Guide to Contributing to Wikistation

Making an Account

Guest editing/editing without an account has been disabled. Fortunately, making an account is easy! Thanks to some ingenuous coding on the server backend, if you've made a forum account, you have a wiki account too, so you can start editing once it's activated. Registering a forum account is simple. All you need is an email address for verification. At no point will you need to join the Goonstation Discord or connect to a SS13 server; in fact, you don't even need a BYOND account. Please sign up here and get started today!

How to Help

More than anything else, this wiki needs constant updates to content. Since Goonstation 13 changes so quickly, information can rapidly become out of date, and many things don't even have a page or a picture yet. When there's a new item, role, station, or monster on the station, do your part by simply adding a new page and jotting down what you know about it.

Content Revisions

There are almost always large sections of the wiki that have become out of date - the coders simply update too quickly for us to keep up! We keep a central to-do-list to keep track of what still needs to be done.

Before removing the {{outdated}} tag, be sure to read the page and any comments on the discussion page. Once that's done, simply update the parts that are out-of-date with the new information! If the information on the page has been moved to or deprecated by another page on the wiki, simply replace the page's content with #REDIRECT [[New page name]] to help users to find the new information. Remember to match the capitalization on the link.

In addition, be sure to leave a short note in the "Summary" field above the "Save Page" button so the administrators don't mistake your edits for vandalism. It doesn't have to be very detailed. Something like "More Spy Thief bounties" or "Add a tip on Blob starting locations" is fine, and it helps people looking through Recent Changes and a page's history quickly know what's changed between revisions.

Again, if you're uncomfortable editing the page itself, add a note to the talk page, and someone else will add the information to the article.

Regarding Add to Wiki Tags

Some pull requests on the Goonstation Github are tagged "add to wiki". That means the wiki should be updated to reflect the changes enacted by the PR after it is merged. It doesn't have to be the person/people who made the PR; it can be just about anybody. It does not mean someone has to update the wiki before the PR can be merged either; it's simply a tool to help wiki editors keep track of changes, rather than a requirement for contributors. Think about it; if the wiki is supposed to document current content, it doesn't make sense for it to describe things that aren't even in the game yet.

Minor Edits

Likewise, there's plenty of pages that could use style revisions, links to helpful resources, formatting fixes, and other small changes that don't add any content but improve the page nonetheless. As with all writing, there's always room for revisions.

Unlike with content updates, you don't have to consult with the talk page or anything like that. Just make the changes you want, make sure the "This is a minor edit" button is checked as a small courtesy, as always, include a brief description of the changes you've made in the "Summary" field.

Images

Many pages across the wiki are missing images. To help, simply upload the file and add a short description to help us keep track of what it is. Please don't forget the description - it can be as short as "Fire Extinguisher," and is a tremendous help.
NOTE: if you're going to be uploading pictures, make sure you're keeping everything in the native resolution or non-stretched (32x32, 64x64)! The actual dimensions of the image don't matter, but we would prefer it to be as small as possible, especially if it'll go into Foods and Drinks, which doesn't play well with big images. Transparency is good too, but not really required!

Don't Know Wikicode? You Can Still Help

Simply click on the "discussion" link at the top of a page and leave your comments there. Someone more comfortable with wiki editing will make the necessary changes. If you're on the official Goonstation Discord and have access to the #imwiki channel, you can also drop your request there.

Content Guidelines

The funny stuff (HONK)

While most useful contributions to the wiki are content updates, a large portion of the revisions are simply changes to jokes. The Roles page's jokes change very often and generally get worse with each revision. When making such a change, please consider whether your joke is actually funnier than the one already posted on the site. Please also keep in mind that the primary purpose of this wiki is to provide new players with information about the game; though some entertainment is always appreciated.

When writing guides, please do not attempt to teach new players through sarcasm. Adding a phrase such as "The more people you kill as security, the more points you get with admins" to the Security Officer page will often cause new readers to think it's actually true. While the readers who have played the game will understand that to be wrong, it's often difficult to convey sarcasm through writing.

You are also welcome to add good SS13-related fan art and videos!

Style

The general tone of the Goonstation wiki can be described as "business casual". You should be polite and respectful, but it's also perfectly acceptable to use slang and crack jokes.

Avoid using first-person point of view (POV). Instead, use second-person or third-person. While other wikis might allow but discourage second-person POV, it's perfectly fine on the Goonstation wiki, since it's very difficult to write instructions (like those on the Construction or Thermoelectric Generator pages) without it.

