User:K2L3798@legacy41960118/Editing Advice

Unsure on how to give a nice presentation to an article? Below are some tips that may help you.

Manual of Style
"Less than lovers, more than friends"

- Hoahio

One of my goals in the wiki is to provide consistency in regards of the articles' structure, format and content. As of April 16th, 2011, ZeldaWiki still doesn't have an official Manual of Style, and as things evolve over time, there may never be one. Not exactly a bad thing, mind you; as a wise user told me once, too many rules in a place might limit the possibilities for great contributions; so, since there is no official model to follow when writing a page or section, what I do then is to expand the articles so that they can have a similar, customizable format. For example:


 * A game article can provide information about the associated game's (in this order) story, gameplay (and, if opportune, to divide it into subsections detailing the major gameplay changes), game information (a brief description on the game's technical resources (graphics, sound, hardware, differences between version, etc.), in-game setting, confirmed information regarding its timeline placement and, if available, the fastest speed run completion record), listings, reception, ports and remakes, trivia, gallery, references and external links.
 * A dungeon article can provide information about the entrance to said dungeon, its themes and navigation (themes, layout, types of puzzles, the dungeon item found, and mention of mini-boss and boss), the minor enemies and traps, theories (if they exist), trivia, and references.
 * Next is a guideline to specify the thematic or environmental elements of a dungeon. In the dungeon infobox, you can specify the place's elemental theme(s) by adding one of these in the Element(s) field (see here to learn how). By the moment I wrote this note (late December 2010), there seemed to be some controversy among some users in regards of describing the elements of a dungeon in an article. Here's a few tips that might help you in these situations: First, there are certain dungeons in the series that don't have an element in particular, neither because of their locations nor because of their inner design or puzzles; in these cases, simply feel free to leave the infobox without the Element(s) field, and thus with no element specified. Secondly, if the dungeon in particular makes a notable use of more than one element, don't worry about debating which one to choose and just add the pertinent elements. A bit of common sense can be helpful when making these adits.
 * Articles regarding the games' major settings (Hyrule, Termina, the Great Sea, etc.) are among the longest or, at least, the most heterogeneous in content. It can start with a brief section regading the etymology of its name, then a description about the hystory and mythology tied to the land (preferably divided into sub-sections), followed by the governance (that is, the political systems practiced, and the functions of the military if they're present), then economy (the currency, most likely Rupees, but also a brief mention about the overall economic activities put into practice), technology (the most notable devices and anachronisms that can be appreciated), geography (a survey on the major landmarks), population (the available races), theories (if they're available), trivia (optional) and references (likely to be many in number, use the refbar template for space saving).
 * Boss and mini-boss articles can provide information about the strategy required to beat them(ALWAYS DESCRIBED IN THIRD PERSON AND IN PRESENT TENSE), related theories (if they exist), trivia and references.
 * A minigame (or, given the case, a racing game) can provide information about the minigame's location (the setting), the rules, trivia material (if it's available), and references. You can notice that it's a simpler index (like the minigames themselves =D).
 * Miscellaneous articles that describe conventions and themes related to the series as a whole are less subject to a definite MOS; however, a generally useful model is to write sections for each game or (if the article is written from a historical perspective) to write sections for each historical era of the series.
 * All of the above can be subject to section merging or non-inclusion of a particular section at all. If there isn't too much to say about a game's graphics or sound, or if two sections cover related information, you can write your edit in just one (example: Graphics and Sound). If there are no interesting details about a subject, then it's no use to have a Trivia section (unless you want to start expanding the page, in which case you can use the   template for people to know).
 * Item articles should have section describing the locations, uses, theories (if available), trivia and references. Admitedly, this can be difficult to implement if the item in question has appeared in multiple games (as I learned the hardest way possible).
 * In the case of the articles regarding Quest Items, things are a bit easier: They can provide information about the items' quest purpose, as well as a list of the items and their respective locations.
 * Articles on objects like blocks or switches can be detailed with a section about their general functions, as well as the types or variations of it that are known.
 * If the article deals with something or someone heavily recurring (i.e. appears in more than three games), then a formatting isn't always necessary; the sections that order the information according to the subject's appearances by game will be more than enough =). In some cases, the lead section may be renamed by adding a specification of the type of information dealt with in the game sections.
 * Next is enemy-related articles. Being different from bosses and minibosses, their ZW pages deserve different sections, given the necessarily different way to describe them; these sections are about the foes' characteristics, varieties (or variations), and weaknesses.
 * The perspective of the subject's coverage in the article should reflect the broadness of the subject itself. Articles on very broad subjects (such as water or light) are in legitimate and understandable danger of deletion if they're not written with the proper emphasis. Avoid, by all means, organize the article's sections by "Game Appearances" or something similar. This way is not recommended. Because you're dealing with a commonplace subject, write the article from a perspective that is broad as well. Explain the subject's role in the series (with sub-sections detailing the different roles the subject has played through the games, both in regards of gameplay, storyline and overall significance), then proceed to write sections that show the various faces and manifestations of the subject (making galleries with images showing the subject's manifestations might help) in the games.
 * As an alternative to the above, some articles with broad subjects can be written with yet another approach. The Dungeon, Boss and Sidequest, namely, cover their respective subjects beginning with details on their general properties and conditions (what makes the subject be considered to be such), their history through the series (separated by gaming generation, it's more organized than having game-by-game sections), and classification (the variations and manifestations of the subjects).
 * Never, by any means, include an infobox if there's no available image showing the subject. If you can't (or don't know how to) upload a proper image, don't hesitate to ask a more experienced editor (an admin or patroller, perhaps) for one image. I say this because, in principle, there should be an image-including infobox in each and every article possible (with the possible exception of certain miscellaneous articles). Also, when uploading an image, try adding a summary on the subject shown, the game it's referencing, the source where the image comes from (it you extracted it from a site, that is), and (very importantly) the type of license.
 * Obviously optional, but even your userpage deserves a nice presentation. Feel free to talk about yourself, how you came here, your perspective on the wiki, the Zelda series, and perhaps some other passtime you have =P. If you have befriended some editors (not THAT way, of course XD), you can list them in a section, and encourage other people to request inclusion in there (although that never happens =/). If you want to presume your contributions, use the   template in another section. If you want to make people know how much you play Zelda, you can create a table where you specify what games you have, how many times you played each, and how much of them you have beaten. Things like that.
 * As for the rest .... just use common sense. Character (or even real life people) articles can begin by describing the individual's biography, articles on overworld places can begin with a section about their features, and so on; as always, wherever is possible, add information regarding the available theories, trivia and references.
 * When it comes to listing Quest or Sidequest items (masks, treasure or special charts, Spirit Gems, Stamp Stations, ... pick your choice), and specially doing so with the help of tables, it's strongly recommended to either order them alphabetically (if each of them has a different name), according to in-game order or, if neither are available, just list them in order of location appearance. This way, if you're interested on knowing, say, how many Treasure Charts are in the Temple of the Ocean King, just look for the place's name in the table and you'll have nice info to chew in. In the past, the majority of lists were messed up in this aspect. This is because users based the listing on the way walkthroughs (lots of them, with infinite shame including most from this very wiki's mastermind sites) do: In the order you can actually access to said items. This is okay when it comes to a 100% Complation playthrough, but not when you want a quick reference for locating something in just a location. To elaborate, When you summarize the location of items according to availability chronology, you tend to see the name of a place various times across the list, which forces the reader to have to read the entire thing in order to receive help. In this wiki, NO TABLE should list, by any means, items this way.
 * As you explore the articles in the wiki, you may notice at the end a template listing the name of the articles' subjects in other languages (these names come from non-English versions of the games). If you know the foreign names of the articles' subjects, feel free to add them wherever they're missing. Although optional, you can also provide a translation of said names with the help of the Exp template.
 * One last thing: Be sure the info you try to add isn't in the article already.

