Draft:Contributing to BattleTechWiki

This is an information page.

It is not one of BattleTechWiki's policies or guidelines, but rather intends to describe some aspect(s) of BattleTechWiki's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

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BattleTechWiki's purpose[edit]

File:Edit Button.ogv Our purpose is to create a web-based, free content encyclopedia of all branches of knowledge, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation. The goal of a BattleTechWiki article is to create a comprehensive and neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about a topic. Editors are encouraged to be bold in editing in a fair and accurate manner with a straightforward, just-the-facts style. Articles should have an encyclopedic style with a formal tone instead of essay-like, argumentative, promotional, or opinionated writing. The five pillars is a popular summary of the most pertinent BattleTechWiki principles.

Getting started[edit]

As a new editor, or contributor, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of this project called BattleTechWiki. Don't worry too much if you don't understand everything at first, as it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. BattleTechWiki not only allows you to create, revise, and edit articles, but it wants you to do so. You just need to remember that you can't break BattleTechWiki and although there are many protocols, perfection is not required, as BattleTechWiki is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles.

Introductions and tutorials[edit]

For a listing of introductions and tutorials by topic, see: Help:Getting started

To achieve our goals, a wide range of how-to and information pages are made available. Aside from this page, there are some other introductions (tutorials) to the project. The module introduction is a step-by-step guide explaining what this place is all about and how to contribute. The BattleTechWiki Adventure is a comprehensive 7-mission interactive guided tour, which covers all the essentials about editing and the expectations and norms of the BattleTechWiki community. For an extensive textbook see Help: BattleTechWiki: The Missing Manual.

Creating an account[edit]

You do not have to log in to read BattleTechWiki. You do not even have to log in to edit articles on BattleTechWiki. Just about anyone can edit almost any article at any given time, even without logging in. However, creating an account is free of charge and has several benefits (for example, the ability to create pages, upload media and edit without one's IP address being visible to the public). To create an account in seconds, click Create account and fill out the few required fields. This will be logged, your account will be created, and you will be provided with a link back to this page.

Community protocols and conventions[edit]

Policy and Guideline: BattleTechWiki:Civility and BattleTechWiki:Etiquette

How to pages: Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines and BattleTechWiki:Simplified ruleset

BattleTechWiki does not employ hard-and-fast rules, and there is no need to read any page before editing. However, some standards and behavioural expectations may be enforced. General social norms should be followed by all BattleTechWiki editors. The BattleTechWiki community is made up of people from different countries and cultures, with different views, perspectives, opinions, and backgrounds, sometimes varying widely. Editors should treat each other respectfully, work together collegially, and avoid behaviour that would be widely seen as unacceptable, disruptive, tendentious, or dishonest.

Policies, guidelines, and formatting norms are developed by the community to describe the best practices, to clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goals. These rules are principles, not laws, on BattleTechWiki. To varying degrees, policies and guidelines exist as rough approximations of their underlying principles. They are not intended as inflexible, controlling statutes on any set of norms or practices under all circumstances, nor to exhaustively define all matters within their ambit. They must be understood in context, using common sense and discretion. BattleTechWiki is an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, an online community of individuals interested in building and using a high-quality encyclopedia. Therefore, there are certain things that BattleTechWiki is not and common mistakes that should be avoided.

Discussion and consensus[edit]

Guideline page: BattleTechWiki:Talk page guidelines

How to pages: Help:Introduction to talk pages and Help:Using talk pages

File:Editing basics - Talk pages.webm Behind the scenes of BattleTechWiki articles, there is a large community of volunteer editors working to build the encyclopedia. It is not uncommon for editors to disagree about the way forward. That is when discussion and attempts to reach consensus should take place. Every article on BattleTechWiki has a talk page, reached by clicking the Talk tab just above the title (for example, Talk:Evolution). There, editors can discuss improvements to the content of an article. You can participate too! If you ever make a change that gets reverted by another editor, discuss the change on the talk page! The BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is a popular method of reaching consensus and may be useful for identifying objections, keeping discussion moving forward and helping to break deadlocks. Some editors will see any reversion as a challenge, so be considerate and patient. While discussing matters, it is very important that you conduct yourself with civility and assume good faith on the part of others. Edit warring (repeatedly overriding or reimplementing contributions) is highly discouraged. There is a bright-line rule called the three-revert rule, the violation of which may lead someone to be blocked from editing to prevent further disruption. Disruptive editing is not always intentional, as new editors may simply not understand the ins and outs of BattleTechWiki.

