KeenWiki:Guidelines

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This page lists some guidelines and recommended practices for contributing to the KeenWiki. It is recommended that all KeenWiki users familarise themselves with these, and those who have worked with wikis before will find them much the same as they're used to.

Wiki Guidelines

These guidelines cover technical aspects of editing and expected behaviour on the wiki.

  1. Be polite and friendly.
    This wiki is made up of a bunch of friendly people with a common interest, so let's keep it that way.
  2. Please discuss major changes before making them.
    Renaming a page or rearranging a lot of information on a page can break existing links to that page, but discussing it first on the Talk page will minimise these sorts of problems.
  3. Preview before saving!
    Make sure you always preview edits before saving changes - the admins regularly check each and every edit, so having five edits to change a couple of words just slows everything down. By repeatedly previewing the change and only saving it when you're happy with it, you'll only put a single edit into the system and make the wiki easier to maintain.
  4. Always use an edit summary.
    When saving a page, make sure you put something into the edit summary - otherwise anyone looking at the page history needs to open the article to see what you changed. Putting a brief description (usually 4-5 words) makes sure everyone knows what you changed.
  5. Avoid removing things from article Talk pages.
    Each article has an associated Talk page which can be accessed by clicking on the Discussion tab at the top of the article. This is where discussions can take place about anything related to the article, usually along the lines of proposed changes and inaccuracies in the text. Once text has been added to a Talk page it should not be deleted, especially if the conversation resulted in a major change - other users may want to see why that decision was made, and the Talk page is the perfect place to archive it. One exception to this is your own Talk page. Some people like to keep all their conversations permanently on their Talk page, whereas others like to clean out old conversations. What you do on your own Talk page is up to you, but the guideline still applies to other people's Talk pages - you should never remove anything from them without the user's consent.
  6. Avoid editing other people's user pages.
    When you create an account on the KeenWiki, you're given a userpage. This is your own wiki page, and you should use it to put a little bit of information about yourself for others to read. Unlike other pages on the wiki, editing someone else's user page is frowned upon - it's their page, not yours. Minor changes such as correcting a typo are usually okay, but adding or removing content should be avoided. (You can always ask the user via their Talk page to make the change themselves.)

If you run into problems, feel free to contact one of the KeenWiki administrators by leaving them a message on their talk page. Otherwise - have fun and happy editing!

Content Guidelines

These guidelines cover content being added to the wiki.

Images

  • All images must be in .png format, unless they are photos in which case .jpg is permitted.
  • Screenshots must not be double-sized, so typically the image will be 320×200 pixels. It should be a "clean" image, with no DOSBox filters applied.
  • Screenshot extracts such as images of a single creature, should be double-sized, so a 16×16 extract should be uploaded as a 32×32 pixel image file. This is to make the smaller images easier to see.
  • Fan art belongs elsewhere. Screenshots and characters from mods are ok, but generally anything else that is not from official games should not be added to the wiki. There are plenty of other image sharing sites where fan art can be showcased. You are welcome to link to these places from your user page.

Mods

  • Only released mods are permitted. Beta versions, test versions, proposals, and so on are not permitted. If a mod is abandoned at the beta or test stage then it may be included if it is notable.
  • Place the infobox before uploading images. This way you can upload images with filenames that match the wiki's naming scheme. A default filename should only be changed if it cannot be used (for example if it contains a special character.) This means infobox parameters that specify filenames should be omitted almost always.
  • Mods must be substantial. If you only mod one sprite, or change one level, then the mod should not be included here. Most levels should be completely new, and/or most of the graphics as well. Exceptions can be made for unique mods, but the idea is to avoid having many mods listed that are very similar to the original games.

See KeenWiki:Adding a new mod for an explanation of the process.