I repeat, none of the above is strictly mandatory since there is no written Manual of Style, and there may not be one at all. As I make use of that model in articles and sections, I'm just proposing it so that it can be taken into consideration in the event a Manual of Style is born; so far, the results are satisfactory, but not all articles are written this way yet (since I haven't played all games). So if you're interested in the way I'm trying to improve pages, or there is something that can be modified or checked, you can make me know and edit the articles so that all of them are consistent with a common modus operandi.

Another thing I'm interested on is to improve the repertoire of articles related to minigames and sidequests. There were originally only 24 articles related to sidequests; through article expansion and categorization, now there are 42, but the task is not over yet, since most sidequests from the handheld titles are either lacking an article, or the latter exist but haven't been categorized yet. Still, things seem to go to the right direction. As for minigame articles, some minigames didn't have pages at all, and some still don't, so I contributed on creating a few pages on certain minigames; but I can't with this alone, I need others' help. Finally, I have had interest on miscellaneous articles, so I have contributed on them (and made a couple of them). To think that these articles could have been deleted a few years ago..... what matters now is that editors' interest on them grew up significantly since then.

My hopes are that these contributions don't violate or contradict the policies in regards of the wiki's Quality Standards, Canon Policy and General Disclaimer, to which I wish to respect, follow and remain faithful.

Wise Internet Lessons, by Phineas and Ferb
"Look at Yeto's eyes. There true beauty"

- Yeto, Twilight Princess


 * Be careful with whatever you submit on Internet. It never disappears. Remember this when you're on a dispute in a wiki, forum or blog. I had a few minor confrontations here at ZeldaWiki, and I fully regret because of that. Learn from my mistakes: Don't let your public image on the web to be damped by flame wars, provocations, or the like; it's unhealthy, and depressing.
 * You never know who will see your content. Careful, young heroes and heroines; you may submit something lustful or offensive while thinking that your relatives or friends won't be aware of it. And it happens the other way around: At this moment, someone might be libeling you on Internet . . . . and you still remain unaware of it.
 * JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS ON INTERNET, DOESN'T MEAN IT'S TRUE. Thanks, ZeldaInformer, for posting unproven rumors about Zelda Wii (especially those about that supposed "reliable German source"; serioulsy, Zordiana???). That, and your uncontrolled Majora's Mask gushes, gave false hopes to most fans, which left them unprepared for what Nintendo actually planned for Skyward Sword.
 * Not everybody is whoever they say they are. My name is not K2L, obviously. And it's way too coincidential that most users on ZeldaWiki user-named themselves after Heroes characters (Matt, Ando, Claire, Nathan, Adam, etc. =P).
 * If there is something you wouldn't do on real life, don't do it on Internet. Be honest with yourself, and with your friends from the web.