Help:New Wiki Guide

Help page

Introduction

This guide is intended to help you get started with writing a new game wiki or remodeling an existing game wiki based on best practices. There may be several assumptions about what you know about wiki editing in this guide, which you can catch up on on the Help:Editing page, the MediaWiki user manual, or by asking in the SuperCombo Wiki Editor's Discord.

The following manual pages are particularly useful to understanding all of the concepts below:

If you need a good example to follow check out the Waku Waku 7 wiki.

1. Account creation & wiki setup

The primary means of communication for SuperCombo Wiki is Discord, a free chat service. You can join it by clicking HERE. The SuperCombo Wiki Discord server has links for requesting account creation & setting up a "new game wiki" (i.e. you want to make a wiki page(s) for a game that has no pages on SuperCombo wiki currently). We handle these processes with Google Forms to avoid spam which means they are all reviewed by humans. More info is found in the #server-info channel on the Discord server.

2. Landing page

Your game's landing page will be a top level page, like "Street Fighter V". It should have at least the following:

  1. {{Infobox Game}} provides facts about the game. Refer to the documentation for usage.
  2. Opening text describing the game. What's new about it? What's unique? Is there a useful explanation of what this game is all about you can use?
  3. A roadmap section. This should be a separate subpage that we are going to transclude and should be named Project:Roadmap/xxxx where xxxx is the abbreviation of the game i.e. Project:Roadmap/SFV. The easiest way to do this is: {{#lst:Project:Roadmap/xxxx|Main}} again using your abbreviation. You will notice this create a red link on the page which we'll fill out in the next section.
  4. A navbox. You will use this to plan out what pages need to be created. These are usually added to the bottom of the page with the name {{Navbox-xxxx}}. Refer to the Navbox documentation page for generic usage.
  5. The game category will always be at the bottom of the page in square brackets. Such as [[Category:Street Fighter V]].

It should be noted that pages linked in double curly braces are found in the Template namespace (such as Template:Navbox-xxx) and categories defined in double square brackets are found in the Category namespace (Category:Street Fighter V). #lst is an exception to this rule because tags share syntax with templates.

Keep in mind that some wikis on the site have barely been touched since the early 2000s. Therefore, if you want to use the code from another game's landing page, make sure you copy it from a recent wiki (Waku Waku 7 is a good example to follow).

3. Navbox and roadmap pages

3.1 Navbox

The navbox is a set of templates that are combined together to create a "directory" widget for your wiki pages. You can click on the red link created by the reference to your navbox to create the page. You should list at least all system and character pages here. List out all the images and page links you intend to create because the navbox will show you red links where pages/images are missing so you can fill them out as you go.

Here's an example of the Waku Waku 7 Navbox:

{{Navbox| title=Waku Waku 7 | link=Waku Waku 7 | short=WW7
| rows=
 {{Navbox/Row| text=General | textwidth=80 | maxlines=3
 | data=
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=icon controls.png | text=Controls and Notation}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=icon hud.png      | text=HUD}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=icon system.png   | text=System}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=icon faq.png      | text=FAQ}}
}}
 {{Navbox/Row| text=Characters | iconwidth=105
 | data=
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_Fernandeath_CSS.png | text=Fernandez}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_Rai_CSS.png         | text=Rai}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_Slash_CSS.png       | text=Slash}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_tesse_CSS.png       | text=Tesse}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_politankZ_CSS.png   | text=PolitankZ}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_Mauru_CSS.png       | text=Mauru}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_dandy_CSS.png       | text=DandyJ}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_arina_CSS.png       | text=Arina}}
  {{Navbox/Icon| image=WW7_BonusKun_CSS.png    | text=Bonus Kun}}
}}
}}

Everything here is explained in the Navbox documentation page. You may optionally choose to make any page that transcludes the navbox also be categorized in your game by adding the category tag to the navbox page's contents. If you decide against this please categorize the template by adding <noinclude>[[Your Category]]</noinclude> as the last line.

Now you can click on the red links to create pages and upload images with correct naming convention already assigned for you. Navboxes should be placed on every relevant page of the wiki you are creating and doing so is as easy as adding {{Navbox-xxxx}} to the bottom of your page when editing.

3.2 Roadmap

The Roadmap should be its own page so we can track edits to its contents easily. In the Landing Page we defined a reference to a "Main" section with the #lst tag. Now we need to define where that section exists on the page by wrapping its contents in <section begin=Main/> and <section end=Main/>. A good example is the SFV Roadmap page which is a table. You can also define multiple sections on a single page so keep this in mind if you want to create roadmaps for specific characters or pages that need extensive work.

