Wikia Contribution: Best Practices

At this time, any user who is a member of the Starship Valkyrie community and registered with Wikia may contribute a new page to this wiki. Those pages should be unique and confined to PC (player character) information owned by the player in question, scenario recaps (After-Action Reports), or character-centric short stories. These contributions are welcome and wonderful. We ask that other users not flagrantly edit these materials unless they contain sensitive information about another player's character, or a player's name. Scenario writers, particularly those responsible for a player ship, should request admin permissions in order to add updates to protected pages, and upload their own material to the extent with which they feel comfortable.

**Basic User Rules**:

- Please join Wikia before you start contributing, and always contribute while you are signed in. If you contribute a lot while not signed in, an admin will post a comment asking you to join without deleting your material. If you make a series of small edits without being signed in, your edits might be deleted. We do this in order to track changes and know what is coming from whom.

- Please do not harvest and post the work of others to this wiki. You may ask them or encourage them to post their own work or, in extremis, ask their permission to post a particular piece. If you do this, please include a note in the comments section, stating you have permission to post material you didn't write. If you do post the work of another, please post it unaltered, save small typos or minimal grammatical mistakes. You may also include the relevant wiki links within the post as you add it.

- Please do not edit other users' character-specific contributions based on ideas of factuality or correctness, even if you are an administrator. Feel free to use the forum to discuss the matter, but keep in mind that a character's backstory or summary of a scenario correlates to how that character and that player experienced it. Small edits, as for grammar and spelling, or a character's or alien's name, may be acceptable. Please use your best judgment, be polite, and do not interfere or seek to control an individual's contributions.

- Please do not, under any circumstances, record anyone's player name on this Wikia, or connect them to their characters. Do not include lists of players. Instead, state character names. Characters, after all, are responsible for actions performed in-game and for various story decisions. The only exceptions are the names of writers and creators, or in cases when you seek to use and must give credit to another player for the use of their content or NPC (making sure they are okay with a mention of their name in full or in part--consider using initials). If that player does not regularly contribute (is not the lead writer of a ship or work on scenario material), please negotiate the inclusion of this information before posting it. Moderators are encouraged to police this matter, as inclusion of player names is a sensitive real world matter for many.

- Players who play captains are still just players; their experience does not trump that of anyone else. Please remember this in the tenor of your conversations and how you administer your contributions.

- You will be able to contribute pages, but general content pages are protected and may be edited by those with admin privileges. This group of contributors consists of ship writers and the game creators, so that system information and scenarios can be updated and shared as soon as possible.

- There are specific mechanics for adding lore, usually consisting of being a scenario writer, or spending a CP (earned Character Point) and approving that lore through the game creator before it is considered canon. Pages containing lore that is unauthorized in this way will be deleted in part or wholesale. Admins should check with the author of the lore and with the creators to make sure it is unauthorized before deleting.

**Scenario Writer Contribution Rules**:

- Please do not elevate other users to admin status when you have it; admin status is only for current lead writers on ongoing ships, to allow them to protect pages (of material they are currently using) and make small changes to prevent undue confusion. User status has all the tools necessary for most everyone to contribute fruitfully and fully to this wiki.

- Please utilize and hew close to the star system information already provided as you populate areas of space, and keep astrophysics in mind as you proceed, with a reasonable common sense standard.

- Please keep an eye on the areas of space and content currently in use by various ship plots, and try to avoid creating in that space or making changes without having a conversation with that creator--it might be necessary to plot! Use the forum to have these conversations, rather than getting into editing wars.

- Remember that this wiki is for the general information of players, and for scenario writers to share information and updates about the world, rules, and lore. Remember to make information easy to access, easy to read, interesting, friendly, and professional. Take time to edit your entries. Try not to be informal, too pedantic, too vague, too precise, or too technical. Use the conversation features to discuss problems of tone and technique instead of editing someone else wholesale.

- Remember that the players can only enrich their experience through access to wiki entries about your scenario material and background. If you populate a system, create a company, or write lore about a new enemy, add them to the wiki as soon as possible! As the players learn more, add more, and let them know there's new information for them to read if they'd like. Try not to create a "got ya" situation, however, where they will have to have read your wiki pages in order to solve a scenario.

- When you populate a system, please upload a DAISS grid or instructions for one to help other writers, in case their ship shows up in that system.

- When you create a new alien, it is okay to keep their ship stats close to the vest for a few games--the players and the Star Navy don't know much about them, so that mystery is okay. After your arc is over, or several games have elapsed, please start adding those ship stats, in whole or in part. Remember that ERSN ships and databases collate and share information, and those ship stats will no longer be a technical mystery. This will also allow other writers to utilize and fairly represent your aliens. If you would like to place a hold on those aliens for plots reasons, please include a note at the bottom of their wiki page and use the forums judiciously.

- Please respect NPCs created by players and writers, and do not use those NPCs in scenarios without speaking to the player or writer. NPCs may have entire, intricate lives and personalities within a player's or contributor's mind. It's always best to just have a conversation. If that contributor has been gone from the community for some time, be respectful. Talk to others and consider the best way forward. If that NPC had a huge impact on a ship's story, it might be okay to include them in a scenario. In other cases, it might be best to replace them with an NPC of your own creation.

- Please do not overrule players' experience of your scenario, and remember that truth ultimately lies in what players have taken away from your story. Please do not attempt to rewrite history or censor a player's experience. These activities will result in your privileges on this wiki being revoked or curtailed.

- In general, be respectful! Don't blow up huge parts of the map without speaking with the rest of the writer community, step on another writer's toes, or disregard the creations of others, be they writer or player, or both. Communication and collaboration are usually the best practice in most situations.