Guidelines

Welcome to the official Tales of Ostlea Wiki Guidelines!

This page aims to help in editing this wiki so that all styles etc. are consistent across all articles, and across all other languages of the Tales of Ostlea wiki.

We assume a familiarity with the basics of editing wikia wikis. If you don't know these basics, please first check out the tutorial and have a look at Help:Contents. Those pages will help you get familiar with wikia.

The Community Corner has to-do lists and recent updates for all the wikis. If you're not sure where to start editing, that's a good place to check!

## Page titles

The title of a page should always be **singular**. So a creature's article will be named, for example, 'Avari Dragon' and not 'Avari Dragons' (even if the creature has several variations).

If you need to link to a page from another article where the page's title is mentioned in plural only, either make a redirect page from the plural to the article (if you think it'll be used more often) or make a link where the text shown is different from the link itself.

## Creature pages

Every creature needs to get its own page.

But what exactly do we count as a creature? Should every type of Rat get its own page, should every type of Enchanted Plushie?

Honestly, the line is a bit blurry and up for debate here. We try to go by this rule: if the creature is an alternate form of an existing creature, it is added to the existing creature's article.

So to go back to the examples of the Rats and the Enchanted Plushies: the many different types of rats are all alts of each other; even the hybrids would count as such. The plushies have both alts and non-alts: the different elements count as alts, because they can all be gotten from the same potion, but the seasonal varieties count as different creatures.

All other information on editing the creature pages should already be on the Creature Page Template. If something is missing there, please mention it in the comments either here or on that page, and it'll get added as soon as possible.

## Item pages

Every item needs to get its own page.

Items are food, potions, junk items, etc. Items with gender variants (such as the Nests or the Gender Potions) don't get a separate page for both genders, but both are counted as one item and go on the same article. This means we don't have one article for 'Male Nest' and one for 'Female Nest', but one article for 'Nest'.

An item article always starts with a short introductory text. The first mention of the article name in here is **bolded**, the type of item is mentioned (food, potion, junk etc.) and it states where to get the item.

The Template:Item is added at the top, filling in all the relevant information.

The first section is the Description. This should be the description as it appears on the Tales of Ostlea site.

The second section is the Effect. Here you describe the effect the item has, in as much detail as needed. Look at existing items of the same type for ideas of what to add here.

If there is any known Trivia about the item, that section comes next. Things like interesting information from the item's creator, mentions of the item in Quests, etc.

The last section is the Credits section. For items you generally only need to credit the Sprite and the Description. Make sure to link to the articles of the people in question!

The article isn't done yet, however. The relevant Navboxes need to be added. Template:Navbox items is the main one here. While you're at it, check if the navbox already has the item you're creating a page for; if not, add it!

Finally of course you need to add the correct categories. Again look at existing items of the same type, or check the Categories section below!

## Lists

We should already have all the necessary lists, but if you feel one is missing, please discuss it first. This can be done either here, in the Community Corner or on the forum.

List articles have a table where needed. Lists such as the List of Eggs benefit from a table, while one such as the Release Timeline is just a list in its simplest form. When creating a list article, give some thought to the best way of presenting the information. If it will have a large amount of images, you'll likely want a table.

## Events and Releases

Every single event and release gets its own article. The links to these should always be added to the Release Timeline and/or the Event Timeline!

### Event articles

An event article starts with a short introductory text. The first mention of the event's name is **bolded**. The date of the event is mentioned, as are creatures released during the event (if any).

The Template:Event infobox is added at the top of the page. The image is the banner used at the top of the forum announcement; its description mentions who created it. The start and end time are, of course, the dates on which the event started and ended. Event creatures are creatures released during the event, while event items are items added to the site during this event.

The next and previous sections of the infobox are links to the event which preceded this one, and the event to follow this one. If no event follows the event you're adding yet, add 'None yet' here. After finishing the article, make sure to go to the previous event and check if the link to your event is already there!

The first section of an Event article is a timeline. Every important date of the event (an important date is a date on which something regarding this event happened) gets its own sub-heading (size 1) here, with as much detail in the text as needed.

