Editing User:SAMWAF

# '''Develop consistent conventions.''' Are you not certain whether a certain word needs to be capitalized? Are you not certain how to address a certain character? Find out if there's an existing convention. As long as it's not outright ''wrong'', follow it. If not, develop, implement, and publicize a convention. Under no circumstances should you constantly switch back-and-forth between conventions.

# '''Develop consistent conventions.''' Are you not certain whether a certain word needs to be capitalized? Are you not certain how to address a certain character? Find out if there's an existing convention. As long as it's not outright ''wrong'', follow it. If not, develop, implement, and publicize a convention. Under no circumstances should you constantly switch back-and-forth between conventions.

# '''Use present tense.''' This is more a style thing, but it's actually really important. I think people tend to use past tense because that's how we tend to perceive time -- a character does something, therefore it ends up in the past. And that's fine if we're talking about real people. Real people exist, and then they don't. They do things that occupy a discrete moment in the space-time continuum. But fictional characters aren't like that. Fictional characters sort of exist in all states: people that haven't read the books, people that are in the middle of reading it, and people that have already read it. Obviously if you're editing the wiki, you've already read the book, which gives you a certain bias and why you will tend to use the past tense. But this is incorrect; it's writing in a backwards-looking fashion. When a character dies, do you switch all tenses in an article to the past tense? That's inconsistent (and sort of spoiler-ish). Moreover, Frodo Baggins ''is'' a character from Lord of the Rings, he doesn't cease to become a character; thus, one should ''never'' use past tense in articles, unless there's an actual reason, like placing things in chronological context.

# '''Use present tense.''' This is more a style thing, but it's actually really important. I think people tend to use past tense because that's how we tend to perceive time -- a character does something, therefore it ends up in the past. And that's fine if we're talking about real people. Real people exist, and then they don't. They do things that occupy a discrete moment in the space-time continuum. But fictional characters aren't like that. Fictional characters sort of exist in all states: people that haven't read the books, people that are in the middle of reading it, and people that have already read it. Obviously if you're editing the wiki, you've already read the book, which gives you a certain bias and why you will tend to use the past tense. But this is incorrect; it's writing in a backwards-looking fashion. When a character dies, do you switch all tenses in an article to the past tense? That's inconsistent (and sort of spoiler-ish). Moreover, Frodo Baggins ''is'' a character from Lord of the Rings, he doesn't cease to become a character; thus, one should ''never'' use past tense in articles, unless there's an actual reason, like placing things in chronological context.

# '''Leave out the details.''' Perhaps counter-intuitive, but important. We're trying to write a wiki, not a novel. There's a tendency to want to re-create the Awesome that the author wrote down. In an article about a battle, people will painstakingly try to write every bit of detail, about who threw what punch, about the exact words that people say, about how awesome the character sounds. But really, what you should really just write is, "After a short conversation, the characters engage in a battle, which ends in the defeat of character B." When you write every detail, about every word that's said and punch that's thrown, it's unprofessional and sounds like a rabid fanboy writing. More importantly, it's burdensome to read. Specialist wikis should convey a greater level of information than Wikipedia, but it's an encyclopedia article, meant to provide an easily-understandable and digestible summary, for people that forgot or didn't understand the scene. Too much detail actually impedes understanding and readability. But probably most importantly, I find it a moral and ethical problem to put in too much detail. The book is the book. Nothing should ever replace the book. An encyclopedia article is a neutral, source of facts and information; it shouldn't seek to reproduce the Awesome that the author put in, because that's not its purpose. If you want that, then buy the book. I've seen "summaries" which are so detailed, that they are essentially book replacements. And that is morally and ethically wrong.

# '''Leave out the details.''' Perhaps counter-intuitive, but important. We're trying to write a wiki, not a novel. There's a tendency to want to re-create the Awesome that the author wrote down. In an article about a battle, people will painstakingly try to write every bit of detail, about who threw what punch, about the exact words that people say, about how awesome the character sounds. But really, what you should really just write is, "After a short conversation, the characters engage in a battle, which ends in the defeat of character B." When you write every detail, about every word that's said and punch that's thrown, it's unprofessional and sounds like a rabid fanboy writing. More importantly, it's burdensome to read. Specialist wikis should convey a greater level of information than Wikipedia, but it's an encyclopedia article, meant to provide an easily-understandable and digestible summary, for people that forgot or didn't understand the scene. Too much detail actually impedes understanding and readability. But probably most importantly, I find it a moral and ethical problem to put in too much detail. The book is the book. Nothing should ever replace the book. An encyclopedia article is a neutral, source of facts and information; it shouldn't seek to reproduce the Awesome that the author put in, because that's not its purpose. If you want that, then buy the book. I've seen "summaries" which are so detailed, that they are essentially book replacements. And that is morally and ethically wrong.