Fan Film Wiki:Guide
From Fan Film Wiki
Contents |
General Guidelines
What is the Wiki About
The wiki is about fan films. If you want to start an article, please check out or it complies with our definition of Fan Film. (See the Fan Film-article for more information.) Articles of the wiki can go about:
- Production Groups
- Cast or crew of Production Groups.
- Fan Films (and series).
- Characters of fan films (or series).
- Everything about the production of a fan film; from filming techniques to writing a film/series and guidelines on publishing it online. Beginning producers expect this Wiki to be a resource for starting points.
- Personalized articles about users of this wiki, on your own user page. If you are also a member of a production group, do not use that page as your own user page.
...And what not
- Anything about making profit out of fan films. We keep our media non-profit to avoid copyright claims.
- Written fanfics and audio dramas. Our wiki focuses on video.
- Personal views. Although personal reflection of a subject is appreciated, the subject's talk page is the place to post it.
- Flaming, either towards specific people or the fan film community in general.
- Misingforming users about a specific subject. Please check your references before posting (and cite them if appropriate), to ensure the quality of information on the Wiki.
Editing
See also: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editor MediaWiki:Editing]
If you want to write a new article or edit an existing one, feel free to! To keep the article readable, though, please keep the following guidelines in respect:
Article structure
An article should be encyclopedic in nature, and therefore a specific structure is recommended. Usually an article starts with a short introduction, and goes into detail in the paragraphs following it.
Paragraphs should be separated by headers. For more information on header format and general Wiki coding: MediaWiki:Wikitext Exapmples Headers are the basis for the structure of your article, and going into further detail, subheadings may be appropriate.
Language and Spelling
The language of the fan film Wiki is English. The decision to use British or American English (or any other dialect) is left up to the editor, however, there are some basic language guidelines one should adhere to.
- Proper use of capitalization. ALL CAPITALS and all lowercase letters can be somewhat difficult to read. Start a sentence with a capital and end it with a period. For article titles, Capitalize Each Word Like This.
- Spacing and punctuation are useful tools for bringing readability and structure into an article. Commas and periods read as natural pauses in text; splitting a text up into paragraphs allows you to separate information into logical blocks.
- Spelling is the calling card of your editing. There is no crime in making a typo once in a while, as is the accidental use of cAPS lOCK, but these common mistakes can be easily fixed by a spell checker.
- And probably the most useful tip: Click the "Show preview" button and test read your article a few times.
Templates
When creating an article, the Fan Film Wiki has a set of templates available to get you started. These which will give the basic information about the kind of article you are writing. Click on the name of the template for instructions how to use it. For more information about templates in general, please visit MediaWiki:Templates.
We have got the following templates:
- ProductionGroup for Production Groups; a group which is or was involved in the production of a fan film.
- Series for fan series (a production consisting of multiple episodes).
- Episode for episodes of a specific series.
- Source for inspiration sources (e.g. universes) to base a fan film on.
- Movie for movies (single feature-length productions, and one-off shorts)
- Person for individuals contributing to one or more productions.
- Stub for stubs. Stubs are quick placeholder articles which provide the basic information on a subject. They are good points to get an article started and to motivate others to start editing.
- Rewriting for articles which need rewriting. You can mark articles that are badly written, provide misinformation or are being hit by spammers (or being vandalised) to allow other editors to work on them.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are references to other articles or pages on the Web. They can, for example, refer to the page of a production group (like Fan Trek Productions) or to the location of a production group on Google Maps (in this case, Journeyman Studios: [1]). Adding a link to another wiki page is as easy as placing the title of the article in double brackets: [[Fan Film]]. If you want to add a hyperlink to the Web, just type the URL: http://www.google.com/. Don't forget the "http://".
If you are editing an article, and consider a subject worth linking to, please do so. If the page already exists, the link is automatically active, if it is not, the hyperlink is shown in red, and anyone clicking on it can start editing the new article. However, try to link to a subject only once in each article, to prevent cluttering of hyperlinks. (so do not link every instance of fan film)
When linking inside of the Fan Film Wiki, always link to the title of the article. For most titles, this is always in the English singular form (not plural), so Episode is the correct link instead of Episodes. If the title encompasses a verb, it is translated into gerund form, so (to) direct becomes directing.
If you need to use the plural form because the text requires it, use [[Episode | Episodes]], which will result in the following link: Episodes. A similar form applies to external links: [http://www.darkarmada.nl Dark Armada], which will become Dark Armada. Note the space instead of the pipe sign when using external links.
Content
The Fan Film Wiki tries to keep the most consistent, accurate information resource as possible. To prevent cluttering up the Wiki and maintain the quality of information, here are some guidelines regarding article content:
- When providing information, it should be encyclopedic and in a third person perspective. You are free to add an article about your production (and recommended to do so!), but the correct format is descriptive of the production ("Dark Armada is..." instead of "We are Dark Armada...") and should provide general information. Do not worry if you do not have a lot of information to provide at first, add information when you see fit.
- Article titles should be short and descriptive. For production names, the title of the production will suffice (like Intepid, instead of UssIntrepid, for example, unless the full title encompasses it, like U.S.S. Hathaway). The title of the series or franchise which was the inspiration for the production need not be included. (so Dark Armada is correct, Star Trek: Dark Armada is not)
- The English title (or translation of the title) is preferred over the native-language version. So Legacy is preferred over Das Vermächtnis, but there is no need to translate a title if there is no translation is avalable. Of course, redirects are also allowed.
- When possible, try and add citations to the bottom of your article (such as the web site of your production if it supplies relevant information), to avoid the main article from cluttering up with hyperlinks. Citations allow other readers to obtain further information on the subject, and allow other editors to verify the information if needed.
Images
You are free to upload your images (production logos, cast images, etc.) to the Fan Film Wiki through the Upload File page. All major image formats, such as GIF, JPEG and PNG are supported. Do consider the files size when uploading images (<100kB is a good benchmark) and respect the image copyright.
Other notes
- For basic Wiki syntax and formatting, see MediaWiki: Wikitext Examples.
- Colors and using HTML or style sheets can distract from the content of the article if they are not used in a proper way. If they provide useful information and you know how to use fancy formatting codes, feel free to do so.
- For further questions about editing and formatting, please visit the | MediaWiki Help Pages. We have no specific syntax guide, the MediaWiki help pages provide enough information so far.
