This page contains the Outer Worlds Wiki's article guidelines. It describes criteria and rules for all or specific types of content.
- Policies set general rules for the wiki's administration and its content.
- Any registered editor is free to edit this page to improve its readability as long as the essence of the article remains unchanged.
- If you would like to suggest content changes or propose a new policy or guideline, please use the wiki discussion forum.
- See the policies and guidelines page for an overview of this wiki's policies and guidelines.
Policies
Please read these policies before you edit the The Outer Worlds Wiki. If you have any questions please contact an admin.
Editing
You are free to edit pages on the wiki but understand that others can also edit your work. Please do not abuse this right by starting an 'edit war', simply discuss any problems on the discussion page or report abuse to an admin.
Content criteria
- All content should relate to The Outer Worlds series of games, its setting or game mechanics.
- All content needs to be accurate. The Outer Worlds Wiki aims to provide reliable information. In particular, adding speculation and own inventions (fan fiction, fan art etc.) to articles should be avoided. However, feel free to write to include this content in your user pages or blogs
- All content needs to be verifiable. Other editors need to be able to check and verify it.
- All content needs to be informative. Information which is only of interest to the writer or to other editors (as opposed to readers) should not be included in articles.
- All content needs to be objective. Opinions, game-play strategy, and "my favourite"-style passages should not be added to articles. Accordingly, guides may only be posted as sub-pages of one's user page or as a blog.
- All content needs to relate to the games as delivered by the developers; user modifications are not covered by this wiki.
- Mentions of modifications which may fix game bugs are the exception and links to these can be provided.
- All content needs to abide by copyright regulations. Generally, content from other sites should not be copied unless permission has been granted. For example, do not upload magazine scans or add illegally obtained information, so as to avoid potential legal problems.
Spoiler policy
In general, the whole wiki is considered a spoiler and specific spoilers should not be marked as such in articles. The only exception to this rule is information relating to upcoming games or add-ons, i.e. games or add-ons which have not been released yet but are to be released in the future.
Plagiarism policy
A wiki doesn't just live and die on the information it contains; it also survives on the reputation it builds as an information source.
Plagiarism hurts the wiki's reputation and reduces our ability to be seen as an authoritative information source - it also could be a breach of copyright.
It could also put the wiki at risk - unauthorised copyrighted content could see parts of, or even the whole wiki made unavailable.
What is, and what is not, plagiarism?
“The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own
„
As a trusted source of information, we want as much of our pages as possible to be made up of original content that you can't find anywhere else. To this end, we would prefer you to, whenever possible, create original works that do not directly copy anyone else's work.
This is not to say you can't be inspired by it - maybe you saw something somewhere else that you thought might improve a page. By all means, feel free to bring that to the wiki - but make sure its your own work and written in your own words - and if you can improve and develop the idea further.
Sometimes you may have to use other peoples words and work, here are some situations where this is acceptable (this isn't inclusive):
- Licensed Content. If you have prior permission from the content owner, you can reuse their content - We've asked permission to present to you many of our sound files for example. You should still cite who the owner of the work is though.
- Copyleft/Creative Commons/Pubic Domain - this is a specific form of licensed content, the owner of the work has made it available for anyone to use without prior permission, but in the case of the first two this is subject to some rules. You should ensure that you follow any requirements set by the content owner (such as following the license conditions, or attributing in the way that they request); if no attribution standard is given by the owner, then you should ensure that they are identified and if at all possible the original linked in the references (for non-displayed content, the comments may also be acceptable).
- Quotes - Its perfectly permissible to quote a person, or even a copyrighted work. Your quote should be limited to the amount you need to make your point - for example, you can't quote an entire magazine article, but a paragraph or two may be acceptable. You should use the Quote template, and link to the source of the quote wherever possible, giving credit to the author/speaker/publication.
- Fair Use - There are also times where it is possible to reuse content within the US's "Fair Use" exemption. Much of the source files and screenshots fall into this category, as does images used in news reporting. The origin should be credited and linked wherever possible.
Organisation
Anyone can add a page or image, which can ultimately lead to confusion if no order is followed. Please name things to a standard.
- For example, Do Not add an image called: 123.JPG
That image name says nothing about the image at all, instead look at the name of a similar image and copy its standard. Always check the names of similar pages before you create a new one and do not create multiple pages for something. Even CAPITAL letters matter. For example, you do not want a scenario such as the following where there are four pages about one item:
- Shiney Sword
- Weapons Shiney Sword
- Weapons Swords Shiney Sword
- Weapons swords Shiney sword
Categorization
All images and all pages must be added to a Category by adding this code to the bottom of the page or in the image summary:
- [[Category:Name of Category Here]]
See Divinity Wiki:Category Policy.