Wiki contribution guide

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Revision as of 13:32, 1 September 2024 by Samcraft3 (talk | contribs) (changed the structure, added a featured pages section, added more information and made some sentences clearer.)
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Wiki contribution guide navigation
Main | Advanced | Town page template | User page template

This page serves as a guide for new users to start contributing to the RetroMC Wiki. It contains all of the useful information you will need in order to properly write and edit articles, such as writing standards, style guides etc, and will help you whether you have or have not any experience related to wiki editing in general.

Getting Started

Creating your account

Please read the wiki rules before you create your account.

To create an account, head to Special:CreateAccount, and make an account with the same name you use in the Minecraft server. This is for moderation purposes. If an account namesquats (uses a popular username), then it'll be blocked unless the user who created it or the MC username owner verifies it in in a ticket (#helpdesk).

To log into your account, use Special:UserLogin

Forgot your password?

If you defined an email address for your account, you can reset your password by following the instructions layed out in Special:PasswordReset. If you didn't add an email address for your account before you lost your password, open a ticket in the Discord guild under Login Trouble.

Page creation and making edits

Simply search for the name of the page you want, then click on the red link in the "Create the page "[page name]"...".

To edit an existing page, head to the page you want to edit, and select Edit in the top right corner. You will then access the editing interface which will allow you to change the content of the article you selected using the Wiki Markup Language.
For more info on the Wiki Markup language, we highly recommend you read these pages on MediaWiki:

CSS (Cascade Style Sheet), is a language that is used to specify to presentation and styling of elements inside an HTML page (like this one). It can also be used here via two elements:

  • The span element: <span style=""></span>
  • The div element: <div style=""></div>

Keep in mind that these elements each have unique properties!

User Pages

User pages are pages dedicated to each user of this very wiki. You are allowed to write information about yourself and experiment as you see fit and within the limits fixed by the wiki rules.

Wiki contribution standards

Writing guide

  • Write articles from a neutral point of view (avoid personal opinions or perspectives), and prefer the use of the third person for the majority of pages.
    • When writing from an advisory/instructional PoV, feel free to use first-person pronouns ("I", "you") within guides (like this page) and userpages when providing a more conversational tone.
  • Profanity usage should be avoided as much as possible unless they are part of a username, sign, or any other context where it's unavoidable.
  • Avoid using comedy, jokes etc. outside of your personal user page. Remember that some of your contributions are going to be made in other players' towns.

Article structure

  • Do not begin your page with a title, as this causes an error while loading the page preview. However, you can begin your page with an infobox or a notice.
  • Break up long blocks of text into smaller paragraphs, group small parts into larger sections and use bullet points to improve readability.

Style guide

Use bold and italic text to emphasize important information, but avoid overusing them to naintain readability.
We recommend using bold text for:

  • The page's title and its variation in the introduction.

Orter, also referred to as Ort or Other is a town located next to a chunk error [...]

Chips or Apple Chips is a magical food source that grants its consumer the power to [...]

  • Key terms mentionned for the first time.

This is when 16.png 10centscoin was named the Ultimate Glorious Leader of the Orter Federation.

On the 29th of February, the town opened the largest commercial center built in the server: a 1:1 replica of the largest Walmart shop in the world.

  • Headed point titles

16.png 10centscoin's plan to transform the Orter Federation into a RetroMC superpower was laid out as follows:

  • Annex neighboring cities: Through the use of military force, economic supremacy or other diplomatic means.
  • Building the largest wheat farm on the server: To provide a steady influx of food for all citizens of the Orter Federation.

We recommend using italics for:

It appeared as if 16.png latsyrC had consumed too much crystal and was now infected with crystallitis.

  • Technical terms

The Java Runtime Environment was the only thing stopping her from running Java.

  • Foreign words

The name for this semi-autonomous district comes from the arabic word Mathaliah

General Guidelines

  • When editing others' (and even your own!) work, be respectful of their contributions and follow standard wiki etiquette (e.g., avoid reverting changes without explanation).
  • Be mindful of sensitive topics, such as player conflicts. Approach these subjects with tact and respect for all parties involved especially if the dispute has not been resolved or is still a controversial topic among the community.
  • Spellings derived from Commonwealth English, US English, and other variants are allowed and interchangable.

On the use of LLMs/AI/Bots etc.

Do not use large language models to write entire articles/generate content anywhere on the wiki, as they may "hallucinate".

The section below is, in part, taken from this Wikipedia article.

Don't use neural networks to generate content, use them to assist you at creating content.

  • You may not ask neural networks to write original content and find sources, as these neural networks don't know what is right and wrong.
  • You may use these neural networks as a writing advisor, i.e. asking for outlines, asking how to improve the paragraph, asking for criticism for the text, etc. However, you should be aware that the information it gives to you can be unreliable and flat out wrong.
  • Use due diligence and common sense when choosing whether to incorporate the neural network's suggestion or not.
  • Use due diligence when crafting prompts for neural networks. Prompts designed for this very wiki should use natural sentences and be as descriptive as possible, and include keywords such as "encyclopedic", "keep the meaning intact", etc. to minimize the AI from adding original content.

You can also utilize templates, such as Template:User (for adding user heads next to usernames), Template:Infobox, Template:Infobox User (user pages only) and Template:Infobox Town (Town/village pages only).
Template:MCColor can be used to add color.

⚠️ Warning: Template:MCColor and the color parameter in CSS need to be invoked as-is, with the same spelling, so the Commonwealth spelling can't be used.

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines is also another good resource if you have the time, though they are loosely followed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

Featured pages

Town pages

  1. Nebuley
  2. United Imperial Provinces
  3. Grinder
  4. Wendover

User pages

  1. User:Noggisoggi
  2. User:Ade1ie

Cheatsheet

Format Output Notes
hmm<br>oh ok hmm
oh ok 		'<br>' is the newline tag; you will use this a lot.
The [[Dungeon]]'s 8th floor is full of horrors.. The Dungeon's 8th floor is full of horrors.. The text between the square brackets link to an already-existing page.
'''bold''' bold Used at the start of pages to highlight a name if applicable.

It can be used to emphasize a statement; though its effectiveness will decrease if it's overused.

''italics'' italics Used for quotations, new words, emphasis, etc.
<code>/help</code> /help Use it for commands, values, etc.
<nowiki>'''hmmm'''</nowiki> '''hmmm''' Note the '<nowiki>' tags - it is used to disable additional wiki formatting in text enclosed inside the tags.
{{MCColor|&f|/!\}}{{MCColor|&e|/!\}}{{MCColor|&c|/!\}}{{MCColor|&4|/!\}}</code> /!\/!\/!\/!\ 2nd parameter is the color code/name; see Module:MCColor/data for the list.

3rd parameter is the text to be colored.

{{user|Noggisoggi}} and {{user-nonwiki|Noggisoggi}} are good people.

16.png Noggisoggi and 16.png Noggisoggi are good people.

Disregarding the nonsensical example, both Template:User (links to userpage) and Template:User-nonwiki (without userpage) can be utilized to give pages a bit more detail.
Press {{button|R}} to fly and go brrrr- oh wait, it's [[Ranks#Helper|staff only]].. Press R to fly and go brrrr- oh wait, it's staff only.. You won't use Template:Button often – it's only used in the context of guides, where a button or a key is to be mentioned.
<!-- hmmmmm --> Text between those tags are only displayed when viewing the page's source.


If you're ready and want to learn some more formatting tricks and whatnot, peruse the advanced subpage of this guide.
Hopefully, with these guides, you should be able to contribute to the wiki with style! :^)

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