Contribution Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in contributing to this Wiki. To ensure all articles are consistent and feel the same, please follow the following simple guidelines:

## Writing Style

Please use an encyclopedic tone.

* Facts only, no opinions, no emojis or sensational phrases.
* Do not refer to editors or readers as "I, you, we, us", or similar, even if implicitly. e.g. "Place Tanya in a pillbox to enhance her armor" counts as referring to the reader as "you", and should be replaced with "Tanya can be placed in a pillbox to enhance her armor".
* For heading or page titles, and for lists of units, Capitlize the first word, and any important word. "An Eye for an Eye", "Mobile Flak", "Fog of War"
* Actor names should not be capitalized in the middle of a sentance. e.g. "An attack dog is not fooled by the disguise of spies and will chase them on sight."
	+ An exception is made for the article intro sentence which has a bold unit name. e.g. "The **Attack Dog** can instantly kill any infantry unit"
	+ Letter case guidelines are new and many articles do not follow them, please help fixing them.
* Use literal numbers. e.g. (5) and not (five).

For an example of an article with proper letter case, see the attack dog article.

## Wiki Organization

Most articles are expected to fall into one of these topics:

* Units. (Example: Heavy Tank, Tanya) - Do not manually categorize. Templates are used.
* Structures. (Example: MCV, Helipad) - Do not manually categorize. Templates are used.
* Tactics. (Example: Blobbing) - Categorize as Category:Tactics
* Community. (Example: Red Alert Global League) - Categorize as Category:Community
* Game Mechanics. (Example: Map Options, Command Queue, Visibility)- Categorize as Category:Game\_Mechanics.
* Game Overview. (Allies, Soviets, countries, Main Page) - Categorize as Category:Game\_Overview
* Maps. (Example: Tabula Rasa) - Categorize as Category:Maps
* Single Player Campaign - Categorize as Category:Campaigns

the plot and background story of the Red Alert universe **do not belong** in this Wiki, because OpenRA has no unique storyline, and there's no need to duplicate the content of other Wikis.

Game Control buttons shouldn't be part of unit or structure articles. For instance, the Radar Dome shouldn't have ("Click the power down button on the top right side, then click the radar dome") - This belongs to the Energy article.

This Wiki is about the latest \*Release\* version. Not Playtest.

## Page structure

Every unit page should have a Template:UnitBox. For Buildings, use Template:BuildingBox. For defensive structures, use Template:DefenseBox. These InfoBoxes automatically creates a sidebar, and put the page in the proper categories.

Ideally, every unit page should include information about the unit's weaknesses, strengths, tactics, and its interaction/relation to other units.

Generally, the article should be structured as follows: It starts with plain facts about the item, its weaknesses and strengths , etc. And then tactics that involve this unit. For example, the article about the Yak:

* Plain facts: Explains its visibility, its circling-while-idling behavior, etc, Good at killing light armor such as artillery, weak against AA guns, good for scouting.
* Tactics: Yak Suicide, Yak combined with V2

This template is not strict and can sometimes be followed only loosely.

Regarding tactics: As a rule of thumb, if the tactic is specific
to a single unit, it is better to write about that tactic
in the unit's page (Example: Yak#Yak Suicide). If the tactic is
not specific to a single unit
(Example: Blobbing, Base Pushing, Scouting), then it
should be in its own page. Relevant units may briefly explain the
tactic and then refer to that page.

## Categories

Do not manually add categories unless absolutely needed. Let the template system add the categories for you. Most pages are unit and structure pages where you should simply use the proper InfoBox.

## InfoBox Images

For consistency, all InfoBox unit and structure images should be:

* 256x256
* Second zoom level
* Centered
* Colored black (code: 382929)
* On a desert background
* uploaded under the name "Image-PageName.png" E.g. "Image-RocketSoldier.png"
* Must be a PNG.
* Units should be facing south-west (For consistency with structure images).
* Animated units should be caught in an "idle" posture. (An engineer doing pushups or walking is not a good InfoBox image)

Black was chosen because it's the only color which can be picked precisely in-game. This is done by scrolling the first part of the color chooser to the right edge, and then dragging the second part of the color chooser to the bottom right edge.

See the Rocket Soldier page for an example of good images.

## InfoBox Construction Icons

InfoBox Construction Icons should be:

* 64x48. Simply crop the icon without removing its borders.
* uploaded under the name Icon-PageName.png
* Must be a PNG.

See the Rocket Soldier page for an example of a InfoBox Icon.

## Videos

Ideally, all tactics should have short videos. In the spirit of openness which OpenRA is built upon, you are advised to use Wikimedia Commons, but any other service is acceptable. If you believe further video conventions are needed, please discuss.

## Templates and Categories

Please discuss before making any non trivial structural changes to the wiki, such as modifying templates or categories.