The next section has is the Release Announcement, which is a copy of the forum announcement for the event. Leave out details such as 'this creature cannot be fed yet' etc.

This section is followed by the Creatures section, which is a table of all the creatures released during the event. Look at existing event pages for an example of what this table should look like.

The final section is a list of relevant links. These are likely only links to the forum threads for the announcements, but if an event has something else which needs to be linked to, make sure to add it.

The relevant navboxes need to be added as well, of course. All events get Template:Navbox events, and if an event also has creature releases, Template:Navbox releases needs to be added as well. Remember to make sure the event you're making the article for is also added to the navboxes!

#### Sub-Events

Some events have several activities. These all get their own page (for instance the Halloween 2015 quest, or the Christmas 2015 Advent Calendar). In these cases you fill in the Template:Event infobox a little different. You leave the previous/next sections empty, but you fill in the 'part of' section. This section should name the event of which the sub-event is a part. An example is the Christmas Countdown event, which was part of Christmas 2015.

There is no one set way to make these sub-event pages, because each event is different. If there are images involved make sure to add a section of the images and their credits, etc. If you're not sure about how to go about filling up the page for the sub-event, discuss it!

Sub-event pages also get the Template:Navbox events added at the bottom.

### Release articles

Release articles are similar to event articles.

They start with a short introductory text, giving the release a name (**bolded**) and mentioning the new creatures and items released, along with any other relevant information.

The Template:Event infobox is added here as well, with all relevant information filled in. The previous and next sections detail which release came before and which one is next. If there is no release following the one you're making an article for fill in 'None Yet'. After finishing the article, make sure to check the previous release page to see if the 'next' link is correctly linking to your release article!

The first section is a copy of the Release Announcement as it was posted on the forum. Leave out details such as the egg description and whether it can be fed or not; those are not relevant on the wiki.

Next is the Creatures section, which is a table of the newly released creatures and their credits. Look at existing Release pages for examples.

The last section is a Links section. This will probably just contain the link to the release announcement on the forum, but make sure to add other relevant links if there are any.

Lastly you add the Template:Navbox releases at the bottom. Make sure to add your event to the template as well!

## Staff, Artists and Writers

All Ostlea staff, artists and writers get their own article. Artists and writers also get their own category to be added to the articles of things they helped create.

Usually all artists, writers and staff members already have an article, but it is possible a new release includes work from a new artist or writer, in which case an article and category need to be created for them.

For details on the categories see the Categories section below.

Pages for staff, artists and writers always start with a short introductory text. The first mention of their name here is **bolded**. This text mentions their role and any other interesting information.

The Template:Person infobox is added at the top. The image should be the person's most recent forum avatar, with the caption being '(person)'s forum avatar'. The badge is the little icon in front of their name on the forum; each badge has a template you can add here with double curly brackets, like this: {{Admin}} to get (in this case) the Admin badge as such: .
The usertitle is the title the user has on the forum. Modsection is only relevant for moderators, and should be a list of all the sections the person moderates. Date can be left empty until the forum actually shows the date a person joined (it is broken at the time of writing, always defaulting to the current time). The 'cone' sections are for the staff pinecones. Finally there are four sections for numbers; one for the amount of creatures concepts this person has on-site, one for the amount of items this person has created on-site, one for the amount of descriptions this person has written, and one for the amount of other writings (such as stories) this person has on-site.

The different sections on a person's page are for lists of all the things they have on-site. Creature concepts, descriptions, stories, etc; each gets its own list. Look at existing pages for ideas on which lists to make.

The last section on a person's page is always the Links section. This section should include a link to the person's forum profile and their lair, and any other relevant links. Artists can often have a Deviantart page.

Make sure to also add the Template:Navbox staff, and add the person to that navbox!

After creating a page for someone, send them a PM about it on the forum. This PM should mention that you've created a page for them, and that they're welcome to add any information they like to it. Also tell them that if they don't want to go through the trouble of editing the page themselves, but do have things they want added, they can contact a wiki editor to do it for them.

