Guide:How to TSPedia
This is a meta article dedicated to publishing good practices and standards for writing roleplay content on TSPedia.
This article contains basic information related to implementing wikitext formatting; more detailed knowledge is best obtained by looking at the formatting implementations of pages.
Formatting
Several formatting rules and recommendations for TSPedia pages exist to help increase readability and standardization.
All roleplay-related TSPedia page titles have a suffix that denotes their canon; these are “abc (Pacifica)”, “def (A1-0)”, “ghi (Aurora)”, and rarely “jkl (Extra-canon)”. This suffix must always be present. Additionally, only the first word and proper nouns should be capitalized in page titles; for example, a page should be titled “List of major cities in xyz” and not “List Of Major Cities in xyz”.
Page header/subheader structures have no clearly defined standard; if you are confused about what an appropriate header arrangement for a page would be, consider looking at TSPedia or Wikipedia pages with similar content.
Templates
Most types of roleplay content pages would benefit from at least one template. This is typically an infobox template, which are named according to the convention “template:infobox (type here)”; searching for templates requires the inclusion of the “template:” prefix. Many template copies on TSPedia lack documentation for their proper implementation; in instances where this is the case, usage information can often be found by visiting the corresponding template page on Wikipedia or (especially in the case of templates unique to TSPedia) by finding a TSPedia page that implements it.
Country data templates
Many pages on TSPedia contain a specific template called a flag template or a country data template, which can automatically add links and flags like these:
The easiest way to add a country data template for your nation is to create a page named “template:country data ((nation name here))”, copying the text from another country data template, and editing parameters such as the name and flag picture links as necessary.
Connectivity
If a roleplayer writes a wiki page and nobody finds it to read it, does the page really exist? Making sure that your page can be found is an important part of making it useful; for this purpose, connectivity aids like links, categories, and drop-down boxes exist.
Links
There are two maintenance pages on TSPedia which list pages that either are not linked to or do not link to anything; these are called orphaned pages and dead-end pages, respectively, and can be found by visiting the “special pages” section linked on the left-hand sidebar of TSPedia. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, add entries to this list; every page in TSPedia should link to and be linked to by other pages. Being linked to is especially critical for the visibility of highly specialized pages, such as “Orders, medals, and decorations of xyz”, which are unlikely to be specifically searched for by name.
Links in roleplay pages typically go to TSPedia, like this, or to Wikipedia, like this. Links are case-sensitive aside from the first letter, in a similar manner to the search box; links like Pacifica (Pacifica) will function, as will pacifica (Pacifica), but Pacifica (pacifica) will not. Adding a hashtag/pound sign to a link will cause it to point towards a specific header of a TSPedia or Wikipedia page as applicable, such as in the case of Pacifica (Pacifica)#Atmosphere.
Links that lead to nonexistent pages are red; clicking a red link will prompt you to create the page. Red links are very common throughout TSPedia as a way to indicate that a particular page needs to be made, or that it is planned to be created in the future.
Categories
Categories are a helpful method of linking together pages with a common theme or subject. While not all pages warrant having a category created, consider making a category for a set of 5 or more similar pages.
Drop-down boxes
Drop-down boxes are a specialized type of template and a powerful tool to organize particularly large systems of wiki pages centered around a common subject. They should generally be reserved for page systems numbering roughly 10 to 15 or more entries, and should be placed at the bottom of a page.