Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Community Portal

This page is for organizing the war effort against entropy.

We are doing this! Let us do it right.

A

• Alphabet: Okay, the first rule is that there must be a rule for each letter of the alphabet. Now only five rules to go. (Inspired by Peristarkawan's nomic instincts)

B

• Be bold! So says Wikipedia. If you see a mistake, be it a fact or a typo, change it. Don't leave it to someone else to clean up mistakes. Feel free to make changes. If you think an article needs a major rewrite, then if you think you can do it, go ahead and do it. You can also use the discussion (talk) page to post suggestions.

C

• Categories: When editing a page, stop to think about what categories it should be included in, and add them if necessary. Don't forget to consider categories that don't yet exist. Capitalize the tag like [[Category:Stub]].

D

• Discussion: Use the discussion page to voice suggestions and to ask questions. Try to limit inline comments. Before editing, check the discussion page to see if there are any changes being planned.

E

• Eliminate, {{delete}}, fluff. This includes redirects that aren't linked to and wouldn't be typed in the search box.

F

• Facts: Keep your information factual. If you haven't confirmed something, post it on the discussion page. Do not create one-liner pages without links (unless its a stub). Add as much pertinent information as you can and avoid conjecture (possibly, maybe, could be, likely) by providing concrete examples from the game or links to other parts of the wiki.

G

• Greed shall not be your motivation, but grace shall.

H

• Headings: Organize the content of each page into sections of related information. After the introduction, use appropriate headings for each section, and follow the Naming style of this guide. Keep headings to a minimum, consider a list or a table if you have many repetitive facts.

I

• Images: Images and screenshots should use the default tilesets for clarity. Small diagrams should be constructed with Template:RT, for easy editing, and to save on space. Exceptions are pages about tilesets and story pages like bloodline games. Images should always be in .png format. When uploading images, give them a name that is descriptive and unlikely to be duplicated. Names like "1", "screenshot", and "untitled" should be avoided.

J

• Jealousy: Don't be shocked if someone rewrites or removes your article; your hard work is not lost. Post suggestions on the discussion page and talk about the issue. All versions are stored in the history, so your material can be reused or merged with existing content if the rewriter left something out.

K

• Keys: We have a special template, k (abbreviation of key). This wiki is about a game that uses nearly 100% keyboard input, so we have a template to improve the display of keys. For example, the syntax {{k|q}} will generate q, a standardized and visually pleasing representation of the "q" key. The enter key should be done as {{k|Enter}} ( Enter ), for example, and the arrow keys use arrow characters, found at this handy code page. The right arrow key, for example, appears as →.

L

• Losing is fun! If something made you lose, include information about it. Others may want to try it out, or you may help someone avoid flooding their masterpiece fortress.

M

• More people should use the raw files (found in your 'install dir\raw\objects') to get information about creatures and objects. It has loads of good information, that the game actually uses.

N

• Naming: The titles of new pages should be singular nouns, with only the first word capitalized. Example: Screw pump, Metalsmith's forge, Gear assembly. The exceptions are terms that are always plural and proper nouns. Getting the wrong name can mean extra redirects and always means a page move. Screw pump is not the same as Screw Pump. Do not put question marks in the names of articles: Due to the way they are handled in URIs, it messes things up.

O

• Original research is good! Forget what you've seen on That Other Wiki; personal experience is perfectly fine here. Without original research, this wiki would be a tiny fraction of its current self--so if you see something that seems wrong, needs verification, or just lacks information, load up the current edition and check for yourself (but please, say you've done so on the talk page).

P

• Preview: Use the preview button to check for typos. Avoid cluttering the history of a page with multiple edits. Mark small changes as 'minor' so they can be (optionally) hidden from the recent changes page.

Q

• Queue: Check the special pages for work still to be done! There are lists of Dead end pages. Uncategorized categories, Double redirects, Broken redirects, and others that all need work occasionally. If you feel more like writing content than maintaining the wiki, the list of stub pages is a good place for you to start, followed by the short pages that exist.

R

• Redundancy: Before creating a new page, do a search to find out if the topic is already discussed in detail somewhere else. If you find that redundant pages already exist, merge their content and have one redirect to the other. This rule also refers to redundant material inside pages.

S

• Style: In general, try to follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style when writing articles. For example, introduce keyword articles by highlighting the first keyword in bold, such as Rules.

T

• Timelessness: The wiki is intended as a guide for all players, even new ones. As such, references to differences from or similarities to old versions of DF should be reduced and eliminated, except on pages specifically dealing with said differences or similarities. Avoid phrases like "now marble can be used to make steel" or "before, farms required two floodgates", etc. For facts that are likely to change, or placeholder features, use Template:Version. For example, you might say, "Cave-ins are buggy right now^{v0.27.169.33a}" using the version template: {{version|0.27.169.33a}}.

U

• User pages: Introduce your self, let the community know who you are. If you have a comment on someone's actions on the wiki, praise or otherwise, post it on their talk page, and they'll get notified next time they login. However, keep this place civilized; avoid flame wars, personal attacks and insults.

V

• Verify: Many loosely based assumptions are floating around. Verify your information and check Category:Articles needing further verification if you think you can help verify others. If you have something that is not verified, use the {{verify}} tag right after it.

W

• Wit can be hard to recognise once it has been written down. It is best if it is used on clearly humour or story related pages, talk or user pages, but kept to a minimum in fact-based articles like Dwarf or Summer. Use an appropriate template such as {{D for Dwarf}} if there might be confusion.

X

• Xeniality: Be nice to people who are new to Dwarf Fortress.

Y

• Y: ?

Z

• Z: the sign of Zorro. Sign each of your 'Talk' entries with your own --~~~~.

Notice Templates

There are templates available for marking pages needing improvement. Ideally, you should make appropriate changes and move on, but if you are unable to access the required information, post a notice to flag an issue up. Using template notices provides a consistent way of flagging a page. Notices in use can be tracked through category pages. Notices based on rules from this page should all use the Category:Pages that break Community Portal rules category.

This section is far from complete.

Template for Notice Templates

{{Colored Notice Box|#FF00FF|Contents of the message}}

Image Rules Notice

{{Image Rules Notice}}

New Notices

If several pages arise that break the same rule, create a new template based off one of the above templates. Remember to include the Category:Pages that break Community Portal rules tag at the bottom, or some other appropriate category so that other users can track pages that need reworking. To create a new template, type [[Template:Rule name notice]] into an article, or directly into the address bar of your browser.