Twokinds Wiki:Layout Guide

Welcome to Twokinds Wiki, the organized database on all things Twokinds. This here is a guide I've personally written to help people new to wikis learn a bit of how they work and for wiki users to know how this one works specifically.

The Rules
There are several rules on this wiki. These are not different from any other wiki. The punishment for breaking them depends on how much you've contributed to the wiki and the severity of the rule broken.

Rules

 * Do NOT spam.
 * Do NOT pretend you are an sysop.
 * Do NOT flame.
 * Do NOT use the veteran excuse to troll, first strike will always be a warning.
 * Do NOT vandalize pages.

The Article
This is the backbone of or wiki, so I will write a quick tutorial on how to properly create/write an article here.

First off, before creating any article, use the search bar and search whatever article you plan on creating. The article might have been created already. This seems like a dumb suggestion, but trust me I have seen this happen many times before.

Ok, so there were no article of it, and you create a new article. What now? First thing you do is write at the bottom of the article. This is a template, which I will explain in a sec, that marks the article as "New and Lacking information". If an article has written on it, it will appear in edit suggestions and in the stub category. This is good because you want people to know about this new article, so they can help expand it.

Now that the article is "stubbed", you write the article itself. If you really have no idea how to do an article, look at another article and see how it's done. Use it as a basis. Preferably a relevant article(if you're doing an article about a character, use an article about another character as basis). There are some formalities/syntax you should know when writing an article.

Text Formating

 * To write bold text, you write the text enclosed in three apostrophes. Example will look like this: Example.
 * To write italic text, you use two apostrophes instead.
 * To write bold italic text, you use five apostrophes. Makes sense, huh? 2+3.
 * To center a piece of text, you write it like this: Example

There are many other ways to format text, these are just the usual ones used, you should check the official wikia syntax page.

One last note, be careful when combining formating text. Let's say you want to write bold centered text. You don't write: text . That would be doing it wrong. You write: text.

Linking Text
Whenever you write a name that has an article in this wiki, you link it by enclosing that name/word with two brackets. Example: Flora will appear as Flora.

you can change the text in the link by writing it this way: Trace's Girlfriend. This will appear as Trace's Girlfriend. There are no articles in this wiki called "Trace's Girlfriend", what its doing is sending you to the Flora article. You use that to make the linked text fit better in sentences. What do you think sounds better: Trace used to be a templars (written templars ) or Trace used to be a templar (written as grand templar )? They both link to the Templars article but one is written correctly within a sentence. See what I did there?

To see whether article you linked a name to exists, just press the preview button when editing an article. If it appears as red text instead of blue, then no articles by that name exist. This means either it doesn't exist, or you wrote the article name wrong.

'''REMEMBER, THE PREVIEW BUTTON IS YOUR FRIEND. USE IT, IT'S THERE FOR A REASON'''

If you want to link to an external site, then you either:


 * Write the URL. Just the URL, like this: http://twokinds.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=1


 * Write the link within ONE bracket if you want to put a custom message as the link's text. You do this by writing one bracket, the URL, space, the custom text, one closing bracket.

Like this: The Twokinds Forum

which will appear like this: The Twokinds Forum

Templates
Templates are here to make your life easier. These are bits of premade text, so you don't have to write them. These are written like this:. Let's say you're writing the plot section of an article and you want to let the readers know that there may be spoilers. There is a template for that. You don't have to write "spoiler warning: spoilers ahead". This has already been done for you, just write. This will appear in the article as:

Templates have many uses. Some create infoboxes. The proper way to write those is detailed in their corresponding article.

Categories
This is an aspect that people don't apparently grasp right away. Most pages, if not all, should be under at least one category. This greatly helps keep the wiki and it's articles organized.

How do you put an article under a category you ask?

Simple, go to the article itself, at the bottom there should be a button that says "Add category". Click it, write the category it should be in, then press enter. That's it. Be sure to write the category correctly, though. A typo creates a new category.

DO NOT go to the category article and press add category at the bottom, then write the article you want under that category. It does NOT work that way, what you'd be doing is putting the category under another category(humorously named after an article). You have to go to the article, and add the category there.

Article Formalities
The first time you write the name of the article within the article itself, you bold it. For an example, look at any article. This is done in the introductory paragraph.

Speaking of which, always do an introductory paragraph. This helps give the readers an idea of what the article is about. Smaller articles don't require an introduction since the article is a paragraph long. However, if the article gets big enough, split it into sections and add an introduction.

Also, it's aways nice to have an external links section whenever it applies.

Another important thing is to keep whatever you write within context. Make sure whatever you write is relevant to the wiki and Twokinds. Don't go creating articles about random stuff.

The Talk page
The talk page should be used as a means to better an article. Please refrain from posting theories, random comments or that type of stuff there. Obviously, the content in the talk page should only be about said article. Comments and theories should go in Twokinds Forum.

Also, be sure to sign your talk page comments with four tildes ( ~ ) so we'll know who wrote it without having to check the history.

The benefits of registering
While anyone can edit an article, having your own registered screenname looks so much better than your IP address. People would know who you are and the administrators would go easier on you if you do something foolish. This is encouraged to keep track of your contributions, due to IP addresses constantly changing.

Administration
The following users are the care takers of this wiki. These are the people you should seek help from.


 * Azenaku
 * MKWRX

PROTIPS

 * Search the Forums for Tom's posts, they often contain details about places, characters and the story not mentioned in the comic.

If you believe there's something I should add to the guide, please let me know.