## Categories

Categories are an incredibly important part of the wiki. They organise the articles in a logical way, and make sure you can easily find things. Unfortunately it's very easy for the categories themselves to become unorganised, so we're quite strict with them to ensure that doesn't happen!

The below list has **all** the categories and how they relate to each other. You shouldn't need any categories other than these. If you do, please don't just create the category, but discuss it first! Explain why you feel the category is needed.

Categories themselves are also categorised. There are only a few categories which are NOT contained in categories themselves; these are 'root categories'.

Category names should always be in plural.

Remember that images also need to be categorised!

Root category: Browse - for articles and categories which are there for the functioning and organisation of the wiki itself

* Article stubs - all articles which have the 'Stub' template. These articles need work.
* Blog posts - all blog posts created by users
* Candidates for deletion - pages which may be deleted soon
* Disambiguations - all disamiguation pages, which list different uses of a word
* Help - articles which are created to help users
* Images - every single image on the wiki should get this category
	+ Avatars - for avatar images. Both personal avatars and creature avatars go in here.
	+ Concept Art - for all site-related concept art.
* Pages with broken file links - a list of pages with 'red links', links which do not lead to an existing page
* Redirects - a collection of all the redirect pages
* Templates - all template pages
	+ Template documentation - pages of explanation for all the templates
* Videos - every single video on the wiki should get this category

Root category: Gameplay - for categories which somehow have to do with the Tales of Ostlea site and how it works

* Actions - for articles about performable actions, such as 'freeze' and 'name'
* Books - for articles about books which are in the Library
* Creatures - every single creature page gets this category, as do images of hatchlings and adult creatures
	+ Eggs - only for egg images
		- Egg Groups - an overarching category for the egg groups
			* Large egg group - all creatures which fall into the Large egg group get this category
			* Medium egg group - all creatures which fall into the Medium egg group get this category
			* Tiny egg group - all creatures which fall into the Tiny egg group get this category
			* Enchanted egg group - all creatures which fall into the Enchanted egg group get this category
	+ Nocturnal - creatures which only appear at night get this category
	+ Potion Alts - if a creature has a potion alt, its article gets this category. Images of potion alts also get it.
	+ Zenith - all creatures, images and items which have Zeniths or something to do with Zeniths get this
* Elements - an overarching category for the elements
	+ Air - to be added to articles for creatures with the Air element
	+ Dark - to be added to articles for creatures with the Dark element
	+ Earth - to be added to articles for creatures with the Earth element
	+ Electric - to be added to articles for creatures with the Electric element
	+ Fire - to be added to articles for creatures with the Fire element
	+ Ice - to be added to articles for creatures with the Ice element
	+ Light - to be added to articles for creatures with the Light element
	+ Non-Magical - to be added to articles for creatures with the Non-Magical element
	+ Psy - to be added to articles for creatures with the Psy element
	+ Water - to be added to articles for creatures with the Water element
* Events - all event pages and categories get this category
	+ Easter - for creature articles and images which are Easter-related
	+ Halloween - for creature articles and images which are Halloween-related
	+ Releases - for release articles
	+ Site Opening - for the articles and images of creatures which were released at the opening of the site
	+ Spring Festival - for the articles and images which are Spring Festival-related
	+ Valentine's Day - for creature articles and images which are Valentine's Day-related
	+ Winter Holiday - for creature articles and images which are Winter Holiday-related
* Items - for all articles and images of items
* Lists - all lists are listed in this category
* Locations - an article for all in-universe locations, such as biomes and places mentioned in the Library books
	+ Biomes - an overarching category for the biomes
		- All Biomes - only to be added to articles of creatures which appear in all biomes (these should ALSO still get the separate biome categories added!)
		- Amorae Forest - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Amorae Forest
		- Elegema Forest - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Elegema Forest
		- Lyzta's Jungle - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Lyzta's Jungle
		- Mt. Ekoh - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Mt. Ekoh
		- Mystic Caverns - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in the Mystic Caverns
		- Ostern Valley - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Ostern Valley
		- Penitent Path - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear on the Penitent Path
		- Scylla's Cove - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Scylla's Cove
		- Shop - to be added to articles and images of creatures and items which can be purchased in one of the shops of the Bazaar (this includes Donation creatures)
		- Sintera Tombs - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Sintera Tombs
		- Sunanie Glacier - to be added to articles and images of creatures which appear in Sunanie Glacier
* NPCs - a category for all in-universe people, such as those who are mentioned in Quests
* Quest - for all quests and related items/creatures and their images. Can also be a rarity.
* Rarities - an overarching category for all the rarities
	+ Common - to be added to articles of creatures with the Common rarity
	+ Donation - to be added to articles and images of creatures which can be bought with Crystals
	+ Promo - to be added to articles and images of creatures and items which can be obtained through Promo codes
	+ Rare - to be added to articles of creatures with the Rare rarity
	+ Seasonal - to be added to articles and images of creatures which are available only during a certain part of the year
	+ Oddities - to be added to articles of creatures with Oddities, and to images of Oddities
	+ Uncommon - to be added to articles of creatures with the Uncommon rarity
	+ Very Common - to be added to articles of creatures with the Very Common rarity
* Site - a category for things referring to locations on the site itself, which do not fit anywhere else

