new image and put the old one in the "Images to be deleted" category.
  • Categorise your images and put small info on them. Faction Banners & Logos should be categorised to Category: Organisation Images and people's images should go to Category: People Images. If no category matches your image, simply put it in the Category:Images.