User blog:Crystal6/Going to be busy for a while/Random Tips

Okay, I see we have a few editors already on board (and RepentedSin who may or may not be having technical troubles...) so, I will probably need you guys to hold down the fort while I get my Calculus homework back in check. (Because College>Zodiac) I think I'm mainly making this so no one will think I've quit this game/wiki just because I'm not around for a while.... anyway.

We finally got our second vandal attack which means we are finally starting to get some traffic. (Yay!) I'll try to keep tabs on this stuff but should you-who-have-admin-powers see something like this, don't hesitate to use the "undo" or "rollback" buttons or the "block" button to stop the vandal from doing more damage. (Click Admin at the bottom and then recent edits to find the rollback, click on the last contributor to find the block. Easy!) If you aren't sure how long to block for... I'd recommend a year as long as it is obviously vandalism.

I should be back in full force at LEAST by the end of May. (Though if I have free time before that I will obviously be around to keep tabs on stuff.) By that I mean I should be making larger more helpful edits/pages again eventually but for now I need to take a bit of a break. Just remember that every edit counts and even incomplete articles are still useful as they lay ground work.

I posted a list of general tips/helpful things to keep in mind on the Zodiac Forum thingy... But I guess I should probably re-post it here for the sake of having this advice somewhere on the wiki itself. Anyways, good luck! Don't let things grind to a complete halt while I'm "gone."

Things you may want to know before editing:

1. You don't need to be an admin to edit. You don't even need an account unless you want to add pictures/videos. You don't need staff powers in game either. Just add a page if you know something about it or click the edit button if you see something that is obviously false.

2. Articles don't need to be complete the moment you add them. You can just add what you already know and others can fill in. (For example neither the dungeons nor the monsters article is complete right now.) *Even if all you do is add a blank page, it can be helpful.

3. Don't change information unless you are pretty sure something is definitely wrong. For example if a weapon gets nerfed and you can use "/lookup" to be sure it has really changed, but the update isn't on the wiki, please change it. If you just "don't think" that a particular race gets that bonus, maybe ask a staff member or something before "fixing" it as sometimes information isn't stated in-game.

4. The best information is something you checked out yourself. While you can make an article on say... the Thief class just by reading the old wiki, some of the info may be outdated and you may have a harder time explaining the class if you haven't actually used it. Besides, this gives you an opportunity to explore various aspects of the game and maybe learn something you didn't know before.

5. If you take something from another website, even the Official Wiki, please cite it. Here's a quick explanation on citing: Paste the info and then place Author, Name of Article, link < / r e f > (spaces added so it will show up. Just remove them.) next to the infomration. At the bottom of the article you then place < r e f e r e n c e s / > See? (again, adding spaces so it will be visable. Remove spaces when you do it.) It's easy! Try not to steal pictures from google either unless you like citing. (Screenshots don't need to be cited so feel free to take lots of those. Just press the "prnt scrn" button on your keyboard, go to pain, and press "cntrl" "V".) *For more indepth help just go here.

6. Adding pictures is very straight forward, except for one thing. When you upload the picture and you are about to finish adding it, click "Full sized" instead of "thumbnail" or it will squish your picture. (This can be fixed by clicking modify.)

7. So you've made a great article but the name of the article can be referred to with several names. For example, "Vampiric Essence" is usually called "Vampire Essence" by players. How do you make sure people can find your article? You make a Redirect page! How do you do that? Click "Create a page" ,write the alternate name (in this case that would be "Vampire Essence") and then add this to the page #REDIRECT Vampiric Essence (or whatever the name of the page you want to bring them to is called.) Congrats, you've just made the wiki easier to navigate! *You can also do this if it takes you a frustrating amount of time to find a page. (You don't need to be the page creator to add a redirect)

8. Wikis aren't all completely 100% official info only. Price checks and general advice can be added. For example on a Vampires page you could write "Some good classes for this race include Thief and Necromancer." or for demonic essence you could write "This is generally sold for around 850k by various players."

9. Finally, if you ever have any trouble with anything on the wiki, or you have any questions at all, there's a help button under your user name. If that isn't helping, feel free to ask me or any other wiki admin. We'll gladly help! Also feel free to give us suggestions about things on the website!