Halopedia:Standards
From Halopedia, the Halo Wiki
| This page is a semi-protected Halopedia guideline |  |
This page describes the standards currently accepted for page formatting and composition by the Wiki community. Please try to follow these standards when creating and editing pages.
Contents |
General
A few guidelines that it is wise to follow when creating and editing wiki pages:
Always use the Summary box
When editing pages, always fill in the "Summary" box above the Save/Preview buttons before saving, and make sure that you fill it in with something useful describing the edit you made and, if it's not obvious, why. For example, "fixed spelling error" or "added fun fact" or "reverted from troll 127.0.0.1" are all acceptable. Saying "made some changes" or just filling in the name of the page is not helpful, because it's information that we already have. Making your Summaries accurate and useful makes it vastly easier for the rest of us to keep track of Recent Changes and keeps everybody happy.
Use the Minor Edit button
As a corollary to the above, if you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.
Don't link to the current page
In other words, a page should not link to itself. If it is attempted, the link will simply turn into bold text.
Link once
A given page should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Captain Jacob Keyes in one place, then that should be the only link to Captain Jacob Keyes on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article.
Don't use conversational style
This is an information site. It should read like Wikipedia, not like your diary.
- Check your spelling and grammar. Don't use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you're not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you're not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word which has spell-checking built in.
- Don't use "smileys" or "emoticons".
- Don't "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages or the forum.
- Never abbreviate the names of characters, places, or anything. Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer to "Master Chief" as "the Chief" or "Captian Jacob Keyes" as "Keyes" and so forth.
Stubs
If you don't know enough information on a topic, or you know there's more, add a stub to it. To do so, try this:
{{stub}}
And people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category.
Don't sign your edits
All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the Wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you've made an edit that you're particularly proud of (such as a transcript or screenshot), the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too.
Do sign your Talk posts
If you make a post on a discussion page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing ~~~~ at the end of your post. If you don't have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who's who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you're going to stick around.
External Links
External links are links that point to sites other than the Wiki. The links should be in the form of a bulleted list. External links typically look like this:
*[http://www.bungie.net/filename.html Something Something]
Use the Preview Button
The preview button is right next to the save edit button, and is there for a reason. It's your own personal spell checker, link checker, whatever-else checker. Use it. Users that purposefully do not preview edits as to inflate their edit count are not well regarded amongst Halopedians, and you may find yourself in trouble with an administrator.
Civility
All Halopedians are expected to conform to a certain level of civility in writing articles and talk posts. While Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3 are "M" rated - for peoples of 17+ or older, excessive cursing or lasciviousness are strictly prohibited.
Declarations of hate that are said unjokingly, like "I hate you", are also prohibited.
Any such violations of Wiki Civility can lead to banning by Administrators.
Articles for Deletion
Articles on Halopedia must be...
- Encyclopedic
- "Real" - not fan fiction
- Relevant to Halo
Note that all information on Halopedia must come from the sources listed in our Canon Policy.
Articles that are pure fiction or irrelevant may be deleted from Halopedia. The template {{Delete}} must be added to a page that's being nominated for deletion, see Help:Templates for help on how to do this. After you do this, you've nominated the page for deletion. On the article's talk page, add why you think the article should be deleted. The Halopedia community will then discuss if the article should be deleted on the talk page. It is then deleted or kept based on a community consensus. Remember: recreating a deleted page is not allowed, and the new page will be subsequently deleted!
See this category for articles that are nominated for deletion. The discussion process takes 3 days.