Most other types of pages on BattleTechWiki also have associated talk pages, including the user page each editor is assigned once they sign up. When other editors need to contact you, they will usually do this by leaving a message on your user talk page. When someone has left you a message that way, you will see a notice the next time you log in or view a page on BattleTechWiki.

There are many other types of discussions that take place on BattleTechWiki. For example: Articles for deletion is where editors discuss whether or not an article should be deleted (or kept, merged or redirected to another article, etc.); requested moves is the launching point for debating the retitling of pages; and the village pump is a centralized area for discussion where editors debate various aspects of the encyclopedia project, such as proposals for new features, policy changes and technical issues.

The basics of contributing[edit]

Policy page: BattleTechWiki:Editing policy

File:Great Feeling.ogv BattleTechWiki is the product of thousands of editors' contributions, each one bringing something different to the table, whether it be: researching skills, technical expertise, writing prowess or tidbits of information, but most importantly a willingness to help. Nobody owns articles, so if you see a problem that you can fix, do so. Everyone is encouraged to copyedit articles, add content and create new articles if they have knowledge about the topic at hand or are willing to do the necessary research to improve it. Although you should use a broad vocabulary of regular, non-technical terms, do not use words or expressions that many readers may not know. If an article is written in a highly technical manner, but the material permits a more understandable explanation, then editors are strongly recommended to rewrite it.

Article development and content protocols[edit]

Articles make up the bulk of BattleTechWiki's mainspace. Each article is on one topic (rather than a word and its definition, which usually belong in Wikimedia's dictionary project called Wiktionary). BattleTechWiki does not publish original research. An encyclopedia is, by its nature, a tertiary source that provides a survey of information already the subject of publication in the wider world. Accordingly, and because BattleTechWiki is open to editing by anyone, we require that information be verifiable in reliable sources. Ideally, all information should be cited to reliable sources and to evidence that is verifiable. However, we only mandate citations for quotations, material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged and contentious material, whether negative, positive, or neutral, about living persons. Sourcing requirements are significantly stricter in such articles on living persons. Please note though that we strongly discourage people from writing about themselves, their friends, bands, websites, companies or organizations, pet projects, personal vendettas, campaigns and any other topic in which they have a conflict of interest.

The quality of BattleTechWiki articles varies widely; many are very good, but some lack depth and clarity, contain bias or are out of date. In general, high-quality articles have the following elements: a lead section that gives an easy-to-understand overview, a clear structure, balanced coverage, neutral content, and are based upon verifiable information found in reliable sources.

BattleTechWiki:Featured content represents the best of what BattleTechWiki has to offer. These are the articles, pictures, and other contributions that showcase the polished result of the collaborative efforts that drive BattleTechWiki. All "featured" content undergoes a thorough review process to ensure that it meets the highest standards summarized at featured article standards, and can serve as an example of our end goals. A "featured article" or "list" is indicated by the symbol () in the top right corner of a page. "Good articles" are those that are considered to be of fairly high quality, having undergone a similar but less rigorous review process to meet the good article criteria. The symbol () in the top right corner of a page indicates "good article" status.

Some of BattleTechWiki's most important topics are listed at BattleTechWiki:Vital articles. You can look at the table of contents on that page to choose a subject category you know about or are interested in. Choose an article, try to improve it so it matches the good article criteria or even better yet the featured article criteria, which provide models for ideal content and structure. An important way you can help is by creating requested articles.

How to edit[edit]

Introductions: Editing with VisualEditor and Editing with wiki markup

Note: You can use the public sandbox or your private sandbox to experiment with page editing.

Editing most BattleTechWiki pages is relatively simple. BattleTechWiki uses two methods of editing: classic editing through wiki markup (wikitext) and through a newer VisualEditor (VE).

