Help:Joining a Fandom community

For users who are just joining a wiki community, this article will present wiki tips and netiquette.

Wikia has hundreds of thousands of wikis and thus community cohesion and practices vary greatly wiki to wiki. New users are encouraged to browse the wiki they have just joined to identify policies for wiki behaviour as well as the tone and position of the wiki's culture.

This article does not attempt to dictate how culture or practices should be on wikis, instead outlining some common and consistent points that most wikis have in common.

You're a part of the wiki!
When you first see a wiki, it doesn't seem like it could possibly work. If anybody can come along and change things, then how can the information be trusted? Doesn't it just get vandalized, or fall into chaos?

Once you start participating, you see that this "weakness" is actually a wiki's greatest strength. Sure, anybody can add anything -- and then everybody else gets to proofread it, and fix mistakes. Information that looks suspicious can be verified. Vandalism is almost always fixed within minutes. It's possible for someone to post errors, or nonsense -- but over time, the best wins out.

If you're reading these words, then you're a wiki editor. If you see a problem on one of the pages, don't roll your eyes and complain about it. Just fix it!

Create a user name
Log in and create a user name -- it'll help you (and everybody) keep track of your contributions. It's possible to post anonymously on this wiki, but be advised that anonymous posters can be treated more skeptically. If we can see the pages you've added to, then we'll be more impressed with you, and more likely to trust.

You're also invited to post your name on your user page -- either your full name, or just a first name and an initial. It's not required, but it helps everyone get to know you and trust you.

Show your sources
Other readers should be able to verify the information that you post. Cite episode numbers wherever possible, and give sources for quotes. If you find information in a book or on a website, tell us the title or the URL. If it's clumsy to put that information in the article, then add a "References" heading at the bottom of the page. Behind the scenes information is especially important to source; we don't want to spread unfounded rumors.

Active Talk Pages
On many wikis, when you post a question on an article's talk page, you can list it in Active Talk Pages by adding a talk box. Just add this template to the top of the article page: -- that will automatically add a box pointing people to your question, and it'll list you on the Active Talk Pages. You can browse through that list to find other ongoing discussions.

History/Activity
Nothing is ever lost on a wiki! You can see all of the changes that have been made to a page -- and who made them -- by clicking on the "History" tab at the top of any page. For the most recent changes, you can simply click the "Recent Activity" button on the top right of the page, below your User name (and settings).

Signing talk posts
When you post on a talk page, put an asterisk (*) at the front of your post to make a bullet. Sign talk posts with four tildes -- ~ -- to automatically add your user name and a date stamp.

Link sanity
Only link a name the first time it's used on a page. Please don't link every single capitalized word -- it makes the page confusing and messy.

Uploading and formatting pictures
Click on "Upload file" on the left navigation bar to upload pictures. You can add your image to any page using this code:


 * [[Image: yourpicture.jpg |thumb|300px|Caption for your picture. ]]

Images should not exceed 300 pixels wide for article tidiness and copyright adherence.

Categories
You can put an article into a category by adding this code:. You can change the way the article is alphabetized within the category like this:.

Before you create a category, check the Category list to see if there's a similar category that already exists. If the category doesn't exist yet, then adding that code will create the category. Be sure to add some text to the new Category page, or the link from your new article won't work properly.

No shopping links
Please don't add links to Amazon or other commercial sites. It's nice to help other users of this wiki to find the cool products that are available, but we don't want to look like we're trying to sell things. We also don't want to open the possibility to people posting sponsored Amazon links, or links to their own Ebay store. If a product is currently in print and available, you can note that in the article. If that inspires a reader to buy the product, then they can find it on Amazon.

Setting your preferences
There's a lot of useful stuff on your Preferences page.

You can change your display so that links show up as blue or red words, without the underlining. You can also change your time zone, and the number of items you see on the Recent Changes page or the Category list.

Keyboard shortcuts
There are some helpful shortcuts to navigate around within a page.

Alt-Shift-T : Talk

Alt-Shift-E : Edit

Alt-Shift-H : History

Alt-Shift-R : Recent Changes

Dealing with vandalism
Vandalism isn't much of a problem on a wiki, because everybody has the power to fix it when they see it.

Contact administrators
See Special:Listadmins for a list of admins on any wiki.

If you have questions or comments about the wiki, you can leave a message on an admin's talk page.

Communicate
If you don't like something on your wiki, or you really like something, give your feedback to everyone else on the wiki. The forums (usually at Forum:Index) are typically a great place to discuss how things are going. Stay in touch and communicate!

Nothing on a wiki has to be permanent, the community can always reanalyze any aspect of it. Share your feelings among your fellow editors to see if they feel the same way about something and what you should do about it! Talking never hurt anyone.

Develop policies
Many of the vastly popular wikis have very in-depth and utterly detailed policies and guidelines that declare what is OK to do, what isn't, and what to do if someone did something they weren't supposed to. Regardless of whether it's a blocking policy or a manual of style, policies and guidelines give everyone, especially the new people, a chance to understand what they should do. People can't read your mind to know what is OK and what isn't &mdash; document what your wiki thinks is best practice.

Stay visual!
Readers love to be able to have a visual relevant to the article their reading. Always consider adding images or videos to your articles to help with the overall presentation of your article. A big wall of text can be scary, boring, and uninteresting! At the same time, a big wall of images looks unprofessional and messy. The key is to balance your visuals with your content to create the greatest experience you can share with your readers. Help:Galleries and slideshows are also a really neat way to connect with your audience.

Use everything you got
Being a part of the Wikia community means you get the benefits and features of Wikia, including lots of cool extensions from Help:Galleries and slideshows to add color to your articles, to blogs to announce news and other important things, and everything under the rainbow! Browse Category:Extensions to see most of these features and their documentation so you can learn how to utilize them to better your wiki. Know about the tools you have, so you can better use them.

Start customizing
The Oasis skin at Wikia is highly customizable. It allows for heavy customization of your wiki. You can change the colors, add images or banners, change font colors, sizes, and font faces, and anything else under the moon. MediaWiki pages also allow for major customization, allowing you to rename many of the messages shown on the site.

By customizing the skin or messages you can truly give your wiki a unique design that's attractive and remembered by readers. Giving your wiki style will easily make your wiki look more friendlier, professional, and well-developed. It's definitely worth trying out.

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