Editing Destinypedia:Standards

This page describes the standards currently accepted for page formatting and composition by the wiki community. Please try to follow these standards when creating and editing pages.

== General ==
A few guidelines that it is wise to follow when creating and editing wiki pages:

=== Always use the Summary box ===
When editing pages, ''always'' fill in the "Summary" box above the Save/Preview buttons before saving, and make sure that you fill it in with something useful describing the edit you made and, if it's not obvious, why. For example, "fixed spelling error" or "added fun fact" or "reverted from troll 127.0.0.1" are all acceptable. Saying "made some changes" or just filling in the name of the page is not helpful, because it's information that we already have. Making your Summaries accurate and useful makes it vastly easier for the rest of us to keep track of [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent Changes]] and keeps everybody happy.

=== Use the Minor Edit button ===
As a corollary to the above, if you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.

=== Don't link to the current page ===
In other words, a page should not link to itself.

=== Link once ===
A given page should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to [[Bungie]] in one place, then that should be the ''only'' link to Bungie on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article.

=== Don't use conversational style ===
This is an information site. It should read like [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], not like your diary.

*Check your spelling and grammar. Don't use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite").  If you're not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into [http://www.google.com/ Google] or [http://dictionary.reference.com/ Dictionary.com]. If you know that you're not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word which has spell-checking built in.
*Don't use "smileys" or "emoticons".
*Don't "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages or the forum.
*Never abbreviate the names of characters, places, or anything. Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer the character by their common/abbreviated name (such as just a last name).

=== Stubs ===
If you don't know enough information on a topic, or you know there's more, add a stub to it. To do so, try this:<br>
<pre>{{stub}}</pre>
And people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category.

=== Don't sign your edits ===
All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you've made an edit that you're particularly proud of (such as a transcript or screenshot), the correct place to take credit is on your own [[Destinypedia:User space|user space]]. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too.

=== Do sign your Talk posts ===
If you make a post on a ''discussion'' page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> at the end of your post. If you don't have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who's who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you're going to stick around.

=== External Links ===
External links are links that point to sites other than the wiki. The links should be in the form of a bulleted list. External links typically look like this:
<pre>*[http://www.bungie.net/filename.html Something Something]</pre>

[[Category:Help]]