Editing Editing Guidelines

[[Category:Guidelines]]

These are the '''Editing Guidelines''' for those wishing to contribute to the wiki.  Please read them before editing pages.

=Guidelines=
* Please remember to write ALL ARTICLES in the '''''third person''.''' This means no usage of first or second person pronouns (I, you, me, us, we, etc). If it helps, write as if you're teaching someone how the game ''is played'', not ''how to play it.'' Example: "Engineers often do so-and-so," instead of "As an engineer, you should do so-and-so."

* Keep in mind this is not a NA centric or EU centric wiki, so if you add info relevant to both scenes, make a way for a scene specific version of that article or add subtopics for each scene if needed. (Ex: Map list, Weapon list, etc...)

* Avoid opinions and unsupported generalizations.  If people disagree with you, it's not something that belongs in a wiki (unless you present it as an opinion, ie. "It is believed by some soldiers that the Black Box is useful for roaming" versus "I like the Black Box, it's great for roamers.  Try it out!" ).

* There are always going to be controversial topics, like strategies, loadout choices, weapon and offclass choices, etc, but because we are a competitive wiki we aim to help new players as much as possible, so guides and guidelines for classes / strategies can be added even if they are controversial, in a constantly changing game like ours would be almost impossible to set in stone that this or that strategy is 100% sure and not biased, just make sure to create new sections or appropriate pages with common sense, for example a very specific spy guide writed by a specific player won't obviously be unbiased and 100% right but it's still a great potential resource for new players if added and tagged accordingly as so.

* Use the discussion tabs on each page to discuss possible changes/updates or suggestions to those pages.

* Make sure to add a brief summary of your edits so everyone can keep up with what's going on.  I cannot stress enough how helpful it is to moderators if you tell us what you're doing so we don't have to look through the whole article guessing where the +4 bytes next to your edit came from and making sure you didn't write something inappropriate somewhere.

==Templates==
Templates help make pages look clean and user-friendly and you should learn how to use them and use them whenever you can. To learn how templates work and what they do please go [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:A_quick_guide_to_templates here] or [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template here]

<big>'''Use templates for pages when available, they are really easy to use and make pages much more user friendly'''</big>

Here are some examples of the current existing templates (list might not be updated with every current template):
*'''Map Pages templates'''
**[[Template:Map_infobox|Map Infobox]]
**[[Template:Map_locations|Map Locations]]
**[[Template:Maps_navbox|Maps Navbox]]
*'''Player Pages templates'''
**[[Template:Player_infobox|Player Info Box]]
*'''Team Pages templates'''
**[[Template:Team_infobox|Team Infobox]]
**[[Template:6s_team_roster|6v6 Team Roster table]]
*'''League/Season Pages templates'''
**[[Template:League_infobox|League Infobox]]
**[[Template:6s_team_roster|6v6 Team Roster table]]
**[[Template:ETF2L_competitions|ETF2L Competitions Navbox]]
**[[Template:Season_infobox|Season Infobox]]
*'''Steam Group Pages templates'''
**[[Template:Infobox Group|Steam Group Infobox]]
*'''Class page Templates'''
**[[Template:Class_Weapon_Table_Row|Class Weapon Table Row]]
**[[Template:Class_Weapon_Table_Header|Class Weapon Table Header]]
**[[Template:Class_Weapon_Table_End|Class Weapon Table End]]
*'''Others'''
**[[Template:Navbox|Blank Navbox]]
**[[Template:Popular_topics_navbox|Popular Topics Navbox]]
**[[Template:Weekmaps|This week maps table]]
**[[:Category:Maintenance_templates|'''Maintenance Templates''']]

You are free to create your own templates when necessary, be sure to maintain consistency in colors and format across the wiki and write guidelines for the template usage in the template page, an example of a well elaborated template can be seen [[Template:Player_infobox|here]], notice the usage guidelines and the ready to copy template as well as an example given.

==Starting a New Page==

Please follow these guidelines when creating a page on the wiki.

* '''First, make sure it's a topic that needs its own page''':
# Does the page already exist?  It may not have the exact name you want to use (ie. swiftwater (Payload) vs pl_swiftwater vs vs pl_swiftwater (UGC) vs pl_swiftwater_ugc_final), but check that your work has not already been done.
# Is the page just a definition of a term or concept? If so, it probably belongs in the '''[[Glossary]]'''.
# Is it a topic already covered as a subtopic of another article?  If so, make a new page only if it is an advanced topic that can be heavily elaborated on (and don't forget to add a link from that page).
# Is it a very broad topic (like "Competitive Team Fortress 2" or "Combat Classes")?  Maybe it should be split into smaller topics.
* Design a layout for the page that gives all related information in a clean format. 
* <span style="color:#FF0000">'''Use templates for pages when available'''</span>
* When you are satisfied with what is hopefully at least an introductory amount of information in your article, link to it from related pages in their "See Also" sections so we can see it!
* Categorize and always tag pages accordingly, remember to keep [[Special:Categories|Categories]] consistent across all pages and the whole wiki. You can check how categories work on wikis [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories Here!]
* Always add maintenance templates to pages accordingly -  [[:Category:Maintenance_templates|'''Use the Templates!''']]