Helping Out

Before you begin

• The Special:SpecialPages page is the #1 weapon against unorganized or lacking wiki pages. It can be reached from the main menu cogwheel.
• The Special:Version special page has useful information on what extensions are installed for more advanced knowledge on wiki syntax and functionality.
• If you're not sure how to use wiki syntax, check out the official Mediawiki Formatting page.
• Check out your "Editing" user preferences and make sure you have the enhanced editing toolbar enabled, among other optional tweaks.

Editing Standard

The editing standard of the wiki is extremely important, as the wiki is what governs how players learn the game. So it has to be legible and coherent for what it is you are trying to display/explain, whether its a mechanic or a job/caste.

Editing Philosophy

When it comes to creating a new page or editing a pre-existing page the current design philosophy on the wiki is to provide a lot of visual feedback to the reader i.e. Images and gifs displaying what X mechanic or item does and what it looks like. This is because lots and lots of text is what the reader does NOT want to have to go through in order to find out how to do X. The only exception to that rule is pages regarding lore.

One of the most important goals to consider when writing or editing a wiki page is that you want the information that you are providing to be in it's most simplest form so that it is easy to understand for any and all players. Whether it is for someone who is a native english speaker or someone who is an ESL, the simplicity of the explanation is what make your edit good because it means that more people can understand it.

An example of this is via teaching, if your teacher explains a topic in a convoluted and long winded manner then the likelihood of the class fully understanding said topic is very low as some students may get bored or find it hard to follow. If they explain it in a short and concise manner, then it is a lot simpler to understand. The example of teaching is because as a wiki editor you're the unseen teacher of the hundreds who play this game, so your explanations etc need to make sense and be easy to follow.

Questions to think about when editing a page or creating a new one:

• Have I written too much?
• Could I condense this down?
• Could I simplify my writing?
• Could I provide visual aid to what I'm explaining?
• Would a new player be able to understand this without any prior context knowledge?

If you are ever in doubt about your edit just post a preview of your edit in #wiki-work on discord for wiki contributors and the wiki maintainer to look at and provide feedback.

Lastly, after finishing an edit, write a brief summary of what the edit is before you save page as it helps organise your edit amongst all the others so other editors can see when a certain section or topic was added to a page. Here's the summary for this section being added to give you an example of what this should look like:

Mediawiki Code

This section is to cover the basics of mediawiki code so that new and returning wiki contributors can refresh themselves with the basic and adanced code.

Basic Formatting CodeAdvanced Formatting CodeTable Formatting CodeAdvanced Table Formatting

Action to be performed:	The Code:	The Output:
Removes the table of contents	__NOTOC__	Removes the table of contents. The code will not appear on the page when viewed.
Applying Bolding to text	'''Bold'''	Bold
Applying Italics to text	''Italics''	Italics
Applying underlines to text	<U>Underline Text.</U> This is HTML code as mediawiki does not have a native underline command.	Underline Text.
Applying strikethroughs to text	<S>Strikethrough Text.</S> This is HTML code as mediawiki does not have a native strikethrough command.	Strikethrough Text.
Making formatting Centered	<center>Centered Text.</center> This is HTML code as mediawiki does not have a native center command.	Centered Text.
Dividing line	This is a ---- Dividing Line	This is a Dividing Line
Page headers	= Page Header One= This is the same header level as the page title at the top, so normally you won't use this and instead will use header two. == Page Header Two== === Page Header Three === ==== Page Header Four ==== ===== Page Header Five ===== ====== Page Header Six ====== A way that we like to use headers is to place images{Files) in them to help them stand out visually for the reader. ======[[File:Weapons_rack.png]] Marine Vendor [[File:Weapons_rack.png]] ======	To avoid messing up the table of contents for this page the below image will detail what this would look like.
Bullet Points	This is a * Bullet Point	This is a Bullet Point
Numbered List	This is a # Numbered List 1 # Numbered List 2 # Numbered List 3	This is a Numbered List 1 Numbered List 2 Numbered List 3
Linking outside the wiki	[https://cm-ss13.com/forums/ Linking outside the wiki]	Linking outside the wiki
Linking within the wiki	[[Marine_Equipment | Linking within the wiki]] [[Pagename (as it appears in the address bar)| Desired Words]]	Linking within the wiki
Displaying Images	[[File:Weapons_rack.png]] [[File:Weapons_rack.png|32px]] [[File:Weapons_rack.png|128px]] You can alter the display size of a file by changing the pixels as shown above. Most files are uploaded to be 64x64px, so please keep to this. Remember if the image you desire is not on the wiki, please upload it HERE. Please be certain beforehand that it is not on the wiki first. If you're unsure ask in #wiki-work on discord.

Action to be performed:	The Code:	The Output:
Text for just the editors	<!-- The Gaps are here for readability when editing --> This of course will not show up in the Output section as you will only see it if you open a page to edit.
No wiki code	<nowiki>'''Bold'''</nowiki> This stops wikicode from functioning, highly useful when filling out a usage section on a template.	'''Bold'''

Action to be performed:	The Code:	The Output:
Fill in	Fill in	Fill in
Fill in	Fill in	Fill in

Action to be performed:	The Code:	The Output:
Fill in	Fill in	Fill in
Fill in	Fill in	Fill in

Contributing

• Place {{outdated}} at the top of a wiki page to display a banner showing that the page is outdated and needs help. View all outdated pages here - you're welcome to help update them.
• Special:ShortPages might be looking for more data.
• Special:WantedFiles are all linked images that don't have a file attached to them. In 90% of cases, you can let Sargeantmuffinman, TopHatPenguin or Harryob know about these and they can upload the correct icon directly from source files. (Combined icons won't work for this, such as a human wearing armor, clothing, and holding weapons.)
• Special:WantedPages are links to pages that don't exist yet, but someone feels it's needed.
• If you upload a file, make sure it doesn't already exist by checking Special:ListFiles. It is crucial that existing files are replaced by uploading a new version - DO NOT upload another version of the file with a different name!
• Tables have their own markup that is clean and easy to edit. Visit the official Mediawiki Help:Tables page for more info. There are also a few 3rd-party tools to assist with formatting, such as the Mediawiki Tables Generator.
• Templates are extremely powerful wiki additions that help eliminate redundancy in markup and provide a clean, easy-to-edit layout for future contributors. Check out the templates we're using. For example, you can add {{tocright}} to any page to have the Table of Contents move to the right side of the page. Advanced templates can include ParserFunctions (using #if, #ifexp, #switch, etc) for calculation and string handling (e.g. item infoboxes that show a default "Image not found" image if one doesn't exist), leading to some very clean and professional-looking documentation.
• Some other features include Magic Words, which can be useful in templates or in special cases, such as hiding the Table of Contents (TOC).
• All other Mediawiki-specific Help pages are here if you'd like to learn more.

Cleaning

• Special:LonelyPages has a list of pages that might need to be deleted or worked on (anything deleted can be restored).
• Special:UnusedFiles might also need to be deleted (anything deleted can be restored).
  • Note: normal users are unable to delete pages, but Trusted users can.