Help:Guide

Welcome to the Eco Wiki Editing Guide!

This guide is an introduction to the structure and style of the Eco Wiki. Before doing extensive edits to the wiki, please read this guide. '''The information here only applies to editing the wiki and was decided upon by other editors. Nothing here was set by SLG.'''

Introduction to Wikicode
Gamepedia has plenty of tutorials. Check out http://help.gamepedia.com/Gamepedia_Help_Wiki for an introduction to WikiCode.

Wiki Community
The Eco Wiki is written and edited by volunteers. The website is hosted and run by Gamepedia.

Editor Collaboration

 * Eco Contribution Wiki Discord - Join Discord for the quickest and most up-to-date response if you have a question about the wiki. This is a place for all people wishing to contribute to the Wiki to be able to discuss and help each other out.
 * Eco Discord - #wikieditors Channel. Join the Official Eco Discord.
 * Eco Wiki Editors Trello - This is where editors keep track of plans and tasks for the wiki. Anyone may view the board, but to participate, you must create a Trello account and get access from an admin. Ask for access in the Discord.
 * Talk pages - For questions and more focused discussions about editing specific pages, users should use that page's "Talk" page. Talk pages can be accessed by the "Discussion" tab in the top left of each page. Don't forget to sign your name with 4 tildes ( ~ ) or the signature button.

Eco Wiki Admins
Wiki admins have the power to delete pages, block accounts and IP addresses, protect pages from editing, and more. For issues such as these that require admin attention, use the Admin noticeboard.

Color


See color table with hex codes at File:ColorPalette.png

The color palette is used for many elements on the wiki. A brown color (same as the Eco inventory background) is used for infobox backgrounds, darkred for infobox headings, and the item "type" background is color-coded.

Third-Person
Write in an impersonal style and don't use pronouns (i.e. no "I", "you", or "he/she"; use "the player" or "players" instead).

However, gameplay advice is strongly encouraged. It makes the wiki more useful for players.

"Eco" vs. "ECO"
The game is called Eco in all references. Don't use "ECO".

Capitalization
All references to specific items should be capitalized. But since many items in Eco have generic names, the reference to an item may be lowercase. Usage depends on if you're using the definite or indefinite article (e.g. "use an axe to cut down trees" vs "use the Stone Axe to cut down trees." or "skill scrolls" vs. "Agriculture Skill Scroll")

Links
Per Wikipedia style, the first inline reference of the article name should be a link, which will make it show up bold.

The first reference of all items, skills, or game concepts should become links. All further references should not be links.

Comments
Comments can only be seen when editing an article. To create a comment, edit source and write your text like this:   Make sure you include the end hyphens and closing tag so the entire article does not become a comment.

Comments should be used for documentation or clarification, not questions or discussions about page content. Use the Talk pages instead for content discussion.

Wiki Structure
Wiki structure is centered around guide pages that thoroughly document game systems. Link structure should direct players to these pages. All items and skills in Eco should have the same page.

Guide pages
Guide pages serve as jumping-off points for players interested in particular aspects of the game. They should contain thorough information and numerous links so they rank highly in search engines. These pages will also be featured on the main page.

Pages about certain aspect of these systems should become redirect pages to the relevant guide page. For example, all links to specific Skill Scroll items should redirect to Research. The calories page should redirect to Food. There are no hard rules about what pages should be a standalone pages and what should be incorporated into the guide pages and turned into redirects. Wiki editors will make calls on when guide page sections become too long and should be moved to individual pages on a case-by-case basis. Use the Talk page for the relevant guide page to discuss these issues.

Below is a list of guide pages. Some of these pages are missing or incomplete, since these systems are not fully implemented yet.


 * Getting Started — Introductory guide that new players should start with. Include miscellaneous "Tips & Tricks" section for early-game play.
 * Food — Explains food system and how nutrients and calories relate to skill gain. Lists all food and cooking recipes. Pages such as nutrients and calories should redirect here.
 * Skills — Explains skill points and lists all skills in the game.
 * Crafting — Explains crafting system and lists all crafting recipes in the game (except food and research recipes).
 * Research — Explains research system and lists all research recipes. Pages such as skill scroll and skill book should redirect here.
 * Housing — Explains how rooms, building materials, and furniture interact with player skill points and crafting station function.
 * Agriculture — Explains how agriculture works.
 * Pollution — Explains how pollution works.
 * World — Explains how world generation works and lists different biomes.
 * Ecosystem — Explains how plants and animals grow, die and interact in Eco.
 * Economy — Explains how stores, contracts, currencies, and individually imposed taxes work.
 * Laws — Explains how drafting, voting, and implementation of laws work.
 * Government — Explains how elections, world leadership, and centrally imposed taxes (through the Treasury) work.
 * Server — Explains what servers are and links to tutorials on setting up, running, adminning, and updating servers.
 * Modding — Explains modding, contains an up-to-date list of major mods, and resources and tutorials for modding.

Page Structure
Every page should have a category assigned to it (or categories in some cases). See the section on categories below for which categories are applicable to which pages.

Item pages
Every item in Eco should have a page associated with it.

The page should start off with an Infobox containing some information about the item, then have a section for general information. NOTE: Make sure there are no double returns between the infobox/initial comments and the beginning of the text content Below the summary, add level 2 headings such as "Strategy" for strategy discussion and "Notes" for tips or useful facts in bullet form, if there is content to include under those headings.

Next, an appropriate featured screenshot or picture for the page can be included with the following format:

If desired, a level 3 heading called "See Also" can be included for references to highly relevant pages. This will cause the table of contents to be formed above this (the table of contents appears above the first heading).

After this, the item's description should be included by calling Template:Description. This will create a level 2 heading.

