Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-32257336-20181121223043

Well, hello, everyone! It's mjaydenkim. I just came back from my months-long forced break (aka school) from editing the wiki but now I'm back, and I would like to show everyone some guidelines on how to write good pages! If you have something to add/remove, please tell me, or a moderator, and they can help. Thanks! :) GENERAL TIPS BEFORE STARTING:

1. Don't write about random/unknown levels or profiles. This one gets a lot of us. Some people want to self-promote themselves or their levels, others want to help their friends. Anyway, this has been a big problem on the wiki, and it takes a long process to delete pages (we don't want admins just deleting pages,) so please help stop problems before they start and self-promote yourself or your friends somewhere else.

2. Give pages effort. Many pages that are created have loads of grammar errors and are very short. Effortless pages like these do nothing but clutter up the wiki. If you need help with creating a page, fixing grammar errors, etc... post on a moderator's (or my) message wall, and we would be happy to help. Otherwise, don't create the page. If you think a page should be created but don't know how, please read this guide or post to a mod's message wall.

If you have a good idea for a page that could benefit the wiki for multiple users, please create it! Page creation is highly appreciated on the wiki, as long as the pages are good. No need to worry, however, as this guide should help you create a good page for everyone in the GD Community to benefit!

A GUIDE FOR CREATING PAGES ABOUT LEVELS:

Create the page in your sandbox first. To make sure that pages aren't created as drafts and are created as full-blown pages, you can write them in the sandbox. To get to your sandbox, go to your profile, and on the very right of the menu (which includes your profile, message wall, etc.) you will find your sandbox, which you can edit like a normal page! Please write your articles here first.

1. Create an introduction! An introduction is the first part at the top of the page. It should include information such as its name, its difficulty, some basic information about the gameplay, (detailed information should be saved for the Gameplay section,) verification state (is it verified, if it isn't, who is verifying it/who was verifying it in the past) and its position in the demonlist (if applicable.) A good example of an introduction is on the page for Ice Carbon Diablo X.

2. Create a gameplay section! Not all newly created pages have to have this immediately, as these are tedious and time-consuming to create. They generally have in-depth information of the gameplay, and their bodies can vary wildly from level to level. Generally, however, if creating a gameplay section, make it bullet points with information on separate parts. This can help, especially with readability. If you choose not to add one in your new page, put a bold TBA under the Gameplay header and someone should be able to pick up on it.

3. Create a Trivia section. Generally, Trivia is random information about the level that may not fit into the other categories. For example, it may include controversy over the level or if it is a sequel/prequel to a different level. Generally, there aren't many guidelines for creating Trivia sections, other than that they should be in bullet points, and extra information related to a bullet point should be a nested point (created by pressing enter+tab on a bullet point.)

4. Create infoboxes. Infoboxes are quick ways to see important information about different levels. To create one for a level, press insert at the top below the formatting options. DO NOT CLICK "INFOBOX." This is not the format used on the GD Fan Wikia. Instead, click "Template" right under "Infobox" and select "Infobox Level." There is some basic information boxes there you can fill in, and most are self-explanatory. For the "Image" category, upload an image to the Fandom servers. I like to do this by pressing the "image" button on the left of the insert dropdown menu, uploading the image from my computer, and then deleting the image from the article after. After, go into the "image" section on the infobox and type in "File:" and then the name of the image you uploaded. For example, for Epsilon, it would be "File:Epsilon.jpg". This may vary based on the page you are creating. Imagewidth can stay empty. The rest of the categories are self-explanatory, except for one minor quirk- for the difficulty and stars categories, it is helpful to put in small images. For example, for Epsilon, the difficulty box would have: " Extreme Demon" and the stars category would have 10. If this does not make sense, please check a level and go into its infobox. There, you should find an example.

5. Create a "Walkthrough" section at the end of the page. This is the easiest part of creating a page. All you really need to do is find a video of the level and put it there. Don't forget to credit the person who uploaded in the caption!

A GUIDE FOR CREATING PAGES ABOUT PLAYERS/CREATORS:

Creating pages for players or creators is very similar to creating pages about levels.

1. Create an introduction. An introduction only has to have basic information about the person, including their name (and all former names,) their race (if applicable,) and what they are famous for. An example from KrmaL's page is, "KrmaL (formerly Krazyman50) is a famous American player and level creator in Geometry Dash who has completed numerous Extreme Demon levels."

2. Create a levels section (if applicable.) This should include all of their levels, not just their rated/featured ones. A great example of a levels tab is KrmaL's page. It should be sorted by difficulty (in-game, not personally,) have its rating (unrated/starred/featured/epic) and short descriptions of the level (if applicable.)

3. Create an "accomplishments" section (if applicable.) These are harder to maintain, and may not apply to all people (mostly creators.) This part of the page mostly relates to good players, and their accomplishments in-game. They should only include extremely difficult levels or verifications, not created levels or beating of easy levels. They can also include fails on the levels as nested bullet points (described above.)

4. Create a trivia tab. This can include who the player is friends with, facts about their levels, etc. These sections usually have mostly or completely random information.

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

Include templates where applicable. These include the "stub," the "good page," (not to be abused,) etc. Please use these only when needed, but please use them if they are needed. They help mods know what to do with a page, and the general GD Fan population in general.

Use references. These are links that relate to a certain part of the page. To do this, go to the "insert" dropdown and select "Reference" where you want to insert said reference. In the box that appears, paste in the link, body of text, or whatever. A reference is generally an external page, and in-wiki pages are normally linked. At the end, create a "References" header and under it, insert a "References List," again in the dropdown. This should fill itself out, assuming you used the reference correctly.

Thanks for reading this extremely verbose guide. I hope it helped you, and if you have anything you would like to add, like stated earlier, please contact me or a different moderator and we can fix it. Happy creating!

-Mjaydenkim 