Help:Improving, Reviewing, and Removing Templates
Improving, Reviewing, and Removing
These templates are the primary tools the community uses to regulate content. The wiki is intended to be self-regulating. That is to say, making a beautiful wiki is everyone's responsibility, not just that of a few specific users or the administrators. If you see anything on the wiki that doesn't seem up to scratch, don't hesitate to get involved. As Gandhi supposedly once said, "You must be the change you wish to see in this world." So too can be said to be true of this wiki. We all play an active role in making this a great community to be involved in, and helping each other improve each others' work is the primary mode of interaction with other users here.
It is often best to begin by bringing up issues on a talk page first however, as these templates, if left for too long, can ultimately result in the abandoned template being applied to a work, and then eventual deletion. If nobody answers back for a while, (Like a couple of days; people have lives, you know!) then it is perfectly reasonable to post a template on the page. Never add an improving template to a page based on talk page comments unless the template would be relevant to the actual current state of the page. A talk page contains a record of all past discussions of the page, and not all comments there may be relevant to the current state of the page.
As a rule of thumb, these templates should not be placed on a page less than 24 hours after page creation and not when the original author's last edit is fresh. The exceptions to this rule are templates placed on the page by the original author, those included in the page preload, and pages that violate site-wide policy (such as illegal or sexually-explicit content, or our behavioral policy).
Of course, you could always go the alternative route and adopt a page which appears to have been abandoned. Some of the greatest works this wiki has ever seen have been deletion bin rescues or abandonment adoptees. Take a browse through the list of abandoned pages from time to time, if you're looking for something to polish. You might just find a diamond in the rough.
Finally, this wiki is intended to be collaborative. We are supposed to work with each other for the betterment of a page and the wiki as a whole. A page could have an original author as well as multiple adoptors at the same time, and that is totally OK. Please do not use these templates to needlessly harass your fellow wikians, (see our Help:Behavioral Policy) or use them to restrict a user from interacting with ostensibly main-wiki content. If you do not want your creation to be tampered with as a part of the main wiki's agenda, please contact an administrator for assistance with making user subpages. While we do respect the original contributor's vision, the wiki's content is a community project. Please see Help:Spirit and Intent for more information.
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| {{abandoned}} | To designate a page as abandoned, add the code below to the top of that page. Do not remove any content from the page when adding this template.
A page can be designated as abandoned if it (1) has enough of a framework started to be able to complete the page but is abandoned of content which falls under one of the other reviewing templates[1] or (2) has enough of a framework started to be able to complete the page but is abandoned of someone to make that happen. In most cases 1 year after a page is marked as abandoned it will be deleted. Pages will not get deleted which have been improved upon to a better point. If the page does not meet these minimum standards, then add the {{delete}} template instead. Abandoned ListIf you plan to be looking through abandoned articles and their templates, be sure to check Abandoned, as it lists all the template paramters in the same, handy page.
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| {{delete}} | To nominate a page for deletion add the code below to the top of that page. Do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about its deletion should take place on its talk page.
When nominating an incomplete page for deletion please make sure that it is not being actively improved upon. See Help:Improving, Reviewing, and Removing Templates for further information about the various tools and methods we use to improve pages on this wiki. In most cases 14 days after a page is nominated for deletion it will be deleted. Pages will not get deleted which have been improved upon to a better point or the reason for deletion has been addressed. If an administrator places a {{delete}} on a page, that administrator should not also be the one to formally delete it. |
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| {{wikify}} | To request a page gets formatted please and add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about its formatting should take place on its talk page.
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| {{needsbalance}} | To request a page gets balanced please and add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about its balance should take place on its talk page.
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| {{requestreview}} | To request a page gets reviewed please and add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about its review should take place on its talk page.
Request Review |
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| {{stub}} | To request a page gets completed and/or flavor gets added please and add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about it's completeness/flavor should take place on its talk page.
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| {{wording}} | To request a page gets grammatical help please and add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about its grammar should take place on its talk page.
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| {{needsadmin}} | To request an administrator visit a page please add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. If for whatever reason you cannot place this on the actual page, place it on the associated talk page.
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| {{unattributed}} | To request an image gets the required source or attribution, please add the code below to the top of that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about the art and artist should take place on it's talk page.
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Disclaimers
These templates are the primary tools the community uses to protect content by communicating something about it. These templates protect pages from misguided, unjustified, or overzealous revision or removal, or are used to prevent users from interfering with each others edits. Where the improving, reviewing, and removing templates can ultimately lead to a page being removed due to a defective state, disclaimers tend to prevent works from being removed by validating them as acceptable on this wiki. The presence of a disclaimer at all generally indicates that there is some portion of the community which would disagree with the content's presence on the wiki, but that they are not a large enough group to form consensus for the community at large.
