Editing Guide

# Rules and Guidelines About Content

Content placed in articles **must** be from the Live Realm. Content placed in articles **must** be directly relevant to the game and must conform to the templates given below. Do not put material from the Test Realm on the wiki; game content often changes greatly between test and live content and any postings of test realm material will be deleted.

Articles must be about a specific piece of game content and cannot contain spoilers, hints and walk-throughs are not tolerated on the Article page, it is requested that such content is placed on the discussion tab.

Vandalism, including deletion of page content, spamming pages, inserting nonsense, or inserting purposely false information, will not be tolerated and will be deleted. Sources of vandalism will be banned.

Vulgarity in any form will not be tolerated and offenders will be banned from the site.

Speculation and other general discussion, which may be a little off topic can also be put on the discussion tab. Only put information that you gathered yourself in-game, anything else is speculation. Although anything way off base will be deleted, including inflammatory, extraneous, or other otherwise off-topic postings. Posting ways to cheat the game or codes to get stuff on the site is also not allowed. Content material does not go in the discussion tab. The discussion tab can be found at the top right of the page.

# Creating and Editing Pages

## Creating New Pages

Please use the templates if possible: information on how to create new pages can be found at Creating New Pages. Please read everything thoroughly so that your pages are created properly and with the right Categories. Pages without the proper categories can be lost in the wiki as they don't link to the rest of the wiki properly, so please make sure to follow the instructions carefully.

## Edit an Existing Page

To edit infobox templates, simply enter the appropriate information on the right line in the template. Each template has a documentation page which lists exactly what all the lines mean. These are the same pages you copy the template from. If we can make those pages clearer, please ask an admin. See Creating New Pages for information about infobox templates and a list of the infobox templates.

# Page Writing

Writing well on wiki pages is very important for several reasons. You have to be accurate, but you also have to be interesting. Neither one can dominate; you have to balance both. Here are some basic guidelines to help you in page editing.

## Grammar

Grammar is an essential tool in a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep high grammar standards to ensure clear communication.

**Do not use abbreviations instead of full words.** For example, do not use 'u' in place of 'you' or '2' in place of 'to'. Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article.

**Keep your writing concise.** Don't use two words where one will do. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible. Unlike many wikis, this Wiki is more of a warehouse of information as opposed to a collection of essay-style articles, so this is even more important here. Discussions, spoilers, walkthroughs, and opinions can be presented on the discussion pages for each article.

**Keep all of the topics you cover within the scope of the article.** What that means is, you don't need to give a detailed history of Wizard City on the page about Merle Ambrose. Consider the article's title as your point of origin and write from that perspective. Make use of the wiki's ability to link to more detailed articles or external sources for more information.

**Write from an impersonal perspective.'** Do not use "I." For example, do not write, "Hellscream was a fervent member of the Horde. He served both the Old and New Horde, As far as I know." Avoid drawing attention to the author (yourself) as much as possible.

**Be bold.** If you know something is wrong, correct it. If you think you could word something better, write it. If an article has a glaring deficiency, fill it. Even if your first attempt isn't golden, you can fix it later or someone else will come along and fix it for you. Don't be afraid to screw up, just make sure when you do that you try to keep it within the guidelines of the wiki.

## Spelling

For articles in the Wiki, using proper spelling also means spelling words exactly as they are in the game. If you misspell the name of an item or a creature, other people can not use your work to find the correct information about your misspelled name! This includes punctuation too, get your commas and exclamation points in the right places!

Sometimes we use descriptors in parentheses on page names when there are more than one thing in the game with the same name. For example Blade of Ashes is the Aand and Blade of Ashes (Athame) is the Athame, or Clean Sweep (Marleybone) and Clean Sweep (MooShu) for two different quests, or Firebat (Pet) and Firebat (Hybrid) for two different pets.

Our goal is to avoid these {Modifiers) as much as possible! For example, not every pet needs (Pet) after their name. If you run into a situation where you think one is needed, ask an admin for help if you are not sure what to do, we are always trying to keep the pagenames as concise but also as informative as possible.
Also, every page for an Item Card is "Spell" Item Card, and every page for a treasure card is "Spell" Treasure Card in order to distinguish them from the normal spell pages.