Root category: Staff - for categories containing articles/categories about Staff members, and people who have contributed to the site somehow but are not considered staff

* Artists - to be added to staff artist articles and categories
	+ Amphyrre - to be added to all creatures, items and images Amphyrre worked on
	+ Fuuin - to be added to all creatures, items and images Fuuin worked on
	+ Infinis - to be added to all creatures, items and images Infinis worked on
	+ Invincible - to be added to all creatures, items and images Invincible worked on
	+ Kristhasirah - to be added to all creatures, items and images Kristhasirah worked on
	+ Lurhstaap - to be added to all creatures, items and images Lurhstaap worked on
	+ Mochiccino - to be added to all creatures, items and images Mochiccino worked on
	+ MonstrHugger - to be added to all creatures, items and images MonstrHugger worked on
	+ Non-Staff Artists - to be added to non-staff artist articles and categories
		- Ashywolf - to be added to all creatures, items and images Ashywolf worked on
		- Dragontamer44733 - to be added to all creatures, items and images dragontamer44733 worked on
		- GoldeenTrix - to be added to all creatures, items and images GoldeenTrix worked on
		- Lycanious - to be added to all creatures, items and images Lycanious worked on
		- SpaceNerds - to be added to all creatures, items and images SpaceNerds worked on
	+ Rhynn - to be added to all creatures, items and images Rhynn worked on
	+ Skwerl56767 - to be added to all creatures, items and images skwerl56767 worked on
	+ Spatio - to be added to all creatures, items and images Spatio worked on
	+ Wilhelm - to be added to all creatures, items and images Wilhelm worked on
	+ ZioCorvid - to be added to all creatures, items and images ZioCorvid worked on
* Coders - to be added to articles about coders
	+ ewe - to be added to all creatures, items and images ewe worked on
* Moderators - to be added to articles and categories about moderators
	+ Gryffi - to be added to all creatures, items and images Gryffi worked on
	+ Inactive Moderators - to be added to articles and categories about people who are no longer moderators
* Writers - to be added to staff writer articles and categories. Images do not get the writer's categories unless they did artwork on them!
	+ Debri - to be added to all things Debri worked on
	+ Novadragon - to be added to all things Novadragon worked on
	+ xxBurningxx - to be added to all things xxBurningxx worked on
	+ Yunan - to be added to all things Yunan worked on

## Images

This wiki wouldn't be much without images, and there are a lot of them. Every stage of every creature, every item, every site image; they all need to find their way onto the wiki.

This creates a bit of an organising challenge, but we have attempted to solve this in two ways.

1: Categories. Categories are important for articles, and no less for images. Every single image gets the 'Images' category.

Creature images also get the 'Creatures' category. Egg images don't get this one; they get the 'Eggs' category instead. In addition, al creatures images (including eggs) get the category for the artists who worked on it (sketching and spriting) and any special categories, such as Spriter's Alts, Potion Alts, Shop creatures, etc.

