Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Practices and processes

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Consensus as part of the editing process

As the Guild Wars 2 Wiki has developed over time, certain actions, practices and processes have become commonplace. Core principles in any area include being bold with contributions, discussing with other users to resolve disagreements, and finding consensuses. Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Requests for comment and Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Community portal are useful channels used to achieve this.

This article attempts to document common practices that have been agreed upon or proved effective in the past and may prove to be effective in future. As practice can change and evolve over time, this documentation might often be a step or two behind. As with any article on the wiki, be bold and correct mistakes or improve outdated information here.

Retention and deletion

The main aim of the wiki is to document Guild Wars 2, but this is a broad objective. Some content is relevant, some less so. Therefore, articles that are not relevant or appropriate can be deleted.

Candidates for deletion are tagged with {{delete|<reason>}}, discussed, and then deleted by an administrator when supporting consensus is evident (or when there is no opposition). At least three days are usually available to allow time for a discussion to start. Administrators typically don't delete pages while this discussion is unresolved. After being deleted, the attached talk page is often deleted as well; however, if the discussion could set a precedent, or be a useful read in the future, it can be kept and categorized in Category:Orphaned talk pages.

When users think a deletion is unobjectionable and could be deleted more quickly, the tag is amended to {{delete|<reason>|speedy}}. For example, this often applies to vandalism, one's own userpages, or unnecessary redirects.

Potential copyright violations are tagged with {{copyvio|<original source>}} and are deleted in much the same way.

Any page that is a candidate for deletion should be left otherwise intact for other contributors and administrators to review before deletion. Some exceptions to this are extremely offensive vandalism or vandalized pages with external links. These should be cleared out or reverted to a previous version immediately.

Requests to restore a deleted page can be made on the admin noticeboard. Pages to be deleted can be found at Guild Wars 2 Wiki:List of candidates for deletion.

Page and image formatting

These sub-articles facilitate organization and consistency of pages and images.

General

• General formatting - General information on grammar, linking, images, references, and verbatim from the game
• Image formatting - Information on taking and uploading screenshots, other ArenaNet images, and user images.
• References formatting - How to cite references in articles
• Table formatting - How to use tables in articles
• Drop rate formatting - Standard template for formatting drop tables
• Damage calculation - Practices on the wiki related to damage calculation, such as skill effects and testing.

Specific article types

• Item formatting
  • Armor formatting - Formatting any type of armor page, including helm, shoulders, coat, gloves, leggings, boots, and aquatic helm.
  • Weapon formatting - Formatting any type of weapon page, including all weapons and toys.
  • Trinket formatting - Formatting any type of trinket page, including ring, amulet, accessory, and back item.
  • Crafting formatting - Formatting crafting materials, including the type, level, tier, and other properties.
  • Inventory formatting - Formatting all bags, packs, and boxes.
  • Dye formatting - Formatting any dye.
• Armor gallery formatting - Formatting the armor galleries for armor sets, works closely with {{armor infobox}}.
• Event formatting - Formatting dynamic events, group events, and meta events.
• Location formatting - Formatting for locations, including region, zone, area, point of interest, dungeon, jumping puzzle, and other types of locations.
  • Dungeon formatting - Formatting for dungeon articles, including story and explorable path and Fractals of the Mists fractals.
• Node formatting - Formatting resource nodes: ore, rich ore, tree, and plant nodes
• NPC formatting - Formatting NPC articles for allies and enemies, including all races and creatures from the bestiary
• Renown heart formatting - Formatting renown heart articles
• Skill challenge formatting - Formatting skill challenges, including skill challenge objects, events, NPC allies and NPC foes
• Skill formatting - Formatting skill pages, including the description, effects, and notes.

Personal conduct

Edit warring and revert warring often occur when users disagree with others' edits: edits might be constantly reversed or otherwise changed (usually in a short amount of time). To avoid this, edit summaries are used to explain changes and talk pages are used to resolve differences. It is usually recommended to halt changes to the contested parts of articles until a consensus is reached. The importance of assuming good faith on editors' parts is always stressed - most users intend to improve the wiki, but they just have different opinions on how to do so.

Users are encouraged to be civil in discussions to resolve disputes effectively. Ad hominem arguments and pejorative remarks (usually known as personal attacks) are disruptive, both towards the community of users and the documentation of Guild Wars 2.

Disruptive users are typically warned to refocus on improving the wiki, and persistent disruption has led to blocks on editing.

Talk pages

Signing of your own comments when editing talk pages is a common practice. You can sign your comments by adding four tildes (~~~~) at the end of the comment. If someone else's comment has not been signed, use the {{subst:unsigned|username or IP}} template for them.

Non-user talk pages are used only (or mostly) for discussion of topics that pertain to wiki documentation. Irrelevant topics, like speculation and game balance, can make talk pages less effective, particularly if they're on large/popular talk pages. Discussions that don't belong on a talk page are sometimes moved away: either to a relevant user's user talk page, or to an archive. This helps to keep talk pages on-topic and facilitates easier improvement of wiki content.

Administrators

Administrators are users who help to ensure the Guild Wars 2 Wiki documents the game without problems. They are chosen and reconfirmed via requests for adminship.

Adminship is not regarded as a "reward" for good contributions nor does it represent additional authority in content discussion/decision-making. There is no inherent limit on the number of sysops or bureaucrats.

Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Admin noticeboard can be used to notify or request help from administrators.

Sysops

Sysops are users who have the tools to block/unblock IP addresses and registered users, delete/undelete pages and protect/unprotect pages. With CheckUser, they are able to view contributors' IP addresses.

Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats are sysops with additional tools to modify user rights: these include changing users to sysops, bureaucrats or bots (and vice versa). They can also merge the contribution/log list from one account to another, based on the requests for user merge.