Editing Guide
From Gothic Earth Wiki
This wiki exists to record details about the convoluted plot of Gothic Earth so that details are gathered in one place. It's a collaborative record co-written by Scott Hardie and all players, although players who leave the game lose their edit permissions. Players earn points for their contributions.
This Editing Guide exists to coordinate all editing efforts, so that pages are written alike. Just as the wiki itself is a collaboration between numerous people, so too are the editing norms; feel free to edit this page and get other players writing things differently when you have an idea for improvements.
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Basics
Anybody can read any page on the wiki, but you must login to edit. Log in using your first and last name as your username, and your password from Funeratic. To edit an existing article, click the "Edit" tab at the top of the page. To create a new article, search for what you want to call it, then click "create this page" when it tells you that the article is not found. Alternatively, the wiki is full of links to pages that don't exist yet, which are colored red instead of the usual blue links; click on any of those to create a new article.
To discuss a page without editing it directly, click on the "Talk" tab. This will allow you to write comments about the page such as why you left certain parts out or what still needs to be added. You can sign your comment with ~~~~, which will automatically add your signature with the time.
To see a history of edits to a page, click on the "History" tab. This will show who changed what when. Click on the "prev" link next to each edit to see exactly what was changed. You can find a tally of all changes to all articles by clicking the Recent Changes link on the sidebar.
On any page, click "What Links Here" in the sidebar to find other articles that mention the topic with a direct link. The same can be done with embedded templates.
Formatting
Most formatting can be accomplished using the gray buttons at the top of the editing form, but you can also type the markup directly into the article text. Write <nowiki> and </nowiki> around a phrase if you don't want the wiki to parse some markup, such as HTML.
To create italicized text, write ''double quote marks'' around the word or phrase. To create bold text, write '''triple quote marks''' instead.
To create a link to another article in the wiki, write [[double brackets]] around the term. If you want to link to an article by using a term other than the article's name, use a pipe and then write the term that you'd like to display. For example, write [[Elise LeBlanc|Elise]] to link the word "Elise" to the article Elise LeBlanc.
To link to an external web page, paste the URL (including http) into [single brackets]. If you'd like to link a term this way, type it after the URL within the brackets, as in [http://funeratic.com/ Scott's web site].
Use == equal signs == to create section headings within articles. The more equal signs, the smaller the heading will be.
Use * to create bullet points. Indent a line by a single space to create formatted quotes in a monospaced font.
Line breaks between paragraphs are automatically preserved as you typed them by inserting a blank line between paragraphs. If you want a line break to appear in your text without writing one, you can write <br /> instead.
To have an article send traffic to another article, like Dr. John Sheppard sends traffic to the article John Sheppard, type #REDIRECT as the text of the redirecting article, then a link to the target article, as in #REDIRECT[[John Sheppard]].
Any time that you see formatting on a page and want to reproduce it, just edit that article and see how the original author created the effect. A complete guide is also available online.
Templates
This more advanced form of wiki editing allows you to create a block of text or markup that can be embedded inside of an article, or even inside of another template. Write {{curly brackets}} around the name of the template to embed it inside an article, such as writing {{IncompleteArticle}} to embed a purple box announcing that the current article needs more information. You can create or edit a template by searching for "Template:" before its name, as in Template: IncompleteArticle, then edit it as if it is an article.
To pass parameters into a template, separate them with pipes. You can specify the names of the parameters with an equals sign, as in {{TemplateName|Parameter1=Value1|Parameter2=Value2}}, and then refer to them inside the template with triple curly brackets, as in {{{Parameter1}}} and {{{Parameter2}}}. Alternatively, you can simply specify unnamed parameters in order, as in {{TemplateName|Value1|Value2}}, and then refer to them inside the template in numerical order, as in {{{1}}} and {{{2}}}.
For example, the "note" template formats a block of text in a gray box in the center of the screen. It is used in the article Frail Sisters to quote the posters that Father Blenk posted around Boston about Alexandria Knight. The template is included in the article text; click on the "edit" tab there to see how the entire text of the poster is a single parameter.
Categories
Every article in the wiki should be categorized, which groups it with similar articles so that it can be found more easily. To create a category, create a link to that category's name, as in [[Category: Player Characters]]. If you just want to link to a category without including the current page in that category, put a colon at the front of the link, as in [[:Category: Player Characters]].
There are categories for all chapters, including Tales of the Red Death. Any article related to the plot should be placed into the chapter categories for which it is relevant. For example, if a character appeared in Chapter III: New York or was otherwise relevant to the plot of that chapter, then the character should be categorized in Category: Chapter III: New York.
