Marriland Wiki:Article cleanup

Marriland Wiki, in order for its articles to be in top shape for readers, must have its articles undergo cleanup.

Article stubs

Stubs are articles that have insufficient information and are less than 300 bytes. Stubs are generally small articles that can be greatly expanded. They usually contain a paragraph or less. However, this does not mean the stub is not a legitimate article; it just needs to be expanded. To

Don't assume that additions and improvements will immediately pour in of themselves. The best way to draw the attention of others into contributing a stub is by editing it yourself. Even if you do a small edit it will appear on the recent changes page, where many users love to follow the action, and jump in where there's work being done.

Naming a stub

When you've created a small article or found a small article, simply edit the page and add the {{stub}} template. When you've completed this and saved the the page, the article will then say:

This will show that the article is stub. When people view the page, they will see this and hopefully try to expand the article.

To easily find stubs, see the short pages listing. Pages with a byte size of 300 or less should always have the stub template.

Editing a stub

When a editing a stub, there are a few things you should remember.

1. Follow the standards of correct grammar. Write in full, clear sentences.
2. Give a clear, precise definition or description of your topic.
3. Make sure any relevant linkable words have been linked.
4. Feel some responsibility for your stub article. There is a fine line between helping by outlining out what needs to be done, and being annoying by not doing anything yourself. If nobody contributes to your stub for a few weeks, why not expand it yourself? Take the fact that nobody has contributed as a hint that your stub might not have been that great, and if nothing else, try to make it a better stub.

Admittedly, these guidelines are in some sense irrelevant because no matter what you do, someone will probably fix the article for you. That's the great thing of a wiki! But if you want to contribute something positive, and you cannot write the whole article yourself, then at least let your contribution be an invitation to participation.

Articles in need of cleanup

If an article is tagged as in need of cleanup, it means the article needs to be improved for something, as it has a fault. For example, if an article is not written in the correct style, if it is written from a non-encyclopedic point of view (eg. first person), if it has lots of grammar or spelling errors, or generally needs "cleanup".

To tag an article for cleanup, add the template {{cleanup}} to the page. This will also categorize the tagged article in Category:Articles in need of cleanup, where a complete list of articles needing cleanup can be seen.

Candidates for deletion

Candidates for deletion are a common site on the Marriland Wiki. These pages are pages that the userbase of the wiki have declared unfit for the wiki and should be deleted by the wiki administration. Pages are added to the candidates for deletion listing by way of adding {{delete}} to the page. This tag should either replace the content of the page (in case the page's content was inappropriate for passersby to read) or at the top of the article.

Unless the page is complete unneeded, vandalism, et cetera, a discussion of the wiki's administration regarding the page should take place before deleting the article.

Copied content

It is asked for the users of Marriland Wiki not to copy content directly from other Pokémon wikis. Copied content will either be deleted immediately or the {{copy}} tag will be added and the page will be revised to fit the standards of Marriland Wiki.

Protected pages

Marriland Wiki's administration can protect and unprotect pages, including ones that do not exist. Protection of a page or image usually means that a non-admin cannot modify it.

The majority of pages on the wiki should remain publicly editable, and not protected. Pages may, however, be temporarily or permanently protected for legal reasons (for example, license texts should not be changed) or in cases of extreme vandalism or edit warring or abusive re-creation.

Uses

• Protecting highly vandalised pages, such as the Main Page on large wikis.
• Maintaining the integrity of the site's logo and favicon.
• Maintaining the integrity of key copyright and license pages.
• Preventing repeatedly created vandal or spam pages from creation. See Special:Protectedtitles
• Protecting the interface and system messages in the MediaWiki namespace (these are protected automatically)

A temporary protection is used for:

• Enforcing a "cool down" period to stop an "edit war", upon request.
• Protecting a page or image that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.

There is no need to protect personal .css and .js pages like user/monobook.css or user/cologneblue.js. Only the accounts associated with these pages (and admins) are able to edit them. (For more information on using these pages, see the help page on Central

Guidelines for protecting a page

1. Do not make the common mistake of protecting pages unnecessarily. For example, do not protect a page simply because it is the Main Page.
2. Do not edit a temporarily protected page except to add a notice explaining the page is protected.
3. Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over. Admin powers are not editor privileges - admins should only act as servants to the user community at large.
4. Avoid favoring one version of the article over another, unless one version is vandalism.
5. Temporarily protected pages should not be left protected for very long.
6. Talk pages and user talk pages are not protected except in extreme circumstances.
7. The protection of a page on any particular version is not meant to express support for that version and requests should therefore not be made that the protected version be reverted to a different one.