Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Community Portal

This page is for organizing the war effort against entropy.

We are doing this! Let us do it right.

• Alphabet: OK, the first rule is that there must be a rule for each letter of the alphabet. That leaves 25 rules to go. (Sorry, my nomic instincts flared up.) --Peristarkawan

• Categories: When editing a page, stop to think about what categories it should be included in, and add them if necessary. Don't forget to consider categories that don't yet exist.

• Drama Bomb: Please, let's be civilized and limit the flamewars, personal attacks and insults.

• Facts: Try to avoid creating one-liner pages without links. Add as much pertinent information as you can.

• Gravitas (corollary to Facts): Try to avoid creating pages for topics about which there is little of substance to say. Creating such a page will waste your time and the time of the reader who ends up there. For example, we don't need a page for every different type of alcohol that exists in the game; all that needs to be said about the topic (possibly including a list of alcohols) can easily be said in a single, general page on alcohol.

• Headings: Try to organize the content of each page into sections of related information. The heading of each section should follow the style for Page titles.

• Keys: Keys to be pressed should be written using the k or key templates. For example, the syntax {{k|q}} will generate q, a standardized and visually pleasing representation of the "q" key.

• Page titles: The titles of new pages should be singular nouns, with only the first word capitalized. Example: Screw pump, not Screw Pump or Screw pumps. The exceptions to these rules are for terms that are always plural and for proper nouns.

• Redundancy: Before creating a new page, do a search to find out if the topic is already discussed in detail somewhere else. If you find that redundant pages already exist, merge their content and have one redirect to the other.

• Style: In general, try to follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style when writing articles.

• Timelessness: The wiki is intended as a guide for all players, even new ones. As such, references to differences from or similarities to old versions of DF should be reduced and eliminated, except on pages specifically dealing with said differences or similarities. Avoid phrases like "now marble can be used to make steel" or "before, farms required two floodgates", etc. For facts that are likely to change, or placeholder features, use Template:Version. For example, you might say, "Cave-ins are buggy right now.{{version|0.27.169.33a}}"

Redirects and article titles

How do you do that thing that makes a certain term redirect to a different page? Like Elephants redirecting to Elephant, for example. --BahamutZERO 15:20, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

If Elephants already exists, you can move the page to Elephant, and it will create the redirect for you. Otherwise, just edit Elephants to read: #REDIRECT [[Elephant]] --Peristarkawan 15:26, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

I see, thanks! --BahamutZERO 15:27, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Just FYI, if at all possible, do not create pages as plurals. Use the following syntax: [[Elephant]]s: example Elephants. --JT 20:20, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

What about titles that are verbs? Should they be in "base-form"? Or whatever its called (my english on this level isnt the best). Example: should the title be Mine or Mining? --Mizipzor 17:30, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Based on the Wikipedia style, titles should be nouns. So in your example it should be the gerund Mining, and Mine would be the title for an article about mines. I've updated the rule to reflect this. --Peristarkawan 17:35, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Btw, shouldnt all these comments be moved into talk? --Mizipzor 17:30, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Moved the account problem comments to the talk page. The rest are informative. --Turgid Bolk 13:26, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Tutorials

New players are getting bogged down by the complexity at the start of their fortresses, I think we should get some "getting started" or "surviving your first winter" type tutorials up as soon as possible. --BahamutZERO 16:33, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Getting started will be just that. --Savok 11:31, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Categories

I saw that the category category:buildings had been added to category category:world. I started to look for categories without parents and adding them to world to sortof have a list of every category. Is this good thinking? --Mizipzor 19:19, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

We already have a list of all categories at Special:Categories, although it does include a few categories that aren't directly related to the game.

Based upon the description of Category:World, it seems to me that most of the things that are currently in it don't really belong there. --Peristarkawan 19:27, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Ok, Ill remove them from category:world. But how often is Special:Categories updated? I dont see category:furnaces in there. --Mizipzor 20:24, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Special:Categories is automatically updated by the Wiki software as soon as it detects a change. However, MediaWikis aggressively cache pages. It's also possible you're looking a client-side cached page of it. Finally, I don't see any content in that category so it's possible it's being ignored. See Special:Unusedcategories instead. --JT 20:28, 31 October 2007 (EDT)

Deletion

We now have a category:deletion, who has the power to delete pages? When are they deleted? Who make the final call? The same person that deletes them? What rules should we make regarding this? --Mizipzor 11:57, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Anyone can mark a page for deletion using the {{del}} tag, however it is usually recommended to get a consensus that it's not worth keeping. Exceptions are things like spam or empty pages. The {{del}} tag just lets the admin know to delete it, ultimately it's his call to do so or not. Just ask around on the talk page first, if no one disagrees, add the tag. (Disclaimer: that's how it worked on the old wiki, the policy may change as this new wiki grows.) --Turgid Bolk 13:02, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Water level style

I think we should have a standard style for talking about water level. We could say it various ways, such as "6/7 water," "water with a depth of 6," "a depth of 6 pool," or "water with a depth of six." It seems using the numeral makes it clear that we mean water depth, without adding the /7. --Turgid Bolk 13:02, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

I'm not sure. The /7 is definately unnessessary and that we should use 6 instead of six, maybe create a template to make the numberal blue/red (water/magma)? If not "Water 6" and "Magma 5" seem short, simple, correct, and understandable.--Draco18s 03:27, 2 November 2007 (EDT)

Templates?

Is there a page with a list of all the templates available to us? Are all of the templates migrated from the old wiki? --Felix the Cat 00:51, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

You can find a list at Special:Allpages?namespace=10. --Peristarkawan 01:44, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

Forum references

Where there is a bit saying "Toady said this", what is the best way to link to the forum? Currently in magma, I've got a link to http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=001504 which shows up as [1] (not too bad). Is there a better way of doing it akin to Wikipedia with <ref>something</ref>? Maybe something like Template:version for future (but that doesn't cover the "this is how it works now" type thing. --Shagie 02:17, 3 November 2007 (EDT)