Categories also create groups of articles. It's a handy way to look up topics related to a subject, such as The Circle, or groups of articles that have something in common, like Catholics. Each primary player character also exists as a category, as a convenient way to look up articles closely related to that character, such as Category: Lawrence Tate.
Game Sessions
The most important articles in the wiki are game sessions, which are written summaries of what happened each time the group played the game. These need to provide comprehensive notes about every plot detail that occurred so that there is a record for later reference, which is the point of the wiki. Unfortunately, they are some of the most difficult articles to write, since they can be very long and detailed. Nathan Quam records game sessions and makes the mp3 file available until the session has been completely recorded in the wiki.
The "SessionBox" template should appear at the top of every game session, recording who was present and where the session appears in the overall plot sequence. Every game session should also be categorized according to the characters who appeared in person in the game session (even as a dead body or a dream vision), and the characters who were referenced in the game session without appearing. These categories allow links from each character page to the game sessions relevant to that character, as explained below.
Immediately after a game session is concluded, players agree at the table who will be responsible for writing its summary. Scott will place the "dibs" template on the page to give that player 48 hours to add a plot summary, after which anyone is welcome to take over. Please place the "dibs" template on any page for which you are in the process of making substantial changes and don't want another user's edits to interfere. This template works on the honor system; please refrain from editing a page that someone has claimed, and please don't leave the template in effect on a page when you've stopped actively editing it for more than a few minutes.
Each game session is given a numerical value based on its order in the plot, which can be found in the session box at the top right of the page, such as 1 for Illimitable Dominion. Every time that you refer to the events of a game session, use the "source" template to create a footnote-like link to that game session's number, so that someone researching the subject can click on the link to read about the detail in its original context. For instance, if you wrote about the first time the characters met, you could write {{Source|1}} at the end of the sentence, which would create a link like this.[1]
- The wiki is collaborative. Be comfortable with other people altering your work, and be comfortable with altering the work of other people. We're all friends.
- Source everything. An article isn't complete without sourced references to every relevant game session. While sourcing can be left to someone else editing the article after you, it's usually much less work to source it as it is written than for someone else to fill in these links later.
- As a rule of thumb, link to everything that could potentially be an article on the wiki, and only link a term the first time it appears in an article. It's easier for someone to subsequently remove your links if they're inappropriate rather than add links if they're missing.
- Player characters with detailed histories on Funeratic should incorporate all of that information into their wiki articles, and will be marked as incomplete until this has been done.
- Want to keep an eye on certain articles to see what changes? Click on the "Watch" tab at the top of the page to add it to your Watchlist, where you can get a convenient report of all changes to the set.
- If an article's topic also exists in the real world, the article doesn't usually need to define it; it needs to provide information specific to Gothic Earth. For instance, an article about America doesn't need to provide a generic history of the nation; everyone is already familiar with that subject. Instead, it should list the ways in which the America of Gothic Earth is different from the real America, and what details about America the nation are relevant to the group's adventures. General information about a subject is welcome and interesting, but does not further the article's completion.
- Pasting information from another source (such as Wikipedia) into the wiki can help to fill in an article, but it may cause inaccuracies if it differs from Scott's intentions for the plot. Please place the "NonCanonical" template around any text of this nature, so that it is not mistaken for details from a game session. For example, see Necronomicon. Contributions copied from another source are not credited towards points for character advancement. If you plan to make a large contribution that is partially copied from another source, break it into two submissions, one containing your original writing and a second containing the copied text, so that you still get credit for your work.
- Looking for ways to make the most difference? Start with any article in which the "incomplete game session" template appears. These game sessions need to have their plots summarized in the wiki as soon as possible. After that, choose any of the incomplete pages linked in the sidebar and fill in more information to make them complete. In most cases, a full summary of plot information, with source links, is what is missing. Finally, visit the wanted pages linked in the sidebar and create one of these pages. These articles have all been linked somewhere in the wiki (click "links" next to the term to see where) but do not yet exist.
- Don't hold back. Every contribution is valuable, even if it defies these guidelines; someone can clean up your work after you submit it. Because every change to every article is recorded, it's easy to undo mistakes, so don't be afraid of deleting or breaking anything. Get creative; experiment with new templates and new formatting standards. Don't be shy about altering this Editing Guide if you have an idea for making the wiki better. Thank you for every contribution that you make!
