Guide to Editing the Wiki

In order to edit the Wiki, you must first make an account. Registration is open to anyone, simply press the "Login" button and follow the prompts to create a new account.

When editing, do not edit any Lore (sans mechanics) or Template pages without asking first. Editing these pages without permission may result in your Wiki privileges being revoked.

General Guidelines

This is simply a quick list of introductory wiki editing guidelines for our Wiki.

If you're ever uncertain about something, feel free to ask in the #wiki-development channel on our Discord.

General Wiki Etiquette

• Capitalize links and link names. This fits in better with how the Wiki supports article names at a software level, and proper nouns are supposed to be capitalized anyway.
  • Not every reference needs to be a link unless it's for internal navigation. Link the first couple references to another page, but refer to it in plain-text further down the page.
• After performing an edit, please fill out a general statement (it can be as few as 2 words) to let people know what you did.
• Minor edits are for things like typos, missing punctuation, or minor grammatical quibbles. Anything larger than that is not a minor edit.

Wiki Guidelines/Editing Tips

• Keep on subject. Try to keep articles related to the title. If you feel like you're going off on a tangent, try linking to a new article.
• Several pages use standardized colour schemes, structure, and templates. If you're creating a new page, please follow the structure/colours/templating of similar existing pages.
• Keep header names short and to the point. Lengthy headers make the Table of Contents ridiculously and needlessly wide.

Wiki Humour/Bolding

• Please refrain from using strikethrough, random bolding, scaled up text, or making excessive random jokes.
  • We strive to keep the wiki as a to-the-point and semi-serious resource. The occasional clever joke in an article is fine, constant strikethrough humour is not.
  • Bolding and text-scaling should be reserved for headers, disclaimers, or important notes. You should never be using bold text in the middle of a sentence.

Location Pages

• Obvious exits should not include cardinal directions to reduce page bloat. Simply list the exits in a flowing list, IE: Central Primary Hallway, Bar/Chapel Maintenance
• Access Level should list the exact access required to access that location.
• Clearance should list only the minimum job rank/most obvious job rank required to access a location.
• Clearance (when listed) should contain page links to the jobs put under clearance.
• Any text on the page should appear in the description field and not below the template.
• The Department field should match the section the area is found in under the Template:Locations template.

Images and Image Use

Calling and Using Images

In order to use an image, you will need to call the [[File:]] command.

Here's the appropriate syntax for the command to call an image of a burger: [[File:Burger.png]]

This will display as:

Unless we're putting this image in a table, it's probably way too big! In order to fix that we need to add a size modifier.

To add a size modifier, we need to use the line identifier followed by a size in pixels: [[File:Burger.png|32px]]

This will display as:

If we wanted it even smaller for some reason, we would put: [[File:Burger.png|16px]]

This will display as:

As you can see, when we downsize to such a level we start losing a lot of visual fidelity. The same is also true if we upscale the image like so: [[File:Burger.png|96px]]

This will display as:

If we put all the images side-by-side, the loss in visual fidelity is immediately obvious when scaling above 64px (native resolution) or below 32px (native SS13 resolution).

92px (some loss):	64px (no loss):	32px (no loss):	16px (some loss):

When using the file command, you should always specify your intended filesize (either 32, or 64px).

Note: If you want a 64px version of an image but only a 32px version exists and you're unable to upload it yourself, it's still better to upsize to 64px and lose that visual fidelity. It will be an obvious and immediate indicator to any editor who comes across the page that the image needs to be uploaded.

File Modifiers

The [[File:]] command has a variety of modifiers that can be applied to it, sizing is just one.

[[File:Burger.png|center]] will align the image in the center of wherever it's placed (be it in a table or elsewhere). You can also align it using left or right instead of center.

[[File:Burger.png|frame]] will frame the image in a standard MediaWiki box and align it on the right-hand margin.

[[File:Burger.png|frame|caption]] will add a caption below the frame. Simply replace the word caption with your description.

[[File:Burger.png|link=Space Law]] will add a link to the image. You can now click the image to navigate to the page, in this case clicking the icon navigates to the Space Law page.

Here's what a captioned, centered, framed, and linked image call would look like.

[[File:Burger.png|link=Space Law|center|frame|oh wow this is pretty neat|32px]]

Centered Image	Framed Image	Image w/ Caption	Linked Image	All of the Above
		caption		oh wow this is pretty neat

• When uploading images, use .gif format for animated clips and .png for non-animated images. These image formats are not only lossless (unlike .jpg), they're also smaller than the larger .bmp format.
• Prior to uploading a new image, please ensure there isn't already a version of that image on the wiki. If you are updating an image to a superior version, maintain the same filename.

Uploading/Finding Images

Alright, but how do we upload images?

It's actually pretty straight-forward. On the left-hand margin of the web-page underneath the Paradise Logo you'll see a list of links. Click Upload File.

Once you've navigated to the Upload File page, at the top there's a link to view "List of Uploaded Files."

• Clicking it will bring you to a searchbar that can navigate/search for images.
• You can also find the File List in the Special Pages listing.
• You can also just click the words here to find it.

Now that we know how to reach the Upload File and Special:ListFiles pages, it's important that we run down a few important things when uploading images.

