Zelda Wiki:Getting Involved



Welcome to Zelda Wiki! We're glad to see you've expressed interest in helping us strive to be the most comprehensive Zelda resource on the web. Read on to find out how you can get involved in our projects, and why you should!

Why Choose Zelda Wiki?
We're independent and fan-operated. Zelda Wiki is owned and operated by Zelda fans just like you. Our only agenda is to provide the Zelda community with a comprehensive encyclopedic resource, and to create an enjoyable environment for those who wish to help us. We welcome creativity and innovation, we aren't overbearing, and we aren't limited by wiki farm rules.

We are well established and lead the Zelda community in factual, encyclopedic content. Wikis are about collaboration, not competition. We believe the whole Zelda community should come together and strive to make a good encyclopedia even better, rather than split off into smaller wikis and have each site do essentially the same work over and over. By choosing to edit Zelda Wiki, you are choosing to strive for excellence rather than reinvent the wheel.

We welcome whoever is willing to collaborate, whatever their talents. Is English writing not your strong suit? No problem. There is tons to do for Zelda Wiki besides writing content. For one, we have a high demand for images. If English is your second language, you may be able to help with our massive translation project. If you have experience in front-end web development, you can help us improve our site layout and templates. Otherwise, we may need help completing some manual tasks.

These are just a few examples of what you can do for Zelda Wiki. For more information, see "Helping Out" below.

Making an Account
Click here to make a free account with Zelda Wiki. Email registration is optional. Having an account allows you to edit everything on the wiki that isn't locked. Plus, you get to browse the site ad-free!

Zelda Wiki Forum
Zelda Wiki has a forum hosted on Zelda Universe. The forum was made to facilitate discussion and collaboration between users, and to strengthen the ties between our two sites. We invite you to make an account on the forums as well so that you can get to know the other users and the staff.

See Help:Forum for information on how to use the forum.

Learning the Ropes
If you're new to editing wikis, you can learn the essentials from our Help Guide. Wiki editing poses a substantial learning curve and mistakes are inevitable, but don't get discouraged! Many of our most experienced users and staff were once in your shoes. So don't be afraid to try things out! The staff is here for your support.

What You Can Do to Help
There is a never-ending stream of work to be done at Zelda Wiki. There is always something you can do to help no matter your strengths, weaknesses, and level of experience. The main editing tasks are listed below.

Administrators will occasionally put out site-wide announcements when they need users' opinions or helping hands for a specific project. Feel free to ask an admin if you would like them to give you a specific direction or task.


 * Guide: Quality Standards
 * Guide: Quality Standards


 * Category:Articles needing attention contains an organized list of all the articles on Zelda Wiki flagged with a maintenance notice. These notices indicate specific problems that an article has. You can help Zelda Wiki by fixing them. The articles needing attention are also organized by game if you would like to write about one game in particular. When a new game is released, we need all the help we can get to get the wiki up to date as soon as possible.
 * The most common article work involves expanding stubs and incomplete sections as well as revamping poor articles.
 * The Wanted Pages lists articles that the wiki may need.
 * Many editors like to use the random page function (located in the sidebar on the left) to look through wiki pages to edit.
 * If you notice an issue with an article, tag it with an appropriate maintenance notice. Each notice has a documentation page that shows you how to use the template.


 * Guides: Images and Uploads
 * Guides: Images and Uploads


 * Zelda Wiki strives to be a complete resource for official Zelda art. If you notice a piece of official art is missing from the wiki, upload it.
 * Image editors are needed to fulfill Image Requests.
 * Those who own capture devices can help add images to articles that need them.
 * Guide: Citing Sources
 * Guide: Citing Sources


 * Users with strong knowledge of the games can help verify the accuracy of questionable statements and clarify vague statements.
 * Users who enjoy research can help us cite unsourced claims.
 * Users are encouraged to coordinate research on the forum.


 * Zelda Wiki:Discussion Center
 * Guide: Talk Pages


 * Every article has an associated talk page for users to discuss possible changes and improvements. Large-scale change to multiple articles and policy are debated at the Zelda Wiki:Discussion Center. If you enjoy debating, you can try to help resolve these issues.
 * The wiki's most common issues are splitting and merging.
 * Check the forum for new group projects you may be interested in.


 * Translations
 * Zelda Wiki indexes names from all official translations of Zelda titles. At the bottom of nearly every article is a "Names in Other Regions" template (see the documentation here). Users fluent in other languages – particularly Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Italian – are needed to translate these names to give English readers.
 * Users fluent in Japanese are especially sought after. We need them to interpret the original Japanese materials and analyze the differences with the American versions.


 * Users are sometimes needed for many manual tasks in order to implement a change on a large number of wiki articles. If you enjoy repetitive work, ask an administrator if they currently have a manual task for you.
 * Users are sometimes needed for many manual tasks in order to implement a change on a large number of wiki articles. If you enjoy repetitive work, ask an administrator if they currently have a manual task for you.

Staff
The staff was hand-picked to represent Zelda Wiki as an organization. Administrators in particular edit the wiki on a daily basis and are responsible for guiding new users. Do not hesitate to contact an admin if you have any questions or concerns.