User blog:TheDarkness909/Writing Good Articles

I just want to take the time out of my life to publicly express points to writing good articles. It's a little personal essay, not a big "YOU ALL SUCK" text because I know who plays Roblox (kids), and who wants to contribute (everyone), but after seeing some of the articles, I just felt like writing this.

Moderators, you can correct any points if needed, but I feel this should just be expressed anyways.

So here it is.

Some Tips

Roblox Wiki has a great potential to be THE official wiki, however... while it is a community-driven project, the moderators are all focused on something else and so while they're gone, there's nobody to edit any of the real articles.

On a slightly related note, here's a few points that make Wikipedia articles look well-written.


 * Neutral Point of View

This is one of the most important because, since everybody has different opinions, there's bound to be conflict.

Wikipedia articles don't express people's opinions on a topic unless it becomes an event.

For example, let's look at the article Yellow. It doesn't just say "Yellow is a bad color." Because to someone else, it's their favorite color. Big conflict happens here, and such an opinion will be removed quickly nowadays.

When a politician or other notable figure states a controversial opinion, it spreads around. That is acceptable only for when something happens to that figure, but it can't apply to a Wikipedia article if the intent is to show everyone "the truth".

When paragraphs are talking about "people", or the general audience, editors have to remember; everyone is different. You can't just say "some people like it, some people don't." Because while you may bring evidence, it doesn't mean it applies to everyone.

If someone likes the color blue, but someone else doesn't, you can't put any opinion on it, but studies based on how people react to the color... that is acceptable.

Take a Roblox article. You can't say that everyone hates Jaredvaldez4 just because he's "causing trouble".

First, you have to explain what trouble he's causing before you say they hate him. To others, it may not be "trouble", so... again, conflict.


 * Sources

Proof. It's all in the proof.

Before you say "HE'S HACKING!", show it. We can't see it in realtime because that could risk our data.

Show us a video of gameplay, or show us an article of this topic, Roblox Blog entry, gotta be something to confirm that anything happened.

Without proof, you can never be able to confirm that it happened.

It's also noteworthy that you do not post rotting links. This is if you have sources coming from some Chinese or otherwise foreign website (don't know HOW it's gonna end up on this wiki...), so it must be permanent and accessible to everyone. Like the Roblox website.

If you post a link to something that, unfortunately, "doesn't exist on this website", then you now have no actual source which existed earlier, but does not exist now or was probably moved to another part of the website or maybe another website.


 * No Adult Content

Keep in mind that because Roblox is a children's game, you can't swear or mention anything X-Rated. That means no cursing on an article for any reason. (This item got removed for absolutely no ******* reason.)

I myself have seen this on a Wiki before, and because I was an admin, I reverted the changes and blocked the IP address; I "quarantined" the user to prevent more activity of such.

If children are going to be reading this, you can't say things that lead to the big talk of the birds and the bees.


 * All The Other Things Real Articles Don't Show


 * Firstly, everything about the actual article is written in paragraphs. There are no "statistics", "lists", or anything that's other than a complete sentence. This does not include infoboxes, which are the cool things on the right side of the article which show info about things quicker and easier.

That's why there are section titles. You put the name of whatever it is into the section and it becomes the name of the topic.
 * Secondly, introductions to anything (that are not in the main paragraph) are not recommended. It's like giving a really dull PowerPoint presentation. "Here is the proof to show that this happened." Bound to be removed sooner or later.


 * Thirdly, vandalism is what we're trying to prevent, not breed. Don't feed on to it like a troll hater.

Ok, this I may need to go into detail for.


 * Vandalism

If you don't know what vandalism is, just edit this article and take everything out and replace it with a simple "I'm gay".

That is perfect vandalism, and it shouldn't happen. Because what if someone wants to read an article with the title of "Writing Good Articles" to find out the article itself is bad? Ironic, right?

Other people read this, not just you, so you can't just say that something is good if it's horrifyingly repulsive to all the other Roblox Wiki users.

What benefit do you get from editing a perfectly good article and replacing it with "hi"?

People won't know who said that, so the article will be either marked for deletion (if that's all the article was about), or revert the edit if the previous one was actually good.


 * Notability

It's very. Very. Very. Important.

If you're creating a Community article about yourself, you or anything you've made has to be widely recognized or you can just toss that article in the garbage.

The article has to be about something people already know. If nobody knows about it, why is it on a Wiki?

If you want to keep your description about yourself, put it on your actual user page. Just click on your username in the corner, but don't click on the buttons in the drop-down list.


 * And another thing...

If you know you can't write good articles, but you want to make the article good, then let a real editor know. Tell he/she all the information about the topic and hopefully you should get a good result. If you're too shy to approach a specific editor (I know I am), just write the best thing you ever have and an editor should correct it. Make sure it follows all of the above and all turns out well.

Well, that concludes my thing. Just wanted to get that off my back.

Don't be shy to contact me, because I won't shun you publicly.

Thanks. TheDarkness909