This is a policy page for Don't Starve Wiki. It contains widely accepted standards that editors should normally follow. Any significant changes must require community consensus. You can make a discussion in forum. |
General rules
Warning - Any unacceptable behavior can lead to an indefinite ban from editing.
- Don't Starve may not be used to advertise businesses or boost SEO rankings. Links to external sites for personal gain, that are irrelevant to the wiki, can be removed at any time for any reason.
- Be polite when interacting with other users. We are all here to work together as a team and as a community. Being polite will go a long way and will make the wiki a happier place to edit.
- Follow the Manual of Style, the preferred way of how things are to be organized. While the help pages will help you to understand how to use basic Fandom markup, the manual of style will tell you how to apply it on Don't Starve according to how everything else is organized.
- Do not start edit wars. Be ready to discuss your changes with others. If you disagree with another editor, discuss the issue on either the user's wall or the article's comments. Repeatedly reverting each other's changes, known as "edit warring", is bound to aggravate the conflict instead of solving it. If you cannot reach a consensus, ask an Administrator to mediate.
- Do not flame or insult other users. Send them a polite message if you have a dispute with another user. Talking things out and working out your differences can go a long way towards a mutual understanding.
- Abide by all Fandom Terms of Use (TOS) while on the site (you agreed to these if you made an account).
- Linking to illegal copies of the game is an instant ban.
- Do not edit others' user pages, as they are generally considered property of the user. You are, however, more than welcome to put whatever you'd like on your own user page, so long as it doesn't violate any rules. If you have an issue with another user's user page, contact an Administrator.
- Do not vandalize any page. Do not remove all the content from a page. It is considered vandalism to remove all the content from a page or to add irrelevant information to the page.
- Do not plagiarize content from Wikipedia. Write it in your own words. The goal is to write the key ideas in your own words so that you don't plagiarize. This improves your overall credibility.
- Do not boost for the achievement badges. Badges are meant as a guideline and are in no way to be considered as status symbols. Use them for yourself and feel proud of yourself, do not use them to impress others.
- What is Boosting? Boosting is the process of making either useless or malicious edits just to heighten the count of edits they have made.
- What is not Boosting? Some things may appear to be boosting, but is not always so. Edit wars between a normal user and a vandal, who is trying to vandalize a page, and the user who is quickly undoing their edits is one such example. If the user is signing in and out to vandalize/undo, we can tell by the IP address.
- Additionally, valid contributions with the aim of garnering an achievement are allowed. Contributors should exercise great caution in ensuring that these additions are pragmatic, useful, and accurate. Such instances will be investigated and reviewed by an administrator.
- Multiple accounts used for block-evasion are strictly forbidden and are against Fandom TOS. If you create an additional account to evade a block, it will be permanently blocked and your primary account runs the risk of having its block duration extended indefinitely.
- If you wish to utilize a secondary account for another purpose, please contact an Administrator.
- Try to avoid replying to comments or posts older than three months. People have usually moved on and new comments do nothing but revive old arguments.
- Do not create broken-looking pages. This includes empty sections, invalid (red) links, missing images, tables that do not align, missing formatting, etc. It is fine to not have all the information, but think about what you feel when you see a page that doesn't look right when you are browsing for information. If you don't know how to edit, or what to add, you can always leave a comment in the article, or ask an Administrator or a Custodian, we're here to help you. It is always a good idea to verify your changes in the preview, before you publish. You can use Special:MyPage/Sandbox to test out your changes. If you make a mistake, revert your changes. If you are unsure how to fix it, then try again, or ask for help.
- Do not make large structural changes to the wiki without talking to Administrators or at least having a discussion about the changes you want to make in Discussions. The wiki is a community effort, it is best to have the community drive the shape it takes, instead of individuals. Having discussions beforehand always creates better results for everyone.
Chat rules
- Harassing/insulting other users is not allowed.
- Spamming (submitting many nonsensical, very long, or repetitive posts) is not allowed.
- Foreign language conversations should only be held in private messages, not in the public chat.
