Read it carefully, don't f**king skim it.
Before You Start: Some Things to Consider
In general, all pages have the following components:
- A nice clear sh*tty changes
These are necessary for a good lore/story. Try to get a clear idea of what your page is before starting.
Some articles and pages fail miserably for one reason or another, primarily due to the writer's lack of experience.
This is not an excuse for not even trying
This is not a curse befalling all new members
This is not just a fact of life or a universal truth
This is a challenge
Ideas
The idea is the soul of your story. Whether it concerns a lore, or a thing of a past, a good idea will carry you far and help you succeed. Here are a few tips to help you conjure on of those brilliant concepts for your article:
If you want to write about an evil and secretive country. The purpose of Arstotzkan Universe is that, in-universe, you write about evil countries that brawls each other that creates mass destruction around the globe. These are the key for your articles to success.
If you want to write about allies that does peacekeeping. Try something thrilling. The universe isn't just rely on evil countries that "Destroy, Destroy, Destroy", but rather a country that keeps peace for eternity. These countries will attempt to save the world against the greedy communist and fascist.
Or try something out of the box. Try some other that do not have purpose at all and just do "laughter is the best medicine".
The SCP Foundation site is also very nice
- Show it to other people: Often times, you might come up with something you think is a really cool idea, and want to write it up as soon as you can. Before you post it, you should always make a sandbox page
- Don't force an idea. Going and trying to force an idea that feels incomplete will usually end up with an underwhelming article or story. If you're having trouble with a piece, try to bounce it off other members in the chat, or make a thread on the forums.
Writing Style
Lots of people were don't know to start to write. Here are the things to do when writing an article:
Be Precise And Concise.
Be precise: Avoid ambiguous wording. Be concise: Don't use many words where fewer will do the job. Don't use longer words just because they "sound smarter" (unless they actually are more appropriate). Avoid ambiguous or too evil wording. Don't use more adjectives than are necessary. You're writing a technical paper — so write plainly.
Do not make a Third-person perspective. Use First-person perspective as a narrative. The allowed personal pronouns are: We, our, etc. And avoid the word: You, Me, etc. You get the point.
Avoid neutral point of view. A neutral point of view is used most by news reporter, documentary narrators, and especially the online encyclopedias like Wikipedia. Write the narrative like you're teaming up and patronizing with some countries. Neutral point of views are boring and plain that it always put its narrative to the middle.
For example: If describing a nuke heading towards Grestin you should not write:
F#€K! F#€K! F#€K!!! A BIG BOMG IS GOING TO GRESTIN!!!
Instead, write something like:
The [[COUNTRY NAME BY THEIR DEMONYM]] bombed our beloved Grestin Motherland, causing millions of casualties. The government will promise us that they will help us to rebuild our home.
Tips and tricks
Cross-linking is very important. Cross-linking is important so the universe feels more cohesive. You cannot create canons. There is NO exceptions. Also, you might to do an example that you mention that your country that does allied to some other countries. This will make the story and universe make sense.
Proofread. Check for spelling and grammar many times. This will avoid SPaG Errors.
Text Formatting
These are some of the most common formatting styles used:
| Code |
Effect |
| **bold** |
bold |
| //italics// |
italics |
| __underscore__ |
underscore |
| --strikethrough-- |
strikethrough |
| [[[909 Council]]] |
909 Council |
| [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page External links] |
External links |
A blackbox (█), also known as FULL BLOCK, is used to censor information. You can either copy-paste this from other articles, or press [ALT]+219 to get the character. You need to use your keyboard's numpad for this.
Rating Modules
[[>]]
[[module Rate]]
[[/>]]
Placing an Image or Media File
Do not use a picture if:
- It is an illustration and realistically a photograph would be used instead
- It has visible watermarks or copyright notices (Removing the copyright is not acceptable, either, that's illegal.)
- It contains illegal or pornographic material (This is cause for immediate removal of the image.)
To place an image on your article, you must upload your image onto the page. Please do not hot-link directly to an image hosted on another website. To do this, first be sure that any images uploaded are in the proper format (.jpg, .jpeg, or .png) and are downscaled to the proper size (please don't upload multiple-megabyte images), then follow these instructions:
- Go to the page you want to add an image to.
- Scroll to the bottom, then click on the Files link.
- From there, click Upload a File from Your Computer.
- Locate and select the image(s) you wish to use, and click Open.
- Finally, click Upload.
At this point, the image has been uploaded to your page. To insert the image into the article with the proper styling, all you have to do is include the following snippet of code in the appropriate place (Below the rating module and above the "Item #:" line for your first image, wherever you choose for extra images.)
[[include component:image-block
| name=THE NAME OF YOUR IMAGE FILE
| caption=THE TEXT YOU WANT SHOWN UNDERNEATH YOUR IMAGE
| width=300px
]]
Note that you can place all of this on one line. We broke it up here to avoid getting a horrible horizontal scrollbar. Be sure to replace everything after the equals ("=") sign to the pipesymbol ("|") or the closing brackets ("]]") with what's relevant to your article. It won't work if you mindlessly copy-paste the above.
The height of the image will automatically adjust to the width. Please do not exceed 300px, as blocks larger than that disrupt the normal flow of the document. If you have any problems or questions about using images on articles, please contact a member of the Image or Technical Staff Teams.
To place a media file on your article, you must upload it onto the page in exactly the same manner as uploading an image, as explained previously. To insert the file in the article so that it is played with an HTML5 player, please use the following syntax while referencing the file as was done in the example for placing an image:
[[html]]
<audio preload="metadata" controls {$autoplay_{$autoplay}}>
<source src="THE URL OF YOUR FILE">
</audio>
[[/html]]
If using a video, simply switch the 'type' from 'audio' to 'video'.
Collapsibles
Collapsibles may be used to hide long logs or lists without taking up page space. To get an effect like this:
Use this code:
[[collapsible show="+ Title for showing text" hide="- Title for hiding text"]]
[YOUR TEXT]
[[/collapsible]]
You should of course replace the "+ Title for showing text" and its companion for hiding the collapsed text with something relevant to your article.
