Help! How to contribute guide

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Revision as of 11:53, 24 September 2009 by Ngng (talk | contribs) (correcting...)
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Anyone can contribute to this wiki granted he has anything to add or has found something to correct here. But be sure to read these simple steps to be more productive and helpful.
First of all if you are new to wikis, take your time to check out this tutorial.

  • Before creating a new game article please verify if the game is already present in the database (use search box on the left panel). Each game article may contain more than one game infobox for every revision and region (like page Drakan - The Ancients' Gates contains two infoboxes for PAL and NTSC region). Thus there is no need to create new page for the game of the different region, you'll need to add the new infobox on the current game page.
  • When creating a new game page name it exactly after the original PS2 title. That will help to avoid any confusion in the future.
  • To have all the pages look the same and to improve the edit time each game page contains an infobox template. It looks something like this:
{{infobox game
|image             = Drakan_-_The_Ancients'_Gates.png
|caption           =
|developer         = Surreal Software
|genre             = Action-adventure, RPG
|gameinfo          =
|wikipedia         = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakan:_The_Ancients%27_Gates
|reviewlinks       = http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/drakantheancientsgates/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review
|reviewscore       = 7.7/10
<!-- NTSC-U props -->
|NTSCU             = 1
|serialsNTSCU      = SCES 50006
|CRCsNTSCU         = 04F9D87F,ABC12345
|releasedateNTSCU  = July 5, 2002
|statusNTSCU       = 2
|linuxstatusNTSCU  =
|macstatusNTSCU    =
<!-- PAL props -->
...

It's easy to edit such pages as you only have to add the needed values after = sign. But when you're starting a new page it's completely empty so you will need to copy the infobox from any existing page and correct all the values there. Most of the values may be omitted or even erased from the infobox but the latter is not recommended as it may confuse the new users when they won't be able to find the needed variable.

  • Values like Serials,CRCs,release dates, statuses are distinguished by region type. Find your region (be it PAL, NTSC-U or NTSC-J) and change the value accordingly. So, for instance, if you want to set the game as playable on Windows and your region is NTSC-U, please assign '2' to 'statusNTSCU' variable.
  • status values are numeral, please do not set it to something like 'playable', it won't work. Use '2' to show that the game is playable, 1 -- goes ingame, 0 -- is broken.
  • genre value can be any text but please be advised to stick to the current defined game categories (Action,Adventure,Arcade,Compilation,Casual,Fighting,Horror,MMO,Minigames,Shooter,Sports,Racing,Remake,RPG,RTS are currently defined, please propose more here). You can use any combination of these words to set up the game category. For example, setting genre to "Action-Adventure,PRG" automatically stores this game under Action,Adventure and PRG categories simultaneously. And if the genre is "Extreme Sports" the game will be categorized as "Sports". You can also add some categories by hands if that is not enough in your case.
  • You can set as many genres as you like delimiting them by commas (ex. "Action,Adventure,Fighting,Minigames"). This will put the game in all those categories simultaneously.
  • Before committing the change take your time to look at it by using Preview button. It will reduce the number of errors and will save your time.
  • When uploading pictures please cut down the unnecessary parts and try to name the pictures according to the PS2 game title (for example like this file).

Welcome to the PCSX2 Wiki and feel yourself at home!