Wiki markup editing is chosen by clicking the Edit tab at the top of a BattleTechWiki page (or on a section-edit link – if these links are missing, click the Edit tab and remove the code __NOEDITSECTION__). This will take you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the page you were viewing. In this box, you can type in the text that you want to add, using wiki markup to format the text and add other elements like images and tables. You should then press the Show preview button to review your contributions for any errors. When you have finished editing, you should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit box describing your changes before you press the Publish changes button. This will help others to understand the intention of your edit. To avoid accidentally leaving edit summaries blank, you can select "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" on the Editing tab of your personal preferences.

The VisualEditor option is intended as a user-friendly, "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) editor, allowing one to edit pages without the need to learn wikitext markup. Logged-in users can opt in through personal preferences, see the VisualEditor user guide for more information. Anonymous editors get the classic editor by default, but can switch.

Two editing environments: wikitext and VisualEditor
Edit box showing the wiki markup. You can change the formatting and contents of the page by changing what is written in this box.
BattleTechWiki article in VisualEditor 2018-02-12.png

Some pages are protected from direct editing, at differing levels of restriction. The three chief types, in order from most to least common, are:

Semi-protected pages, which cannot be edited directly by unregistered users (IP addresses), as well as accounts that are not autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least four days old and have made at least ten edits to BattleTechWiki), or that are not confirmed. This is normal for pages which would otherwise be vandalized particularly frequently.
Extended confirmed-protected pages, also known as 30/500 protection, which only allows direct edits by editors with the extended confirmed user access level, granted automatically to registered users with at least 30 days tenure and 500 edits. Articles about major, contentious events are likely to get this protection level for a short period.
Fully-protected pages, which can only be edited directly by administrators. It is very unusual for an article to need this level of protection, but you can see it on key internal pages like the citation system.

When you are subject to any of these three levels of protection, you will see a View source tab instead of an Edit tab. You can still seek changes to these pages by submitting an "edit request" – a user with the ability to edit the protected page will respond to your request. You can submit a request by clicking on the View source tab on that page and using the "Submit an edit request" link at the bottom right. See Help:Protection for more information.

Documenting sources[edit]

Guideline pages: BattleTechWiki:Citing sources and BattleTechWiki:References dos and don'ts

Introductions: Help:Introduction to referencing (wiki markup) and Help:Introduction to referencing (VisualEditor)

How to pages: Help:Footnotes and Help:Find sources

File:Citing sources tutorial, part 1.ogv This is an encyclopedia, so remember that it's a necessity to include references listing reliable websites, newspapers, articles, books and other sources you have used to write or expand articles. Please understand that these sources should verify the information but you must not copy and paste text you find anywhere, except for short quotations, marked as such with quote marks and carefully cited to the source the quote was taken from. New articles and statements added to existing articles may be deleted by others if unreferenced or referenced poorly or if they are copyright violations.

Generally, sources are added directly after the facts they support at the end of the sentence and after any punctuation. BattleTechWiki permits editors to use any citation system that allows the reader to understand where the information came from, and strongly encourages use of inline citations to do so. Common methods of placing inline citations include footnotes, shortened footnotes and parenthetical references.

Inline citations are most commonly placed by inserting a reference between <ref> ... </ref> tags, directly in the text of an article. After publishing changes, it will display in the article as a footnote (e.g.^{[1] [2]}), and the source you keyed in will appear on the page in a collated, numbered list corresponding to the footnote numbers in the text, wherever a {{Reflist}} template or <references /> tag is present, usually in a section titled "References" or "Notes". If you are creating a new page or adding references to a page that didn't previously have any, don't forget to add a references section with this display markup.

File:RefTools rework.ogv

There are a number of tools available to help with citation placement and formatting, some of which are internal tools and scripts, while others are available from external sites. For an example of the former, RefToolbar is a JavaScript toolbar displayed above the edit box that provides the ability to automatically fill out various citation templates and insert them in the text already formatting inside <ref> ... </ref> tags. For an example of the latter, the Citer converts a digital object identifier (DOI) or Google Books address (URL) into a filled-out {{cite journal}} or {{cite book}} template ready to be pasted into an article. See Help:Citation tools for many others.

At the moment, there are over 0 articles that have statements that need citations. The tool Citation Hunt makes referencing those statements easier by suggesting random articles which you can work on.