While Goonstation uses a mix of American and British English spellings, American English ones are most common. Therefore, the Goonstation wiki should be written in American English, e.g. "armor" rather than "armour", "color" rather than "colour".

Useful Resources

Learning Wikicode and HTML

If you want to learn wikicode, it's an extremely simple language to learn. MediaWiki's Help:Formatting article is the definite wikimarkup reference list, and Wikipedia:Help:Wiki_markup works as well.

If not, that's fine - the wiki will accept HTML code as well. W3 Schools has a decent reference book on HTML.

Practice

You wanna do some stuff but don't want to ruin someone else's 'well crafted' page? Well whaddya wanna work on? new page? Your very own template? A simple table? You can delete, edit, change, redo, undo, burn, spit on, knock out, fuck up, shit on or do generally whatever you want on any of these pages. Just remember than anyone else can do that too, so don't expect any content to stay there for too long.

Templates

To simplify organization and consistency, we have some simple templates that you can use in pages:

Message templates (for use at the top of pages or sections):

• {{delete}} – add this tag to any page you find that has no reason to exist.
• {{outdated}} or {{Wip|Reason=}} – add either tag to any page that needs an update due to changes in Goonstation 13.
• {{pic}} – add this tag to any page that needs a picture.
• {{Warning|Notes=}} – use this tag to add a warning.
• {{Historical|Notes=}} – add this tag for pages about discontinued content. The |Notes= section is optional, but can be helpful for disambiguations.
• {{Transcript|Notes=}} – add this tag for transcripts of ingame content. The |Notes= section is optional.

Categorization templates (inserts a table linking to pages of the same category, often used at bottom of page, usually automatically places page in a certain category, meaning you don't have to add [[Category:...]] yourself):

• {{Game Mechanics}} - Add to pages that detail broad mechanics that would be useful for almost everyone, e.g. Murder, Game Modes. Doesn't place page in any category.
• {{Department Guides}} - Add to pages that explain mechanics to particular a job or set of jobs, e.g. Guide to Genetics, Power Grid. Places page in Category:Tutorial.
• {{Objects}} - Add to pages with tables that list various items and/or machines, e.g. Syndicate Items, General Objects. Places page in Category:Objects.
• {{Locations}} - Add to pages with tables that describe an in-game location, usually on a certain map, e.g. Bar, Arrivals. Places page in Category:Locations.
• {{Community}} - Add to pages the explain how to contribute things to the game or pages that exclusively contain amusing quotes and/or stories. Places page in Category:Community.
• {{Archive}} -Add to pages that document discontinued content and are kept around for historical interest, e.g. Discontinued Syndicate Items, Chiron. Pair with the Historical template. Places page in Category:Archive.
• {{Books}} - Add to pages that are transcriptions of in-game books, papers, etc., e.g. Pharmacopia, Cryogenics Instruction Manual‎. Pair with the Transcript template. Places page in Category:Ingame books.

Other templates:

• {{main|*}} – add this at the top of sections to indicate the main page of a topic, where * is replaced with the target page.
• {{key|*}} – use this template to represent individual key presses, where * is replaced with the name of the key.
• {{quote|1|2}} – use this template for quotes, where 1 is replaced with the quote, and 2 is replaced with the author (if not, defaults to Unknown).
• {{yes}} or {{no}} or {{n/a}} – use these templates in tables where the value is a simple boolean or not applicable. Optionally, add a | after the template name followed by your desired text instead of the template name.
• {{Missing Value}} - use this template to indicate data that is defined but missing from the wiki. Optionally, add a | after the template name followed by your desired text instead of the template name (for example, |? is useful in very tight spaces such as tables).
• {{help}} or {{disarm}} or {{grab}} or {{harm}} – use these templates to indicate ingame intents. Optionally, add a | after the template name followed by your desired text instead of the template name.
• {{OXY}} or {{TOX}} or {{BURN}} or {{BRUTE}} – use these templates to indicate damage type (case sensitive). Optionally, add a | after the template name followed by your desired text instead of the template name.

Content Lists

Categories: Used, unused and wanted

Templates: Used, unused and wanted

Files: All, unused and wanted

All pages: All existing pages and Wanted pages.

Tagged for editing: Outdated pages, Candidates for deletion, Works in progress

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