View source for Help:Editing

Since this is a wiki, anyone can edit any unprotected pages. However, for your own benefit and to deter spam bots, you are required to create an account (and verify your email address), before you can edit anything. It's recommended that you learn how to edit the source of a page, however if you'd prefer to use the visual editor, you may use that instead.

Remember: You don't have to be a master editor right away! Just getting content onto a page is already quite helpful. Don't be afraid to ask for help, or to ask other editors to improve the formatting of a page. Also don't be discouraged if edits are made to your changes. If you believe something was changed in error, or want more details about the change, please discuss it in the community Discord.

Refer to the [[Todo]] page for details about what is currently being worked on.

== Content Protocols ==
When adding content or especially when creating new pages, an encyclopedic (topic-based) style is critical. Any particular page should talk about a specific physical item or concept. ''Please do not create vague or generic pages like "General Overview" or "The Console".''

Pages for items that are often referred to by an acronym, should instead use the full word/phrase. Then mention in the first paragraph any other forms of the name. [[w:North American Aerospace Defense Command|North American Aerospace Defense Command]] from Wikipedia is a good example. Although this is almost always called "NORAD" in conversations, the page uses the full name. Redirects can be set up instead, in case someone searches for the page using the acronym.

The content on each page should not include any argumentative or opinionated writing (unless it is within a quote). Instead, focus on the facts and information that is supported by evidence (which should then also be supplied).

=== Providing Accurate Information ===
It it extremely important that editors provide information and data that is as accurate as possible. If you aren't sure something is true, either don't write it, or mark it as unverified. An example of how this can be done for minor occurrences is [[Joybus_Protocol#0x00_-_Info]] where the superscript number is used to denote certain entries of the table as unverified. If a major portion of a page is unverified, a warning should be placed at the top of the page (template will be created for this, but text is fine for now).

If you are getting information from a particular source (besides yourself), like another webpage or publication, please write in a "References" section at the bottom of the page with links or other details for each source. If however, you know something to be true by your own experimentation or as collaboration with other people, it is preferred that you indicate that as a reference too.

=== Warning - Double Check Your Sources ===
A source of information may appear to be accurate, you may even verify parts of the page yourself. But that doesn't necessarily mean that everything on a page is 100% correct.

If you can, compare multiple sources to each other. If they mismatch, assume that there could be other issues too. If possible, try to contact the author of the source(s) and verify that everything they wrote is correct and up-to-date.

== Source Editing ==
As mentioned, editing the source of a page is recommended. It is ultimately far more powerful than the visual editor will ever be, and it keeps the source more organized. HTML tags are allowed, but wiki markup should be used when possible. If you run into a situation where a Template would be helpful, please check if something already exists, before making one yourself. HTML tags in Templates is perfectly okay (and quite often necessary). You can see a list of all templates by going [[Special:AllPages|here]] and selecting "Templates" from the Namespace list, then click "Go".

To learn about source editing, refer to [[mw:Help:Contents|MediaWiki's help page]].

== Editing the Main Page ==
Editing this page is locked to only admins. It's a high traffic page, seen by all newcomers. If you want something changed, you'll need to request it from an admin in the #wiki-project channel on the Discord server.

== Categories ==
These are useful for organizing related pages into a list automatically. To add a page to a category, go to the source page, and at the bottom add '''<nowiki>[[Category:categoryName]]</nowiki>''', where "categoryName" is the name of the category you wish to add the page to. To link to a category, insert a colon just after the first double brackets '''<nowiki>[[:Category:categoryName]]</nowiki>'''.

== Units of Measurement ==
In particular, byte units for higher powers should use the older standard of KB, MB, GB, etc. Such that, 1 KB = 1,024 bytes, and so on. There are few to no situations where KB would be referring to 1,000 in this context. Additionally, all official N64 documentation, including the VR4300 manual, uses these units (sometimes even shortening it to a single letter: K, M, G).

However, to remove any ambiguity, the first time a unit like this is used in any give page, it should be followed by the full number of bytes inside parentheses: 64 KB (65,536 bytes). Listing the number of bytes using hexadecimal is also acceptable (e.g. 0x10000 bytes).

When using powers of bits, preferably use Kbits, Mbits, and Gbits.

Frequencies are different however, as 1 KHz = 1,000 Hz. But keep in mind that frequencies are rarely that precise and can drift over time, or vary based on environmental factors like temperature.

== Edit Summaries ==
Please try to include some kind of short summary of your change. If you're not sure what you should write, take a look at past editors using the History tab of any page. These comments are useful for other editors to quickly get an idea what your edits have changed without looking through entire diffs.

== Discord ==
While using the discussion/Talk pages can be useful, there is also a channel on the N64 homebrew Discord server specifically for discussing this wiki's development. Feel free to join to ask for help or guidance, or to report any problems with the wiki. https://discord.gg/WqFgNWf