Vintage Story Wiki:Guidelines
Writing a wiki is hard! But it is easier when more people work together. This page outlines various guidelines to help collaboration. If you need access to edit, go to the #wiki-and-translations Discord channel
Protip:
This is only a guideline, it is a living standard and may be changed as we grow as a community, and it's not strictly required. All rules can be broken and this is no exception. |
Content page formats
Content pages should follow a general format so we can make sure the right info is on the page. Different topics have different formats, but each format isn't set in stone.
General
Content
Content should...
- not be redundant, if you need to include info on two pages, (Ex: item page and the item's source's page) include links connecting the two pages. The text on each page should include a brief summary of the relevant info.
- be grouped on pages generally following the asset's variants, for example, all the plank types should be on one page because they don't really have much individual content.
- fit with American English spellings, 'color' over 'colour', and formats, 'MM/DD/YY' not 'DD/MM/YY'.
- avoid referring to the reader directly, instead refer to a player.
Wikipedia's MOS is useful.
Titles
This applies to section titles as well as page titles.
Titles should...
- reflect the name of the item in the game's assets, for example: 'Ore blasting bomb' not 'Bomb'.
- be complete noun or verb phrases, for example: 'Tool Strength Chart' not 'Chart: Tool Strength'.
- In English: singular nouns. For example, the page is "Axe", not "Axes", and "Berry", not "Berries".
Titles should also be written in sentence case, where only the first word is capitalized. This is because MediaWiki automatically capitalizes the first letter of links. Therefore, when trying to insert links into sentences, it is far easier if the page title in question is in sentence case. For example, if the page on helve hammers was titled Helve hammer:
One example of a mechanism is the [[helve hammer]].
But if the page was titled Helve Hammer:
One example of a mechanism is the [[Helve Hammer|helve hammer]].
This greatly simplifies adding links and avoids incorrect capitalization.
Infobox usage
Try to use infoboxes wherever possible. See Category:Infoboxes for a list of all infoboxes. Also, try to use Category:ControlsTemplates when describing the actual controls of the game, for example: ' using a chisel...' not 'Using (right mouse button) a chisel...'.
Icons and images
To generate images run the command .blockitempngexport 400 which outputs images 400px by 400px.
When uploading icons for blocks, entities, and items, leave the name of the image as is, except remove any direction related words from the filename. This helps maintain a consistent naming pattern for all blocks, entities, and items.
For example, shelf-normal-east.png should be changed to shelf.png, but rockpolished-andesite.png should NOT be changed to polished-andesite.png.
Items
The info needed about items is pretty standard. Be sure to include:
- How a player gets the item: Obtaining.
- What the player does with it: Usage.
Obtaining should detail the source:
- Crafting
- Grid
- Knapping
- Barrel
- Clay forming
- Smelting and Casting
- Smithing
- Foraging, Gathering or Harvesting
- Mining
- Adventuring (encompasses ruins loot, mob drops, etc.)
Usage should detail any use the item has:
- Crafting
- Smelting
- Tool
Info that doesn't fall into one of these categories should be placed directly under the Usage heading before any other info. When an item like a chisel or hammer is used in a grid recipe it should go under the Tool category.
Infoboxes
Infoboxes are very useful as quick reference tools. Try to use them as often as possible as they make a page feel a lot more complete :). For help using them, see the tutorial.
Version Information
To make it easier for users and editors to recognize if information found on a page is up to date, it is recommended to use the game version template.
To add the template, simply paste {{GameVersion|1.16.4}} to the beginning of the page - the example 1.16.4 here can be exchanged for the correct version number instead.
Stub & Outdated
Pages that are missing information should be marked as a Stub, whereas pages that are outdated due to relevant changes in recent game updates should be marked as Outdated. This will help all editors and readers to quickly recognize areas that need attention & pages that may not have all of the desired information.
To mark a page as a stub, paste {{Stub}} at the top - this will include the information as seen in this template.
To mark a page as outdated, paste {{Outdated}} at the top - this will include the information as seen in this template.
Page Deletion
Information about page deletion can be found here: Category:Deletion_candidates
Interesting Links
Technical
The wiki runs on MediaWiki