- Do not discuss sexual topics in chat.
Blog rules
The Don't Starve Wiki community has come up with a set of rules to maintain within blogs, without overly hindering the personal and casual environment. The rules will be enforced by the Administrators, and users are encouraged to report any such rule-breaking behavior to the administrators as soon as it is encountered. Failure to abide by these rules will result in a block period based on the administrators judgement.
- Harassment/insulting/personal remarks are all prohibited.
- Spamming (submitting many nonsensical, very long, or repetitive posts) is not allowed.
- As with the rest of the Wiki, no inappropriate images.
Unacceptable Behavior |
Acceptable Behavior |
---|---|
Advertise business or boost SEO rankings. | Post links of game-related or Klei sites. |
Flame and insult other users. | Be polite and helpful. |
Add uncivil or intolerable words in signature / user-page / article. | Be reasonable, civil and respect people. |
Edit wars and use different edit styles. | Follow Manual of Style |
Link to illegal copies of the game. | Follow Fandom Terms of Use while on the site. |
Unnecessarily edit others' user pages. | Post a comment on message wall, or label vandals with {{vandalism}}, or label inactive admins with {{inactive}}. |
Vandalize pages. | Revert edits of vandals and remind admins. |
Repetitive edits to boost for achievement badges. | Repetitive edits to maintain high quality content (e.g. resize images, add new images, make several edits because of huge content). |
Plagiarize content from Wikipedia or other sites. | Paraphrase and add your own words; link them in trivia. |
Open different accounts for ban evasion or any unnecessary purposes. | Create a bot account which is approved by bureaucrats. |
Reply to old post (>1 month) in forum and blog. | Reply to old comments in an article page, however, you are not recommended to reply to comments that were made 3 months ago. |
Spamming, creating meaningless or repetitive posts. | Message admins if you have trouble in deleting bad posts. |
Use of any foreign language in Discussions, articles, article comments, blogs and blog comments. | No restriction applied to your own user page and user talk page. |
Leaving pages in a broken looking state. | Follow Manual of Style. Ask for editing help. |
Editing Rules
Use the Edit Summary
When editing pages, try to fill in the "Summary" box above the Save/Preview buttons before saving, and make sure that you fill it in with something useful describing the edit you made and, if it's not obvious, why. For example, "fixed spelling error" or "added fun fact" or "reverted edits by 127.0.0.1" are all acceptable. Saying "made some changes" or just filling in the name of the page is not helpful, because it's information that we already have. Making your Summaries accurate and useful makes it vastly easier for the rest of us to keep track of Recent Changes and keeps everybody happy.
Use the Minor Edit Button
If you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), try to remember to check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.
Link Once
A given page should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Pig in one place, then that should be the only link to Pig on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article. But in the case of large articles, it's also okay to instead make one link in each major section instead of just once.
Quotes
- Please discuss changing character quotes without rhyme or reason, as some people have different opinions on which should be used. If the quote is out of date, or you're completely sure that the old quote doesn't fit the article, feel free to change it.
Don't use conversational style
This is an online encyclopedia. It should read like an encyclopedia, not like your diary.
- Check your spelling and grammar. Don't use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you're not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Webster. If you know that you're not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor or web browser which has spell-checking (Firefox 2 and derivatives such as Opera when ASpell is installed will work).
- Don't use "smileys" or "emoticons" in articles.
- Don't "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages.
Infobloat
- Avoid pointless infobox cluttering. The infobox is about basic info, full info is in the main body of the article.
Stubs
If you don't know enough information on a topic, an article is far too short, or you know there's more, then add a stub to it. To do so, just add this to the bottom of the content (a clear line above the [[Category:...]] tags):
{{Stub}}
and people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category.
Talk page etiquette
Do
- Sign your posts with four tildes ~~~~
- Add unsigned to user posts that have forgotten to sign
- Be polite, assume good faith
- Add new headers for each new conversation
Don't
- Edit other peoples posts (Removing rule breaking content is allowed)
- Be brash and rude.
- Add absurdly complex and over-the-top signatures.