Guidelines
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Welcome to the ZAM Wiki!
The ZAM Wikibase pages are meant to be a community project. We look forward to seeing these sites grow over the coming months and years; and hope you will enjoy participating. This page is for your own reference, it is meant to be a do's and don'ts page to help clarify some of the expectations we have of our users.
The text fields on the site are designed so that users of the site can update the descriptions of various elements without needing to email an administrator. Collections of pages like this are referred to here and elsewhere as Wikis. Everyone with a username should have the ability to make any changes they feel are important by clicking on the Edit button at the top of the page. (Don't try it on this page; it's locked.)
We appreciate any and all help editing and updating pages throughout the wikibase. In order for things to run smoothly, here are some things to consider:
Opinions and Personal Comments
The ZAM Wiki's are not a place to post personal triumphs over difficult monsters, or to tout your most recent plunder. Questions, personal anecdotes, and discussions about a database entry are better suited to the ZAM.com game specific forums which allow for replies and a threaded view of discussions.
Think of a wiki article the way you would think of an encyclopedia or newspaper article. The person writing that article would not put in personal information or what is clearly a personal opinion. The wiki pages shouldn't, either.
Similar to this, the description field of a database entry should be based in clearly established facts about the gameplay or game world. Rathe Councilman is a vague, but accurate entry.
User: Pages
If you really want a place to write about your own experiences, every poster that has an account here at Allakhazam has a User: page tied to their account. The user page NixNot is an example. The user tied to that page is able to protect, or lock their page from outside edits. This does not, however, keep Administrators from editing the page, only other users. These pages are NOT the place to slander, taunt, make fun of, or otherwise belittle other users. Do not edit someone else's User: page in a malicious way. You will be served a warning, and possibly a Wikimute, or an outright ban depending on the severity.
- You can access your personal wiki page by clicking "Username's Wiki Page" link on your account's profile page.
Writing Game Guides
We also welcome guides, either how-to's or guidelines or personal experiences, as articles. If you write a guide, be sure to write it in a separate article that would not be the name of a normal entry. Guides usually have a special category added to them so they can be searched more easily. It's still a good idea to include the word Guide in the title somewhere, such as "Nixnot's Guide to Writing Wiki Articles" or "Making an Arena Team Guide".
Linking and Overlinking
We want wiki pages to connect to one another. Frequently, you will read a page and notice an unfamiliar term and go, "hmm...what's that?" The use of links allows everyone to quickly go between related articles. If there is a term that has, or should have, a page of its own, link it. Check the game-specific guidelines for syntax at Naming Conventions.
But be careful not to link TOO much. A general rule of thumb when adding content to a Wikipage is "one link, once per paragraph." If you are adding content to Galka for example, you may find yourself referencing Bastok quite a few times. If you were to link every instance of Bastok, the entry may start to be overcomplicated. However, if you start a new paragraph, and find yourself referencing Bastok again, feel free to link it.
Redlinks and New Articles
Most of the time, an article's links should be a pleasant color that blends in with the text, but is different enough for you to know it is a link to an article. If you should see a red link, that means that the page that is being linked to does not exist. This means either somebody needs to write it, or it isn't going to the right place. For example, WoW articles have (WoW) on the end of them, even if it doesn't display. If you linked to [[Hunter Talents]] instead of [[Hunter Talents (WoW)]], you would get a redlink.
So when you write an article and see redlinks afterwards, check to make sure those links are written correctly. And if you see a redlink for a page that genuinely does not exist, that can be your chance to help us by writing a new page! Remember to check the Naming Conventions to make sure your using the right style.
Redundancy
Adding a link to the page you are already on is redundant and unnecessary. For instance, a link to Guidelines here, on the guidelines page, is redundant. If you feel the word needs emphasis in that sentence, try making it bold instead!
- Check out Wiki Formatting for more details.
Put Lists in an Order
If your article has a list of links, or a list of anything really, you want them in some order. If there is no better order to use, alphabetize them, but use whatever makes sense. For example, if you are writing a walkthrough for a series of quests that eventually yield a reward of the Uber Sword of 1337ness, somewhere in the article will probably be a list of all the quests involved in the chain. It would be best to put those quests in the order you complete them.
In another example, suppose you are compiling a list of quests that reward useful items for Black Mages. A good idea for that list would be to first, order them by the level requirement to start the quest, then alphabetize quests that require the same level.
- Check out Wiki Formatting for more details on how to make an appropriate list.
Common Terms
Each game that zam.com covers will have their own Wikis, but they are all contained on the same servers. Different games may have pages with the same name, such as Human. Human is a very common race for many MMORPGs. It would not make much sense to have one large page for Human, that covers every game. In order to clear this up, when linking to a common term, please also use the abbreviation of the game you are referencing in parentheses.
For example, WoW and FFXI, both have pages pertaining to Special Events, but they are seperate pages. Special events leads to the WoW special events page, but Special Events Directs you to the FFXI page. Please note that the text put in parentheses does not show up in the link. This is what it should look like on the edit page, [[Special Events (WoW)]]
- Remember to check out the Naming Conventions for your games article naming process
When Starting a New Article
The first thing to do when considering a new article is to ask if this is something that is really not somewhere else. For example, there is a World of Warcraft zone named Azshara. There is no need to create a wiki article for that zone because there is already a wiki page contained within the normal zone page. However, there is also a mythical character in World of Warcraft lore named Azshara. That IS worthy of a page.
It's also possible that there is an article named something very similar. There is no "High Elves" article, but there is a "High Elf" page.
Once you've decided the article is worth writing, you should try to consider it from all angles, or be as complete as you can. If you want to put down some of the information for the article, and know that there is still a noticeable amount more to do, make it a stub. This puts a little flag on the article saying, "there's information here, but it's not quite done yet!" You do not have to be write everything perfect since other people will hopefully read your article and edit any misteaks[1], but don't put down blatantly false information or copy information directly from other sites without permission from the author.
Don't be scared to try. The wiki moderators do know when someone makes an edit or writes a new page, and will take at least a quick glance at it to make sure things aren't screwed up too badly. Pages can always be fixed. If you need help, be sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions guide (which is mostly a list of commands) or post in the Wikibase feedback forum.
Include Categories!
It's important that all pages in the actual wiki contain the appropriate categories they belong in so users can search for them. An article written on a particular playable race might contain a category for "Races", for "Character", and just for the game that it belongs to. Be sure to include the category of the game, if you do nothing else. You can get away with using {{WoW}} instead of [[Category: World of Warcraft]]. Similarly, you can also use {{FFXI}} and {{EQ2}}, which means you don't actually have to remember the exact way to do a category if you aren't sure. Just put the name of your game in double curly brackets![2]
Game Specific Guidelines
For game specific guidelines check out ... Coming Soon ... sorry.
Notes
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