Markup, formatting, and layout[edit]

Guideline pages: BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/Layout and BattleTechWiki:Styletips

How to pages: Help:Wiki markup, Help:Cheatsheet and Help:HTML in wikitext

Complicated articles may be best modeled on the layout of an existing article of appropriate structure and topic. Wiki markup is the syntax and keywords used by the MediaWiki software to format a page. Wiki markup is used extensively throughout BattleTechWiki for such things as hyperlinks, tables and columns, footnotes, inline citation, special characters and so on. An "edit toolbar" (as pictured below) is provided just above the edit box, which will allow logged in users (by selecting the option in personal preferences) to automatically place and format various aspects of wiki code. Many HTML tags can be used in wiki markup. You can check your HTML by using markup validation.

Article creation and notability[edit]

Before starting a new article, please read and try to understand BattleTechWiki's notability requirements. In short, the topic of an article must have already been the subject of publication in reliable sources, such as books published by major publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed scholarly journals and websites that meet the same requirements as reputable print-based sources. Information on BattleTechWiki must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. BattleTechWiki's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics.

Renaming and page deletion[edit]

The move option in the Vector skin appears when you move your mouse cursor over the small drop-down menu, shown here.

BattleTechWiki pages can be renamed by moving the page to a new title. This is done by clicking on the Move tab at the top of the page (you need to be registered and an 'autoconfirmed' user to be able to do this). Before you do so, please carefully review this checklist of things to consider before a page move. The main principles for choosing an article title are described at BattleTechWiki:Article titles. Do not move or rename a page by copying and pasting its content to a different title. Doing so fragments the edit history and BattleTechWiki's copyright licenses requires attribution of all contributors. You may not always be able to move a page yourself and should refrain from doing so even if there is no technical impediment, where the rename would be considered controversial and thus should be discussed first. Technical limitations restricting direct moves include where the page is move protected, the target page is at a title protected from creation, or already exists and cannot be moved over a redirect. In such cases, and to list potentially controversial moves for discussion, please see BattleTechWiki:Requested moves for more information.

While almost anyone can edit and move articles, to keep things manageable, only administrators can delete them. Note that removing all text from a page does not delete it, it just leaves a blank page, which is discouraged as it is confusing to readers. For all the gritty details, see the deletion policy and how to delete a page. Please remember that the deletion process is about the appropriateness of the article for inclusion in BattleTechWiki. Therefore, please do not take it personally if an article you've contributed to or created is currently nominated for deletion or is already deleted. For the reasons why and the options available for retrieving data from deleted articles, see why was the page I created deleted? If the page is in your own user space (for example, starts with "User:YourName/" or "User talk:YourName/"), then you can request immediate deletion of the page at any time. Simply edit the page while logged in and put the template {{db-u1}} at the top of the page. An administrator will see that you added the template to a page in your user or user talk namespace and will delete it in most cases.

Images, sounds, and videos[edit]

Overview: BattleTechWiki:Image dos and don'ts

Images, sounds, and videos enhance articles greatly. A file that is already hosted on BattleTechWiki or the Wikimedia Commons can be inserted with the basic code "[[File:FILENAME|thumb|DESCRIPTION]]". ("Image:" can be substituted for "File:" with no change in effect; the choice between the two is purely a matter of editorial preference.) Using "thumb" generates a thumbnail of an image (the most common placement option), which is typically sized differently from the original image. Several options can affect a thumbnail's placement and size, and there are other methods for placing images not in a thumbnail format, such as in a frame, table or "infobox", which this summary page does not delve into.

Only logged in users can upload files under an appropriate title. The first step in uploading a file is to determine its copyright status. If a file is in the public domain, or bears a type of free copyright license compatible with the non-restrictive licenses we require for free reuse, then it can and should be uploaded to the Commons rather than locally to BattleTechWiki, so that all Wikimedia sites, including BattleTechWikis in other languages, have access to it. If the image is non-free then it cannot be uploaded to the Commons, but you may be able to upload it directly here at BattleTechWiki, if it meets our stringent standards for a claim of fair use in a particular article. Please ensure that the copyright status of any file you upload has been specified and we are allowed to use it on BattleTechWiki.