## Capitalization

The Following words do not receive capitalization unless they are the first word in the title of something - a, an, and, of, the, for, and occasionally with, under, over, and between. Formal terms, such as Health or Mana should generally be capitalized in descriptions as well.

Overall, proper capitalization follows the titles of things in the game (though this can be hard to see because the font is a smallcap font, the capital letters are slightly bigger than the lowercase letters). An exception to this is hyphenated words. On the Wiki, words immediately following a hyphen are also capitalized (which is correct grammar), while in the game they are not.

# Wikia Code Editing

## Section headings

Use the `==` (two equal signs) style markup for main headings, equivalent to `<h2>`. **Do not use a single `=`.** This is because a single `=` creates an `<h1>` heading which is already used by the page header and would be bad coding. Also, do not use wikilinks in subject headings. When edited, these sections become confusing in the edit history because of the link code. Consider instead putting the word in the first or second sentence of the section and linking it there.

Avoid special characters in headings, such as an ampersand (&), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]). In place of the ampersand, use the word "and" unless the ampersand is part of a formal name.

Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to your page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings, i.e. avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on. Also, try to avoid giving identical titles to different sections.

## Text Formatting

Use '''text''' to **bold** text and ''text'' to *italicize* text. You can also use the bar at the top of the edit window to do the same thing.

## Links

Use [[PAGENAME]] to create a link to another page, such as Merle Ambrose. Valid links will appear in blue font like Merle Ambrose and nonexistent links will appear in red like shoe.

## Article Management Templates

These are small templates that allow you to easily add special tags or information to an article. They should be added to the top of the page they are needed on - these templates are used to bring the article to the attention either Admins (to delete) or to regular users to add more information (Stubs).

**Nominate an article for deletion**

Add **`{{delete}}`** to an article to nominate it for deletion. It will add the article to Category:Candidates for deletion.
**Stubs**

When a page has little or no useful information, then it is likely a stub.
Adding `{{stub}}` will include them in Category:Article stubs, and is used to list which articles need expanding.

## Other General Templates

**`*`** **Hints, Guides and Discussions should be placed in the Discussion tab**

**Other Templates**

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# Images, Galleries, and Tables

## Images

Images make an article memorable and pretty. They can speak where words fail. At the same time, misplaced or untidy images can detract from an article. When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up.

Large images such as screenshots use the "thumb" (example:`[[Image:CoolImage.png|thumb]]`) option which displays large images as thumbnails. Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability by allowing a smooth flow of text down the left margin - the "thumb" option does this by default.

When uploading an image keep the title concise and use the article name as much as possible, leave natural spacing in the title. For example on a location page the map should be titled (for Unicorn Way)(example:`[[Image:Unicorn Way Map.png|thumb]]`).

**For this site, please follow the example of style in previously loaded images, and do not upload your artwork or cut-out images to pages.**

For more information, see Help:Images.

### Galleries

When an article has many images, or can be improved by having more, and having inline images be detract from the readability of an articles, the use of a `<gallery></gallery>` section is encouraged. This generally applies if there are more than two images.

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## Tables

Tables are not commonly used, but if you require a table the instructions below should help you craft a table to suit the needs of the article.

Tables should use a "class" design when possible, and should include as little 'fancy' formatting as possible. Tables can also be made sortable by adding a "sortable" class.

For long tables, it is recommended to create an "alt" class to alternate row colours to enhance readability. The below examples use "toccolours" as a class, but this is only for the purposes of demonstration, and isn't generally recommended.

#### With row headings, table caption, sortable

I am a caption
 Row heading 2
 Row heading 3

#### Without row headings, with alt rows

 Row data 1
 Row data 1
 Row data 1

# Categories

Navigation of the Wizard101 Wikia depends heavily on the use of categories, so using categories and adding the correct ones is very important.
The table below outlines the use of categories to make this easier, unlike templates there are too many to list every single category.

Do not Edit Categories! Unless text is added by an admin or experience user, the only text that should be on a Category page is {{Category}}

# Conclusion

Every article can be improved (even this one). Following these guidelines will not ensure a perfect article the first time, but it will give the article a stronger start. It's ultimately your job as an editor to put fill it out.

**Hints, Guides and Discussions should be placed in the Discussion tab.**