The details of this type of transclusion is described on the Labeled Section Transclusion extension page.

4. First character page

The first character page is the hardest, but if done properly it should make subsequent pages a lot easier. The majority of character pages at the wiki have the following structure. You don't have to follow this 1:1 but use it as a guideline:

  1. Introduction
    • This can be a summary or breakdown of the character's gameplay, or flavor text related to their lore. Either way keep it consistent.
  2. Character data
    • Supply anything you consider relevant in terms of movement data, combo rules, or unique mechanics.
  3. Character overview
    • Here you should describe the character's gameplay archetype, summarize their strengths/weaknesses, and if possible have some sections on how to approach neutral, oki, and recommended assist/groove info (depending on the game).
  4. Normal Moves
    • A list of normal moves. Subsections may include:
    1. Standing Normals
    2. Crouching Normals
    3. Air Normals
    4. Command Normals
    5. Dash Normals
    • It is recommended that wikis for newer games to make use of the Universal MoveData Template: {{MoveData}}
      • Create a branch template AttackData-xxxx for displaying data within MoveData.
      • For information on how these templates work, take a look at the code for existing games that make use of them. For example an easy to follow example see {{AttackData-WW7}}.
  5. Universal Mechanics
    • For moves that the entire cast may have access to.
    • Examples: throws, Force Function in UNI, Issen in SamSho
  6. Special Moves
  7. Supers
    • Some games have several super versions. They can be put in subsections here.
  8. Combos
    • A good notation for combos is:
    *5A > 5B > 5C '''(Damage)'''
    :Combo Explanation ("This is a simple magic series")
  9. Videos
    • They can be listed in bullets or making use of the EmbedVideo Extension installed at SuperCombo Wiki.
  10. External Links
    • Add links to any relevant content on Google Docs/Evernotes/Pastebins/Twitter that is relevant to a character.

4.1 Infobox and subnav (optional)

Wikis such as Soulcalibur VI and Street Fighter V use Subnavs to introduce infoboxes and subpage navigation to the character pages because 1 page per character is simply too bloated. You may wish to do this if your game's movelist per character is unusually long (Soulcalibur VI) or there is simply a lot of information that goes into a character's gameplay (Street Fighter).

If you want to break up your character pages into subpages using subnavs you need to create a Infobox Character xxxx template which holds the infobox for your character and calls a separate Character Subnav xxxx template to show your subpages. The reason the Infobox also calls the subpage is because it's easier to define the information to displayed in the infobox in a single call to a template that also embeds the subpage navigation.

A fair bit of CSS tricks go into these so you may be best off copying the Soulcalibur VI templates and modifying as necessary: {{Infobox Character SCVI}} and {{Character Subnav SCVI}}. Once you set them up you can call the Infobox on the main character page to show everything and only call the Subnav on your subpages. See Geralt's Soulcalibur VI pages for an example.

Note that when you follow the example of the SCVI setup you will see a link to an /Introduction sub page on the character page when calling the infobox. The Introduction page is made a subpage and transcluded to the overview page to preserve the layout so be sure to move all of your relevant information there.

5. Ask for feedback and make adjustments

This is a key section that historically a lot of editors fail to cover. Always ask for feedback from within your game community and on the SuperCombo Wiki server. Chances are you have a typo in the category or you missed a value in the move list. Retroactively changing errors across all character pages after the fact is a pain in the ass.

Double check everything before creating the remaining pages.

6. Create remaining pages and fill them out

Once you have the green light from multiple collaborators, use the character page template to make the "skeleton" of all remaining pages. Some things to keep in mind:

  1. Character categories aren't mandatory but will help keep things tidy.
    • Especially for characters with several games on the site or characters that keep crossing to other games. Some of these characters will have hundreds of files for normals/specials/supers and adding them to a category serves as a "check" that the files are being on display.
  2. Transclusion saves a lot of work.
    • Transcluding info like Twitter hashtags or character health values can help make modifications across several pages at once.
  3. Japanese wikis usually have full or partial frame data
    • Become acquainted with some basic JP terms or learn to navigate sites like atwiki.jp or seesaawiki.jp and you could find info that you'd have to otherwise create yourself.
    • You can refer to Infilament's Fighting Game Glossary to find Japanese translations of frequently used fighting game terms.

Once this preliminary work is complete, contact the admins to get your new wiki added to the game directory. The directory functions as a comprehensive list of all wiki projects at SuperCombo Wiki, complete and ongoing. Once the editors consider a wiki has reached an important milestone (finishing all character and system pages for example) they may request it to be added to the front page for visibility.

Hope you found this guide useful, and if you have further questions feel free to ask in the SuperCombo Wiki Editor's Discord.