Project:Quickstart guide

The following serves as a quick start guide to editing and creating articles on Online Communipedia.

Editing assistance

Most editors are encouraged to use the Visual Editor, which is the WYSIWYG editor. The source editor is powerful for knowledgeable wiki users, but complex and potentially overwhelming for those unfamiliar with its conventions.

For assistance using the Visual Editor, read the relevant MediaWiki documentation on it. For assistance using the source editor, you can review the English Wikipedia's material on it alongside the official MediaWiki documentation.

Be bold

While Online Communipedia does not boast the scope, article breadth, and active participants of other wikis - such as the English Wikipedia - there are still content, conduct, and style policies that may be daunting or dissuading to read. While these policies do have to be followed, editors are not expected to understand or learn them at the start. Other editors exist that can correct any such errors; that's the whole point of a wiki editing system.

So, in short, BE BOLD! Write and edit articles in a manner that just feels intuitive to you, and if you decide to stick around, you'll come to understand the relevant policies naturally or through communication from editors.

Edit summaries

An edit summary is the text box that appears before an editor confirms their desired edits to go live. They should be used to give a general idea as to what the edit is doing. Whether it's adding content, fixing a link or some other error, and things of that nature. Chronically not having edit summaries may lead to intervention from administrators - especially if the editor is asked to use them and they do not.

Edits can also be marked as "minor" by using a checkbox. It isn't particularly useful or required, but the idea is to tick the box for edits which do not remove content, add content, or change the substance of content.

Article shape

The shape of an article generally goes like this:

• Lead sentence
• Template:Infobox
• Governance
  • Structure
• <other relevant topics that may exist>
• History
  • Chronology of events
  • Controversy
• References

Not all sections will exist for every article, either due to non-relevance or because there isn't sufficient source material to write about it.

Style considerations

These do not cover all style rules from the style guide, but following these will be the most effective at promoting consistency.

• Gender neutral pronouns should be used when referring to individuals (e.g they/them, not he/him/she/her).
• Section titles should follow sentence case (See also) and not title case (See Also).
• All pages must use American spelling (e.g elevator, not lift; center, not centre).
• All pages should be in third person (they, their) and not first person (I, me, myself, you).
• Dates should follow MONTH DAY, YEAR with the Xrd/Xth omitted.
• Use the digit, not the word (e.g 5, not Five).

Infoboxes

An infobox - or the fancy table that hangs to the right of articles - should exist for every community. It should immediately follow the lead of the article, which is the 1-4 sentence summary of what the community is and what it's known for.

To insert the infobox, copy and paste the following, and input relevant information. Parameters left empty will not appear. See the template's documentation for further details.

{{Infobox community
|active=
|plural_head=
|image=
|image_size=
|owner=
|estab=
|members=
|ret_date=
|gstyle=
|join=
|website=
|twitter=
|reddit=
|instagram=
|facebook=
|youtube=
|twitch=
|discord=}}

Policies condensed

The following subsections go over policies that are immediately relevant to editing and creating articles. Other policies may also be at play, but not having at least a grasp of the following will confuse other editors, readers, and possibly even yourself.

Copyright

Do not plagiarize content as if it is your own, and ensure any written content falls under an applicable copyright license. Creative Commons is primarily used by Online Communipedia, and any content in the public domain is also free game. The usage of copyrighted written material under fair use, aside from quoting, is not permitted - even should the fair use rationale be sound. All written material used for an article must be attributed, even if the relevant license does not demand it (such as the public domain or CC0).

Media (e.g pictures, pdfs, audio files) must be under an applicable license or fall under fair use. Media used under a fair use rationale must be media used as a source, such as screenshots of forums or communications software, or be the logo of a community for the purposes of identification. Any other usage of copyrighted media under fair use is not permitted - even should the fair use rationale be sound.

Media used as sourcing may not be modified using 3rd party tools in any way, with the singular exception being organic cropping so that only relevant material is taken.

Content

Online Communipedia does not write articles about communities that are private. In the same vein, the project does not disseminate information about communities that is not available to a general member of that community, unless it is released by some 3rd party to the general membership or public.

It is often necessary for editors to synthesize information - or review sourcing, come to conclusions, and write it in the voice of Online Communipedia - as some information is rarely, if ever, spelled out by community leaders. This is most often used when discussing the policy and structure of communities. Synthesis is prohibited, however, when discussing particular events and community history. Such writing should be from a neutral point of view, and only ever report on information that is properly sourced.

For the purposes of sourcing information, statements made from staff members are presumed to be accurate when speaking about the community's own structure or activities.

If and/or when 2 or more editors enter a dispute as to the inclusion or presentation of information, either by using tools to undo the work of others or editing manually, it must be resolved through consensus or compromise. No editors exist which may arbitrate the contents of a page, including administrators of this project. The singular exception is the site operator, and they reserve the power for exceptional circumstances, and plan to relinquish if should the project ever increase in participation.

Editor conduct

Editors are expected to have civil discussion and refrain from personally attacking one another. Edit warring - or reversing the actions of other editors on a page continuously rather than seeking consensus or compromise - is prohibited. To facilitate the edit warring policy, editors are prohibited from performing more than 3 reverts on a single page (in any namespace) —whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period.

The vandalism of pages, or edits that have the explicit intent to deface pages or obstruct the project's purpose, are prohibited and may be reverted on sight. Reverting vandalism is a notable exception to the 3 revert rule mentioned above. However, editors must understand that edits that can be interpreted as trying to be helpful - or to test the software that runs this website - are NOT vandalism, even if they violate policy.

Editors are required to adhere to the instructions of administrators, unless said instructions contradict or violate the terms of use or a project policy.