Next, include a level 2 header for "Crafting", and call Template:GetRecipes as needed.

Include extra pictures in a gallery format under a level 2 "Gallery" heading

A section for "History" should be included at the bottom of the page when the item has changed over updates to the game. This section can include bulleted notes about history or more specific version update tables. This is not a section for page edit history.

Finally, include category tags.

Below is an example of item page structure for the page "Log":

A Log is a block item that can be harvested from trees using an axe. Up to 10 logs may be carried in a player's hands. Logs can be placed on the ground by right-clicking. Hitting placed logs with an axe will turn them into Hewn Logs, a building material.

Logs must be stored in a Stockpile or on the ground, but a Carpentry Table can turn them into Boards, which can be stored in chests and are used to make some items.

Mid to late-game, Logs are used to make the more advanced Lumber.



Strategy
Sustainable harvesting of Logs requires responsible replanting and cleanup practices. Use an axe on tree leaves to harvest tree seeds before chopping down a tree. Clean up Wood Pulp to allow saplings and other plants to regrow in the area.

History

 * Prior to Alpha version 0.6.4.2, the skill Logging yield increased the amount of logs picked up by 1 each level. With points invested in Logging Yield, players could maximize the number of logs gained from a single tree by cutting it into the smallest possible chunks. Each chunk would benefit from the Logging Yield skill, effectively multiplying the Logs gained by the skill.

Skill pages
Every profession and specialty in Eco should have its own page describing it.

Each page will begin with an Infobox_Skill template.

Then it will include an Unlocks table about the Skills Details.

For a Speciality, include a Learning Heading with a Get Recipes template.

Add Category:Skills, Category:Specialties, or Category:Professions

Below is an example of skill page structure on the page Specialty, Smelting.

Categories
Categories help us keep track of pages. Every page should have a category.

To add a category to a page, add " " at the bottom of the page, where "Example" is the category.

Try to assign only the most specific sub-category. (For example, don't assign both Food and Item categories to a page. Food is the most specific sub-category between the two, so just assign that category.) Pages should have no more than two categories, excluding categories added automatically. For example, Tomato may have both the Food and Resources categories, because it is a both a food and resource. Tomato Seed should have the Seeds and Resources categories, not Food, because Seeds is a sub-category of Food.

Here is a list of manually assigned Eco categories and sub-categories:

Item Pages

 * Items
 * Tools
 * Blocks
 * Food
 * Seeds
 * Objects
 * Crafting Stations
 * Furniture
 * Resources (Can be gathered from the world. e.g. Dirt, Tomato)

Skill Pages

 * Skills
 * Specialties
 * Professions

World

 * Resources
 * Plants
 * Animals

Tutorials and Guide Pages

 * Tutorials (Step-by-step walkthroughs)
 * Guide Pages (Omnibus pages such as Food, Crafting, and other pages about game concepts)

Templates

 * Templates
 * Infobox Templates

Templates are elements of the wiki that are pre-fabricated and are used across the wiki. Templates are inserted into a page with curly brackets. For example, to insert the Outdated template, an editor will simply type " ". More information about each template and how to use them can be found on the template's page, and a full list of templates can be found by going to Special:AllPages and setting the namespace to Template.

Infoboxes
Infoboxes are used on all item and skill pages as a "fast facts" reference for all the vital attributes of the item or skill.

Each infobox has its own parameters that currently must be entered manually. Visit each template page to see the params. A system for automating infobox params with information pulled from the game is in the works.

Infobox_Item
Template:Infobox_Item is used for pages about items such as food, tools, crafting materials, or blocks.

Infobox_Skill
Template:Infobox_Skill is used for skill pages.

Contentneeded
Template:Contentneeded should be used for pages that need some more information or are incomplete. It adds a text box to the top of the page, and adds the page to Category:Content needed.

Imagesneeded
Template:Imagesneeded should be used for pages that need some screenshots or images to make them more interesting. It adds a text box to the top of the page, and adds the page to Category:Content needed.

Outdated
Template:Outdated creates a text box that warns players the information on the page may be outdated. If "Version" is specified, it notes it as the version in which the page became outdated. It also adds the page to Category:Outdated pages.

Delete
Template:Delete flags a page for deletion and adds it to Category:Candidates for deletion. This creates a text box at the top of the page announcing that the page has been flagged for the reason passed in to the template. If there is need for the page to be deleted in a short time, speedy can be specified. Adding "speedy" to the template adds the page to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion.

Description
Template:Description creates a heading and block quote. Either "text" or "item" can be specified, and "item" takes precedence if both are provided. If "text" is specified, the template uses the given text as the description. Specifying "item" causes the template to pull the item's description from Module:ItemData. The logic for handling the parameters and deciding what text to display is contained in Module:Description.

GetRecipes
Template:GetRecipes is used to get a list of applicable recipes from the game. The recipes are formatted in a wikitable, and are given appropriate level 3 headers. If "item" is specified, the template grabs all recipes that either create the item or that use the item as an ingredient. This parameter takes precedence over all other parameters. When "table" is specified, the template grabs all recipes that are available at the given crafting table. Specifying "group" causes the template to gather all recipes that create an item that belongs to the given group. Both "table" and "group" can be specified together to narrow down the list of recipes that are selected. The logic handling for this template is done by Module:GetRecipes and Module:CraftingParser. To manually create a list of recipes in the same wikitable format as used in this template, see Template:RecipeTable.

IconFrame
Template:IconFrame creates a frame with a specific image, text, and link. This template can be used to create headings with the text param.

RecipeTable
Template:RecipeTable is used to manually create a list of recipes. The table that is output by this template is in the same format as ones produced by Template:GetRecipes. For information on how to use this template, please see this template's page.