File Extensions/Image Sourcing

• Images must be in .png format, or .gif format for animated files. Never upload a file in .jpg or .bmp.
  • The .jpg extension is not lossless (it loses fidelity when uploaded) and .bmp has a larger file-size (which wastes wiki resources).
• Images should be sourced directly from the codebase .DMI files located on the GitHub.
• Once you have the appropriate .DMI open (BYOND will open it) and have found your image, right-click it, hit "Export As," and save it as a .png.

Resizing/Modifying Your Image

• Images should be scaled up from their 32x32 size to 64x64 either using no scaling filter, or nearest neighbour scaling.
  • Settings such as "Bilinear," "Bicubic," "Best Quality," and so on will cause a loss of quality when scaling SS13's pixel-art style.
  • If all you have is MSPaint, you should consider downloading a free editor such as Paint.net or GIMP. MSPaint causes artifacts (colour loss) when rescaling.
• Icons must have a transparent background. If you sourced from the .dmi, it already does so you don't need to worry about this. If it doesn't, edit out the background.

Naming Your Image

• Name your file something appropriate when uploading it so it can be easily found. "dragonsbreath" isn't ideal, but "shotgun_dragonsbreath" would be.
  • Unless using capitalization somehow clarifies the file-name, only the first-letter of the filename should be capitalized.
  • Try to keep the image name short and to the point "bananacake" is fine, "food_bananacake" is also fine, but "food_bananacakechefkitchensliceable" is not.

Assuming you followed these steps properly, you're all set to upload! If there's a duplicate file already on the wiki, you will be automatically warned. If the existing file is identical/superior, please use it instead of the file you're trying to upload (duplicate files not only create more work for everyone, they waste resources)!

Templates and Categories

Here is a list of all Categories and the important Templates we are using. If you make one, add it to the list (some templates automatically add categories to an article if you use them).

• Templates
• Categories (Note: Some Categories redirect to a wikipage. To get to the Category, click on the reference below the pagename)

Please read the description in every Category and add it to an article where appropriate. If you want to add a category, please consult someone in charge of the Wiki.

Templates

Templates are outlines that accept a variety of parameters in order to create a standardized Wiki element.

Here's an example of what an unfilled template looks like.

{{{department}}} Department

[[File:{{{image}}}]]

Departmental Head
placeholder

{{{roleheader}}}

placeholder - placeholder - placeholder

{{{guideheader}}}

placeholder - placeholder - placeholder

{{{portalheader}}}

The elements surrounded by three curly brackets, such as {{{department}}} indicate where the template will accept input.

The words "placeholder" may indicate other parameters that the template is looking for. To find them, we would look at the template's source. For now, we'll try modifying a few parameters!

To call a template, we used a template call which consists of two curly brackets like so: {{JobGuides}}

In this case, we're calling the job-guides template! We can define the parameters by opening up the Template Call and using some line identifiers like so:

{{JobGuides
 | department = Burger
 | image      = Burger.png
 | roleheader = Burger Jobs
 | roleguides = Burger Guides
}}

Doing this will fill in some of those missing parameters, and we'll get the following result:

Burger Department

Departmental Head
placeholder

Burger Jobs

placeholder - placeholder - placeholder

Burger Guides

placeholder - placeholder - placeholder

{{{portalheader}}}

As a rule of thumb, it's always a good idea to look at another page that has the template to see how it's being utilized. This not only cuts down on time, it will usually tell you what those other non-obvious parameters are!

Categories

Categories categorizes the pages and files of the wiki to help people find them easier. Auto-generating categories are also a useful tool for editors looking for issues on the wiki.

Tags

The Wiki accepts BBCode, basic HTML, and CSS styling to create a variety of formats.

Here's a list of some commonly used tags on our wiki.

Word Tags

=text= creates the largest headline

======text====== creates the smallest headline

'''texthere''' Creates bold text

''texthere'' Creates italic text

<font size="3"></font> Sets size of font, from 1 to 7

<font color="green"></font> Sets font color, using name or hex value

Links

[[Page Name Here]] creates a hyperlink

[[File:Filename.filetype|sizepx]] creates an image/link

[[Page Name Here#Subsection Here]] creates a target location within a document

[[#Subsection In Page]] links to that target location from elsewhere in the document

Formatting

<br> Inserts a line break

<ol></ol> Creates a numbered list

<ul></ul> Creates a bulleted list. You can also just use * to create manual bullets.

<li></li> Precedes each list item, and adds a number or symbol depending upon the type of list selected

<hr> Inserts a horizontal rule

<hr size="3"> Sets size (height) of rule

<hr width="80%"> Sets width of rule, in percentage or absolute value

<hr noshade> Creates a rule without a shadow

Tables

{| Starts a table. It's the initial table call.

| The standard table line. Specifies an item in the table.

| A table-break. When creating tables, the first break will signal the end of the column headers.

! A wiki header. This applies a special light-grey background and bolds any text.

|] Closes an established table.

Useful pages

Categories Used, unused and wanted

Templates Used, unused and wanted

Files: All, unused and wanted

All pages: All existing pages and Wanted pages