TenthFleet:Contributor's guide

Editor's Handbook

A guided path — read the sections in order

Start here

1. Contributor's guide
2. Introduction
3. Be bold
4. Editing basics

Style & layout

5. Manual of Style
6. Guide to layout
7. Naming conventions
8. Namespaces
9. Citing sources

Building content

10. Peerage page
11. Award page
12. Ship page
13. Echelon page
14. Documenting an order
15. Posting news

Templates

16. Template guide

Deep dives

17. Styling & theme
18. Infoboxes
19. Navboxes
20. Dynamic lists (DPL)
21. Supersession
22. Categories

Welcome to the Tenth Fleet Wiki. This guide is your starting point as a contributor. It points you to everything you need, in the order you need it, so you can start editing with confidence.

Anyone with an account can edit the wiki, and you do not need to be an expert. If you can fix a typo, add a fact, or start a page, you are already helping.

Be bold
If you see something to improve, improve it. Every edit is saved in the page history, so nothing is ever truly lost, and other editors will help polish your work. See Be bold in updating pages.

Start here

The first time you edit, work through these three steps in order.

1. Get comfortable editing. Read Help:Editing for the basics: how to make links, headings, lists, and tables.
2. Learn the house style. Read the Manual of Style so your pages match the rest of the wiki. In short: put the article title in bold in the first sentence, use sentence case for headings, and abbreviate ranks and post-nominals.
3. Know where things go. Skim Naming conventions and the Guide to layout before you create a new page.

Building content

When you are ready to create or expand an article, use the guide that matches what you are writing. Each one gives you a layout and the exact templates to use.

If you are writing about...	Use this guide
A peerage, such as a barony or county	Creating a peerage page
An award or decoration	Creating an award page
A ship, meaning a local chapter	Creating a ship page
An order or directive	Documenting an order
A news item	Posting news

For a full list of every template and what it does, see the Template guide.

The golden rules

A few conventions matter more than the rest. Keep these in mind on every page.

Cite your sources
Facts about the organization should be backed by a source, usually a forum post or an official order. See Cite your sources.

Orders are a permanent record
Never change the wording of an order, directive, or policy document. Reproduce it exactly, typos and all. You may add formatting and metadata around it, but the text itself is a record that people rely on.

This is not a biographical site
The wiki does not host biography pages for members. Write about ships, echelons, peerages, awards, and events, not about people. The one exception is David Weber, the author.

Going deeper

If you want to change how the wiki itself works, its look, its templates, or its automatic lists, the technical reference explains the machinery:

• Styling and theme system
• Infobox construction
• Navbox construction
• Dynamic page lists
• Supersession framework
• Category system

Getting help

If you get stuck, you have options:

• Leave a message on an article's Talk page to discuss that page.
• Email the Wiki Team at wikimaster at tenthfleet dot org.
• See Contact us for more ways to reach the team.