AchaeaWiki:Contributing Guidelines

Articles entered into the Achaean Lore archives need to have a certain structure and format in order to ensure readability and consistency throughout. Plus, there are just certain ways of formatting the information such that it flows well within the online system used to present it.

Articles

Articles are generally snippets of information on a specific topic. They may contain sections and subsections if it's a particularly long topic, but it must not be overly broad and contain lots of factual information. Be objective in all things when authoring a bit of lore. This is a compendium of all the facts related to Achaea, so make sure you remain objective in tone and phrasing.

The articles in the "Help:" namespace are all imported directly from Achaea's help system. They are here for reference purposes, but are not meant to be the be-all and end-all of information about the subjects they touch upon. If you want to create, for example, an [Ashtan] page that lists more information about Ashtan than in [Help:Ashtan], go ahead. An Achaean Lore [Ashtan] page might list previous Overseers, Archons, and Divine Patrons of Ashtan, delve deeper into its history, link to a map, discuss its restaurants and shops, et cetera, information [Help:Ashtan] would not have.

Article Naming

Articles are referenced by their names, so choosing an appropriate one is very key. Most information can be referred to by its proper name, such as "Vampires" or "Azdun". Sometimes, it's helpful to further qualify a name if it's possibly ambiguous we do this by appending a parenthetical to the end. For example: "Twilight (time of day)" could differentiate between "Twilight" (referring to the God).

If an article's title has more than one word, DO use spaces. "Great Mhunna" not "GreatMhunna".

Namespaces

When choosing a name, do not include a colon (':') in the name. This is reserved for 'namespaces' a feature of the wiki system and used only in very special circumstances. Do not change pages that already have a namespace on them. For example, "Help:" and "AchaeaLore:" should not be removed or changed to a different namespace. At this time, please do not change any pages in the "Help:" namespace.

Categories

All (or almost all) articles should contain at least one category. Categories are added at the end of an article and usually refer to a group or classification for that article. For instance, the page "Zsarachnor" is in the "Vampires" category. There are in fact sub-categories as well (clicking on Category:Vampires will bring you to that page, which lists articles in that category -- but you can see that even that page is in the "Creatures" category).

Note: If an article belongs in a sub-category, there is no need to include it in the more generic category. For instance, "Uncharted Areas" is a sub-category of "Areas", so any article referring to an uncharted place need only include the specific category ("Uncharted Areas") and not the more generic one ("Areas").

Content

When writing the actual article body, please keep the following in mind:

• Refer to factual items using the wiki link markup (e.g. [[foo]]), but only in the first reference (or if it's not obvious). No need to make every word in the body a link.
• Always remember to add a category to the article.
• Do not include OOC comments in the body of the page. If you need to share information or comments about an article, use the "Talk"/"Discussion" tab for that page.
• Use UK English to be consistent with in-game text - honour instead of honor, et colour instead of colour, et cetera.
• When creating links, make sure you check the plurality of any existing topics. For instance, do not create an "Ur'Vampires" link if there's already an "Ur'Vampire" page. You can specify a link to the singular while maintaining a plural form in context using proper wiki markup.

Standardised Formatting

We are using the Wikipedia Manual of Style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style) for basic formatting guidelines.

Privileged Information

• The same rules go here as for the Forums. Please do not share quests, skills information, or anything that should reasonably stay private (i.e., guild news posts, Order secrets, et cetera).

Achaea specific considerations

1. In pages about Areas, individual places within the area should be bolded (unless they are linked).
2. Other areas and all denizens should be linked, not bolded or italicised.
3. Adventurers are not usually linked (see Adventurers of Note).
4. Some categories have special meaning. For instance, Areas, Villages, City-states, and Uncharted Areas all classify different types of places (with special in-game meanings). Make sure you are using the correct category.
5. Locations should link via the entire proper name. For instance "[[Urubamba River]]" not "[[Urubamba]] River".

Editing

When you edit an existing page, please be considerate and summarise what you did in the Summary field.

New Pages

New pages can be created in wiki-fashion by creating a link in an existing page/article or by simply trying to access that page in your browser directly. For example: "http://www.achaea.com/lore/My New Article" should (in most modern browsers) take you to the correct place and you may edit from there. Take care, however when creating these 'orphaned' pages. Because they can be hard to find if an existing page does not link to them. And chances are, if the topic was important enough to have an article, it is mentioned in some related article(s).

Also, when creating new pages, feel free to go back to older, related pages and create any links that may seem appropriate.

Adventurers of Note

Occasionally, the need will arise to link to and talk about adventurers who have contributed significantly to the world. This is a somewhat grey area, but we have a few rules of thumb to indicate when an adventurer warrants a page and when it doesn't:

• The person must be a major contributor in some verifiable historical event.
  • Verifiable means included in an event post or otherwise endorsed/approved by an immortal. Character backgrounds and made up fiction are not verifiable.
  • Simply participating in an event is not enough to warrant a separate article. However, being the catalyst to a major world event can be. (E.g. "opening the box that destroyed Hashan")
• Becoming a guildmaster (or house master) is not enough to warrant an article, but being the first (founding) one probably is.
• Being on the old HELP NOTABLES is not enough to warrant an article.

When in doubt, always err on the side of not creating an adventurer article. It is (and should be) a major achievement to be written into the pages of history and is not for everyone. If you're still unsure and think a person warrants a separate article, seek approval first.