For example, there is a portion of this community which feels D&D should, in all ways, and at all times, be "PG-13 rated", and that inclusion of "offensive material", (gore, sex, cursing, etc.) indicates that a work is either vandalism or a violation of etiquette. However, this group is a minority. To keep the peace, we have a disclaimer which tells those people, before they read a page in detail, that it contains adult themes, and that they should simply look elsewhere. This is important, because D&D has been around for over 40 years, and many of our users are adults. (The oldest grognards are even actually beginning to die off of old age now.) D&D has the potential to express so much more than a simple children's game, and has been used to do so, so restricting such content from the wiki would actually be a disservice to the community. Much like the comics code had prevented comics from developing into an art form for 30 years, so too would a similar form of censorship over content here prevent us from expressing our true potential.
The other disclaimers cover similar instances where the benefit to the majority outweighs the loud, opinionated values of the minority. The copyright disclaimer protects derivative works from copyright tyrants who view fanart as an affront to originality, and april fools protects works of comedy from overly-serious curmudgeons who would label any hint of sarcasm as vandalism.
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| {{April Fools}} | These entries may not actually have been submitted on April 1st, but they certainly fit the spirit of the day! Every year on April Fools Day, we celebrate by releasing a news article highlighting these pages. Pages with this template, as long as they are not breaking policies or guidelines, should not be edited as spam or vandalism, or marked for removal, review, or editing. They are intentionally designed to be comedic and entertaining. To add this template to a page, simply copy this wiki code to the top of the page.
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| {{Adult Theme}} | These are adult-oriented pages on D&D Wiki, and there's nothing wrong with that. Many of our users are adults, as D&D has been around for 40 years. The exact definition of what counts as "adult" is left mostly up to the community. While one user may find classical art depicting nude figures to be tasteful and acceptable, another may regard this as pornography. Discussion of this template's use should always be carried out in the format of "Given actual people are likely to be offended by this because of actual reasons". Any usage of this template in the format of "I am offended by this, mark it as adult" or "I have marked this for adult content" is unacceptable, and goes against the collaborative nature of this wiki. This is a tool for the community to protect itself, not for individual members to censor their fellow wikians. IF a reasonable discussion has occurred, and those involved have agreed to the use of this template, it can be added to the top of the page by copying this code there.
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| {{Design Disclaimer}} | This template is used to give contextual explanation for content which may be contentious or difficult to visualize, in the interest of preventing edit/flame wars on the wiki and debates at the table. This template is not justification for broken, unfinished, unbalanced, or incomprehensible design, (see Help:Precedent) nor is this template intended to identify pages as being incomplete or broken. It is designed to communicate an unusual fringe-case piece of homebrew which is conditionally problematic, and requires special consideration. In other words, this template is used to shut down grey-area debates regarding the word "balance" without being forced to give certain pages permanent imbalance templates demanding correction, or allowing questionable balance pages to go unmarked. It is our acknowledgement that the word "balance" is fundamentally subjective. To use it simply copy and fill out the following code:
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| {{Copyright Disclaimer}} | D&D Wiki is pretty accepting of the fact that everyone here is participating in a fandom. We are a homebrew-focused community, so technically everything we make is a derivative work of Dungeons & Dragons. D&D itself was originally born as a derivative work of the tabletop wargame Chainmail! So, all of that being the case, it is not surprising that this wiki is home to hundreds of fan-works, representing peoples' favorite things in books, television, movies, anime, comics, videogames, and who-knows-what-else! To identify these things as derivative works, and protect them from unjustified copyright infringement claims, we make use of the copyright disclaimer. It can be placed at the top of a page by pasting the following code.
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| {{WIP}} | WIP stands for Work In Progress. This template indicates the article is undergoing a long edit. It indicates that it is not finished and users should be careful if editing. To use this template, copy the following code to the top of the page.
It has become customary among some users to use the WIP template inside the stub template as justification for the incomplete state. This allows the page to undergo significant revision, or exist in an incomplete state, without cluttering the "complete" content DPLs, and also invites other users to get involved with the revision process, and staves off requests for deletion due to an extended state of incompleteness. However, this template is not justification to simply choose not to finish filling out a page or fleshing out an idea completely. This is a tool for the benefit of active contributors and editors, not an excuse to be lazy or sloppy. |
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| {{inuse}} | Pages with this template are currently undergoing a major edit. The function of this template is to prevent users from overlapping posts. (If you've ever gotten the "your edit conflicts" message, you know just how frustrating this can be) This template is generally saved to a page immediately before a user goes through and does a thorough revision, such as when someone decides to do a spell-check of a particularly verbose page. To use this template, simply copy the following code to the top of the page.
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| {{ImageNeeded}} | To request a page gets an image please add the code below somewhere on that page. Please do not remove any content from the page when adding this template. The discussion about its image should take place on its talk page.
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