The Wikimedia Commons' File Upload Wizard and BattleTechWiki's File Upload Wizard, will guide you through the process of submitting media. All files uploaded are mirrored between BattleTechWiki and Wikimedia Commons, and searchable from either one. There are various file formats available. For images, SVG, PNG, JPEG, XCF, GIF and TIFF formats are recognized (other image formats may be as well). For audio, use MIDI, or Ogg with FLAC, Speex, or Vorbis codecs. For video, use Ogg with the Theora video codec.

BattleTechWiki has a Graphics Lab, which aims to improve graphical content already stored on Wikimedia Commons and English BattleTechWiki. There is also BattleTechWiki:Requested pictures – a collection of wanted images. High-quality images may be submitted for consideration as featured pictures if they meet the featured picture criteria. To help with sounds, go to BattleTechWiki:Requested recordings and see if you can fulfill any of the requests while trying to meet the featured sound criteria. There is also spoken BattleTechWiki project, which aims to produce recordings of BattleTechWiki articles being read aloud.

Lists, tables, and templates[edit]

Guideline page: BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/Lists

How to pages: Help:List, Introduction to tables and Help:Template

Lists are essential to the organization and presentation of content on BattleTechWiki. Lists in articles and stand-alone lists are subject to BattleTechWiki's content policies and guidelines if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations. Outlines on BattleTechWiki are a specific type of stand-alone lists designed to help a reader learn about a subject quickly, by showing what topics it includes, and how those topics are related to each other.

Tables on BattleTechWiki are a commonly-used way of displaying information, particularly in articles that contain data. Tables are also subject to BattleTechWiki's policies of verifiability and established facts. The simplest way to insert a table is with the editing toolbar. Although HTML table syntax also works, special wikicode can be used as a shortcut to create a table. The pipe (vertical bar) codes function exactly the same as HTML table markup, so a knowledge of HTML table code helps in understanding pipe code.

Templates are used throughout BattleTechWiki pages to promote consistency, display enriched content with ease, and avoid the necessity of duplicating material that is used over and over across numerous articles and pages. At its most basic, a template is a BattleTechWiki page created to be included in other pages. Common uses include to display notices, infoboxes, navigational boxes, standard warnings, special text formatting, unit conversions, calculations and many other purposes. The most common method of inclusion is called transclusion, where the wikitext of the target page contains a reference to the template, using the {{Template name}} syntax.

To help improve BattleTechWiki's lists, first find one that interests you at Portal:Contents/Lists of topics or Portal:Contents/Outlines and then help it match the featured list criteria. Ideas for creating a list may be explored at BattleTechWiki:Requested lists. See BattleTechWiki:Lists article alerts for details of ongoing tasks and talks about lists. To help with templates see BattleTechWiki:Template standardisation.

Help resources and interactive assistance[edit]

The help resource system of BattleTechWiki consists of a wide variety of how-to and information pages, written to differing levels of technical expertise and in widely varying styles. This variety, however, has its flaws: it is easy to navigate to a page that regurgitates the same information, contains concepts that have not already been covered, or is overly complicated for one's needs. In short, the effects can be quite frustrating at times. To browse help related pages see the help menu or help directory. Or you can use the search box at Help:contents (accessed at any time by clicking "Help" displayed on the left side of all pages). As mentioned above there is also a copy of a comprehensive published book, at BattleTechWiki: The Missing Manual.

Don't worry if you do get stuck, witness disruptive editing or are involved in a dispute; there are volunteers available to assist you. There are a number of help forums and services which allow users to ask questions, seek assistance, ask for administrative intervention and similar matters. For general matters related to using and editing BattleTechWiki, forums include the help desk, the Teahouse, posting the template {{help me}} to your talk page or to an article's talk page, as well as a live assistance IRC channel at #wikipedia-en-help. More specific help forums include BattleTechWiki:Media copyright questions, BattleTechWiki:Requested templates, and requests for translation. To seek administrative assistance, BattleTechWiki:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents is for reporting serious incidents requiring administrative assistance and BattleTechWiki:Administrator intervention against vandalism is for reporting continuing simple vandalism, after appropriate warnings have been given without the conduct stopping. Finally, general knowledge questions (i.e., those unrelated to BattleTechWiki) are welcome at the various sections of the reference desk. See BattleTechWiki:Requests for a listing of services and assistance that can be requested on BattleTechWiki.

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