DDO Compendium:Editing Guidelines

This page is intended to provide basic guidelines as to how to make effective edits on the DDO Compendium. It is highly suggested that all potential editors read these guidelines prior to making any edits.

Acceptable Content

As a Compendium that is focused on Dungeons & Dragons Online, all pages that are created and maintained should be 100% relevant to factual game topics. Topics such as specific quests, items, and character building are welcomed to be created at any time if they are missing. Please conduct a search using the search bar at the top of every page prior to creating a new page as the page you are looking for may already exist.

Pages relating to specific Guilds are not to be created as a guild could be disbanded at any time which would render the information about it null and void. You are welcome to create guild specific pages within your own User space, as pages created in your own User space are your pages and can contain any content you wish it to. That being said, pages in your user space should remain relevant to Dungeons & Dragons Online as much as possible.

All content in all pages should remain factual to current game mechanics. Previous mechanics or historic topics are allowed and will be discussed in more detail later in this guide.

Wiki Markup

All edits should make proper use of standard MediaWiki markup. HTML tags are allowed as well, but should be avoided if there is a suitable MediaWiki markup tag for it. The only exceptions to the "Avoid HTML" rule is talked about in the next section. Custom CSS tags should be used sparingly and only in places that are outlined in the MediaWiki Markup guide. Custom JavaScript is not permitted as it poses a security risk to the Compendium. The top of the editor window contains many handy shortcuts to adding proper wiki markup and should be used if you are unsure of proper markup.

Foreground

The DDO Compendium makes use of the Foreground skin, which is built on the Foundation Grid, a system similar to Twitter's Bootstrap. If you are creating content that involves layouts such as tables, it is highly advisable to read the documentation for the skin so that tables and such will make proper use of the mobile first responsiveness of the wiki. Using standard MediaWiki tables will, in fact, look great on a desktop PC or laptop, but will look extremely broken on phones and tablets.

Internal Linking

Whenever possible, when creating content on the Compendium, any time you can link a term or mechanic to another page on the Compendium, you are encouraged to do so. This creates content that can easily made to flow from one topic to another that is more broad or specific and will help new players to learn about mechanics of the game.

External Linking

When using external links, please use the proper wiki markup for them. If you are unsure about the proper markup, at the top of every editor is a link button that will show a popup to help create links.

Game Guides

Players are encouraged to create game guides as separate articles under their own user space. Once a game guide is finalized, you are welcome to link to it in the relevant article(s). Please do not create game guides in the main namespace as those will be flagged for deletion by Administrators.

Citations

If while editing you find yourself quoting a forum post or other source of relevant media, please use the proper citations for it. Citations can easily be created by clicking on the Open Book icon at the top of the editor.

Image Licensing

When uploading new or updated images, please select the proper license. Most images can be attributed to DDO-screenshot if, and only if, they are actual screenshots that you took from in-game. For most other images, the GPL license should be suitable.

Grammar

All content edits should be made with care to use of proper grammar and spelling. In-game spellings are permitted as long as they are properly spelled and capitalized. If you have a word processor available to you, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you are encouraged to use the spelling and grammar checker those programs offer to ensure proper grammar.

Game Facts

With Dungeons & Dragons Online being a very numbers heavy game, you should take care in that each edit is correct and accurate to current in-game mechanics. When adding numbers to the Compendium (think Trap DC's), please make sure that you have the correct number for the appropriate difficulty. Approximate numbers should be avoided whenever possible.

Previewing Edits

Before submitting your edits, please take a moment to click on the Show Preview button and make sure that everything looks the way you intend it to be. This can save a lot of time and will keep from bloating edit counts.

Minor Edits

Some edits made by editors will be considered minor. A minor edit consists of things such as: formatting, spelling, grammar, internal linking. Any edit that changes the content of a page should not be marked as minor. This includes, but is not limited to, adding major sections, updating numbers, adding new images.

Templates

While the main focus of the DDO Compendium is to make it a wiki that is extremely simple for anyone to edit and maintain, there are going to be many templates that are used throughout in order to keep uniformity across like pages. This is unavoidable and must happen to have a well organized wiki. The aim is to minimize the amount of templates that are used and to make them as simple to use as possible. Please consult the documentation for each template for usage instructions. A proper list of common templates will become available at a later date.

Historic Topics

Topics relating to items and/or mechanics no longer present in the game are welcome to be added provided at the top of each page it is annotated with the proper historic template. Each page will also contain a changelog for it containing all changes made as a result of game updates throughout time and should only be changed when a current item or mechanic is removed from it.

About This Policy

This policy is a fluid document and may be changed and/or altered as the need arises. If there is something that you feel has been omitted or is inaccurate, please inform an Administrator.