Item images always get the 'Item' category. They also mention where they can be found; the biome for junk items, shop for potions, etc. Artists are once again mentioned in the categories. Items which are used to turn a creature into its alt also get the 'Potion Alts' category.

Those are the two main types of images. For any images that don't fit into those two types, have a look at the Category list above. Each item mentions whether it can be added to images or not.

2: Filenames. While files may have a variety of names when you save them, we make sure to upload them following a specific naming scheme - at least for creature images.

The best way to explain the naming is by looking at some examples.

 Rat ash egg.png

 Rat ash s1.png

 Rat ash s2.png

 Rat ash female.png

 Rat ash male.png

The very first part of the name is the creature's base name. In this case it's 'rat'. In the case of, say, Ailurai, it's 'ailura'.

It is followed by the type within that creature type. In this case it's 'ash', for an ailura it could be 'riparian', 'glacial' or 'obsidian'.

The last part of the filename is the stage of the creature's growth. If a creature's s2 stage has both a male and a female version, the 's2' is followed by the gender. Adult creatures without different sprites for the genders replace 'male' or 'female' with 'adult'.

Non-creature images follow similar logical patterns as much as possible. For instance the avatars for staff pages are named 'avatar (person name)', while small icons are usually 'icon (name)'. It isn't always possible to follow such a pattern, but it is good to strive for it as much as possible.

## Tales of Ostlea Wikia in different languages

We'd love to have the wiki available in many different languages, and we welcome people who want to make it happen! Keep a few things in mind, however.

* You need to invest time in it. Especially in the beginning you'll be spending a lot of hours to set up the wiki and translate content from the English wiki, but with every new release and site change, you'll have more work to do. Don't underestimate this!
* You need to have a decent understanding of English, and you should be fluent in the language you're translating to. Preferably at native speaking level.
* You don't need to be a master at wiki formatting and the like, but it's greatly preferred that you have at least some experience.
* Don't worry if you've never created a wiki before. Rhynn would be happy to show you the ropes, and will likely do the very first set-up herself to make sure all wikis look the same.

### Making a new language wiki

Think you're a good fit for making the Ostlea wiki in a new language? Great!

Your first step should be to contact Rhynn. She is officially in charge of the Ostlea wikis and will be the one to actually create the wiki, to get a few things set up correctly to fit with the other wikis. She will send you the link to the wiki and once you're signed up, she'll get you set up with the right permissions to be a wiki admin!

Now would be the time to start translating the home page and other things Rhynn sends you a link to.

### Copying over templates etc.

With the wiki created, it's time to copy over some things before you can start making the articles themselves. This will mainly be templates, which can all be found in the Templates category. Translate what needs to be translated, but overall it can all just be copied over.

You can also start setting up the categories already if you wish, although this is easiest while working on the articles themselves. It definitely is a good idea to translate the category tree already (or even the entire contents of this page above the 'Tales of Ostlea Wikia in different languages' header) to make sure you stay consistent when adding them to articles.

This is also a good time to start uploading images. There will be many of them. You can save them all to your computer from this wiki; uploading them should then still have the right file names on them. You can also do this on an as-needed basis in the next step, but really it's good to get it over with ;)

### Filling the wiki

Now it's time for the real work: making all the articles! I strongly recommend going to Special:All pages and just starting at the top. For copying articles, you can really save yourself some time formatting by going to Edit the page, and then going into the Source mode. Copy everything there, then create the page on your own language wiki and paste it into the Source mode there. Translate everything that needs to be translated, and you're good to go.

This WILL take a long time, and it's probably a good idea to see if any other Ostlea members who speak your language are willing to help.

### Linking to different languages

A very important part of having different languages, is linking pages about the same subject to each other. This is achieved with inter-language links, which should be added to the source page as soon as a page has been translated, and on the target page when it's created.

The link code can technically be added anywhere on the page, but to keep the page code somewhat organised, it's best to add it all the way at the bottom, as this is where the link will appear on the page when viewing it.

To create an inter-language link, you put in this code:

[[language code:article name]]

So for instance to create a link from the English language page on Nyskra to the Russian page on Nyskra, you add this to the bottom of the English Nyskra page:

[[ru:Nyskra]]