Presentation Guide

This page is a guide to presentation and format, to be followed when creating and editing articles on this project.

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Spelling and Grammar
Whether you're creating a new article completely, or just tweaking an existing one, we ask - nay insist - on a high standard of English. Many worlds and Wikis out there are crammed full of spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and in some cases a complete lack of sentence structure or punctuation. This will not be one of them. Keeping your article clean is relatively simple to do. The most basic rule, which many people forget to follow, is to read what you have written. The Preview button is there for just this reason. Before you save anything, you should read it through and make sure that what you have written makes sense and is free from typing errors. If you aren't confident in your spelling ability, type out your article or edit in a good word processor and use the spellcheck feature. We aren't completely evil about presentation here, though - if an article is in a poor state, it will be usually edited to bring it up to standards, unless the quality is so poor and the article so short that the entry is mostly incomprehensible.

Some simple guidelines for you to follow are:


 * Read your article at least twice, and come back to it at a later date to double-check.
 * Don't 'write as you talk' - you should make sure that what you have written is going to make sense to everyone.
 * Spell words correctly. Variated spelling will be tolerated (English/American/Australian etc.) but text-speak like 'ur' for 'your' will not.
 * Use words correctly. If you aren't sure what a word means, either look it up or find another word to use.
 * Try to keep the number of invented words to a minimum. Don't call the wheel a 'rolling bar', for example.
 * Follow grammatical conventions on invented words and names. Invented languages can be used, so long as they are detailed and practical.

Context
There are many different ways to write Progressive Earth articles. Some contributors may like to write in a historical sense- 'looking backwards', while others might like to write in a descriptive 'present day' sense. This is fine as long as such articles are kept up to the project's level of development (or back-dated and rewritten in a historical sense afterwards). In fact we will be quite leniant about context. If you want to allude to or invent fictional sources, that's fine - just as it's okay to invent confusion or controversy over events. Even having sources use mythological or religious terminology is fine, so long as you at some point try and indicate what most likely 'really' happened in an analytical, impartial manner. That is something we will insist on - no matter the context of your articles, you should always write impartially - no describing figures as 'evil' - just describe them in terms of what they do, who they are, and what others viewed them as. If you find someone has referenced a non-existant source and you want to create it, then just make sure that you get permission to create it, and you write it with consideration for the suggested context and make sure what you write backs up everything it's supposed to back up, and doesn't contradict other articles (unless, of course, it's part of a controversy).

Depth
We understand that some of you are pressed for time, and that others will be creating articles as a build-up to a different focus, but nevertheless we must make sure that all articles have a sufficient level of detail on their subject. Following a link to 'Fire' and finding a stub stating 'fire was invented in the past by many different people' and not much more is disappointing to say the least. Obviously the level of detail is going to vary somewhat, depending on the topic. Little-known or infrequently referenced topics are going to have articles which are less detailed than articles on dominant civilisations and cultures. But, for example, we require that any article on an invention has, at the least, details on its creators, its creation (including when, where, why) and a brief section on the ramifications of its existence. In the same way, we expect a character to be defined by the time in which they lived, the culture they lived in, their own background and major events in their lives. If an article you have written is judged to have insufficient detail and you do not expand on it as requested, it could face deletion or be handed over to another user to develop, possibly in a direction you did not intend. If you are in the middle of extended development, have a bad connection, or other troubles slow your editing, try and leave a message to that effect on the relevant discussion page. We will be a lot more understanding if you have stated an intent to improve the article at a later date.

Templates and Layout
If an in-world template exists for the type of article you are planning to create, then please make use of it, or at least stick to the general format set out there. If no template exists, then - if you feel up to it- create one (as long as you think there will be a further need) or else try and lay your article out in a clear and understandable manner. Within sections, try and break up your text so it is more presentable. Using bullet-points for lists is a good idea, and inserting breaks to separate paragraphs is also good. Keeping everything spaced out adds to the look of the Wiki and makes things easier to follow. If you insert pictures, try and position them so that they don't interfere with text but complement it instead. And as a side-note: please try and ensure all images are of a professional quality. One thing you should avoid is writing sections that contain very little - it makes an article appear 'unfinished' and unprofessional. So think about what you could add or expand on - and if you can't do either, integrate the information into a different section and make everything look that little bit cleaner. The same applies the other way - don't have huge, dominating sections full of text. If you get a long topic, see if you can break it down into sub-headings. Generally, just try and make sure that your article looks good. Compare it to the professional Wikipedia articles and see how it shapes up. If you're at that standard, there's nothing to worry about.

Standards and Moderating
The Progressive Earth welcomes moderators who are willing to look through user-created articles and bring them up to our standards. Use this guide as a starting point and do what you can to improve quality- your aid will be well-received, however much you contribute. However, we do ask that you follow proper procedure. First of all, if you want to radically overhaul a page, first announce this on the relevant discussion page and give the user some chance to respond or react to criticism. Minor edits can go mostly unnanounced, but anything that will majorly affect the article should be debated. Second of all, please don't insult members based on their poor spelling or other factors. Stay precise and impartial - bullying someone over grammar, spelling or sentence structure isn't acceptable. Thirdly - don't just delete pages. It may be that it is more useful to the project if a page is expanded on. If you're considering deleting something, mention it on the page's discussion page and wait for the response. If there is no response, then put in a Call for Attention on the main page's discussion page. Finally, try and abide by all the standard conventions for editing and for this project, and try and make sure everyone else does so too. That's what we need you for, after all!