Conventions

## Introduction

In order to keep the wiki readable for all of our users, it is important that it remains a structured and ordered affair. To that end, we have created a Conventions-page, where it is explained how one should create articles, in which category they belong, et cetera.

## How to use categories

Categories allow users to browse a list of closely related articles for them to read. In order to add a category to your page, scroll down until you see a bar termed 'Add categories'. Removing categories is a bit more complicated. First, go into the classic editor by hitting 'Edit' and then selecting 'Classic editor' and look to the right. There, you should see a box where all current categories are listed and where they can be edited or removed. When you're done removing categories, hit 'Publish'.

### List of categories and their purposes

#### History

History is a catch-all category for all things lore-related. Almost all articles about factions, players, books, conflicts et cetera fall under this category. Example: Lordaeron.

### First, Second, Third and Fourth Era

These categories should be added to articles about events that happened, factions and locations that existed or players that played during the relevant Era. Example: the Third Great War.

#### Factions

A category dedicated to factions and their histories. Example: Aeternum.

#### Regions

A category dedicated to political entities larger than cities, but lacking the independence of full-fledged factions. Example: Dracarys.

#### Cities

A category dedicated to cities and their histories. Example: Astroika.

#### Buildings

A category for articles about notable buildings. As uncountable such constructions have existed throughout Divinity's history, only the most prominent ones should get their own page. Example: Great Library of Remn.

#### Geographical features

This category should be added to articles that describe features of the landscape. Example: the Nyvul Sea.

#### Players

A category for the players of our server. Example: RoboRik.

#### Conflicts

This category is for the many conflicts that have occurred in the server's history, from invasions to civil war to secret conspiracies. Example: the September Plot.

#### Books

This category is for in-game books that have been transcribed to the wiki. Example: The Book of Divinity.

#### Staff

This category is dedicated to the members of our staff team.

#### Mechanics

This category is dedicated to articles about the server's inner workings, such as the race system. This is one of the few categories without a link to the History-category, although there are exceptions even here. Example: Empire.

### Meta

This category is for pages about the Wikia itself. Example: this very article!

## How to write an article

Although articles can be about a broad range of subjects, they all have a surprisingly similar structure. You use Headings, which can be selected via a bar in the Editor, to denote important subdivisions within your article. Sub-headings, available through the same bar as normal Headings, can be used to denote less important changes of subject. The first Heading is almost always 'Introduction', where you provide a brief summary of the subject matter. Next to this introduction, writers usually add an Infobox. All categories except History, the Eras, Mechanics, Staff and Meta have their own Infoboxees and they can be added through the 'Insert'-button in the Editor. Regions and Buildings don't have Infoboxes either, but they should make use of the infobox dedicated to Cities. Through Infoboxes, you can quickly order information in an efficient, table-like manner, making wiki use easier for reader and writer alike.

It is convention to provide Infoboxes about players with an image of said player's skin. This can be a stylised representation, like RoboRik uses, or a more realistic one, such as in geko96's page. A useful site to generate both genres is minecraftskinavatar.com.

Last but not least: don't forget to add as many links as possible! Links ensure that people can easily navigate from page to page without having to bother with the search bar. You can add a link by selecting a bit of text and then hitting the chain-icon in the Editor. You can then specify the page the link should lead to in the box that has appeared. Links to a specific heading can be created by adding a hashtag between the page name and the subdivision, i.e. 'Conventions#How to write an article'. Pages that haven't been created yet are denoted with red links. If the corresponding pages for these red links have since been added, you can turn them into blue links by going into the Classic editor, as discussed before, and publishing the article without making any changes.

## Miscellaneous conventions

* Dates are denoted as 'Day Month Year', i.e. '6 August 2016'.
* When writing about players who don't have a capital in their name, don't add one.
* Only create one article per player. Alts and name changes should be denoted in the Infobox.
* If multiple factions exist with the same name, the page of the most notable one should be titled with the name itself (Lordaeron), while the lesser ones receive a subtitle (Lordaeron (Fourth Era)). If all factions have roughly the same prominence, you can instead give subtitles to all of them and use the proper name for a disambiguation page. A good example would be Legion.
* If a faction renames itself at some point, it is still considered to be the same faction. Furia's article gives a nice example on how to handle this.
* If a faction falls and is then recreated after some time, the two factions are considered to be separate and should each get their own page. This is why the incarnation of Legion led by Naxxos is split into two entries, Legion (Second Era) and Legion (Third Era).