BattleBears Wiki:Community Portal

Welcome to the Battle Bears Wiki! Here you can find some direction on where you would like to be heading should you choose to join us on our extensive wiki project!

You can find out more general information about our wiki's topic on the About page (at least, once we've written something up!).

New to wikis?
The great thing about wikis is the fact that they require such little experience and can be used by anyone. It only takes the three steps of selecting the Edit button on a page, inserting content, hitting Publish, and there you have it! But when it comes down to it, there's just so much more involved in those simple steps. And that would be why you are here. The best way to learn is to experiment. There are so many different ways you can contribute, and the easiest way to do so is by starting with something familiar. Just naturally, you will learn more without even trying! If you are, however, looking for a more guided approach, you might want to start with a tutorial for first-timers, or for everything starting from the basics to the finer details, you can search on the Help:Contents page.

These pages can also be found on the navigation bar (the blue ribbon at the top of the page) under the Community section, and then under Getting Started if you ever need a quick reference of them.

Feel at home
If you want to stick around, you will want the best customised experience, starting with your profile. It is easily accessible from the upper right corner of any page, and there you can show others who you are and anything on your mind. For an enhanced experience, it is recommended you look into your Preferences, and configure your account just the way you want it. For convenience, we put this under the Getting Started section as well, but what a lot of people tend to miss is that you can also select your profile button once, which will drop down a toolbar where you can also find your Preferences.

Your Profile contains four different headings. The Profile section is the main place you can post about yourself. The second heading takes you to your Message Wall, where you and others can post brief messages. If you want to check out all the contributions you've made to the wiki, you can browse them in the Contributions section.

If you're ever in need of some help, our friendly administrators are welcome to lend a hand. The current admins can be found on the navigation bar, under Community in the Administrators section. If they are unable to address your concern, you might want to contact Wikia for more complicated matters.

Where to first?
There are that many things we need your help doing. If you own any Battle Bears game, the chances are you have something to share.


 * If you want to help but you're not sure where to start, try improving the various stub articles by adding content.
 * To follow the changes to this wiki, and to look out for new users and edits use recent changes.
 * You can find a list of useful templates on Category:Templates, some of which are documented on    :Templates.
 * If you need help editing, you could start with Help:Editing or the tutorial.
 * Example:Weapon page layout template
 * Help expand some article stubs.

Renaming pages and redirects
Renaming pages is a more advanced ability for use of regular users. It highly advised that the feature is NOT used at all. This is because all page titles are correct, but the feature of renaming pages cannot be disabled. Renaming pages will likely affect links and cause redirects to be created (read the following paragraph for information). With that in mind, renaming pages can be considered a form of vandalism, and repeatedly doing so may be punishable.

The use of redirects on this wiki is minimised, and in most instances will be deleted if created by accident. Alternatively, similar terms are likely included within the article that otherwise would be redirected to, which will make it appear during a search instead. This also replaces the purpose of using disambiguations.

Deletion
On this wiki, certain pages may be deleted without notice. When reading the Deletion Log, the following reasons are likely mentioned:


 * Unnecessary/insignificant: Pages either completely unrelated, or partially related but of low significance and not requiring a full article.
 * Relocation/substitution: Pages either being moved to an alternate title, or the content is already located more suitably elsewhere.
 * Excessive vandalism/spamming: Pages created solely out of misconduct. Doing so repeatedly is punishable.
 * Other reason: Any other reason a page is deleted under an admin's decision.

Existing pages that are vandalised are not deleted, rather, their edits are reverted to the last proper version. This takes only the click of a button.

Think twice before going to the effort to vandalise pages, it takes more effort than it is worth, and does not pay off well.

Protected pages
Administrators have the ability to protect or otherwise lock pages, preventing all regular users from editing them. Page titles can also be protected, which means uncreated pages will not be able to be created under the protected name.

Protection on the most part is not commonly used, as it is encouraged that all users can contribute towards the wiki's development. However, there are various circumstances which call for the use of page protection. Such can include:


 * Excessive vandalism/spamming: Pages widely targeted for vandalism.
 * Complex page stability: Pages which utilise more advanced coding or important bodies of content.
 * High traffic page: Pages widely edited by many editors, leading to mismanagement and inconsistency.
 * Other reason: Any other reason a page is protected under an admin's decision.

These reasons may be seen listed in the Protection Log. Since this wiki does not have the permission to allow anonymous users to edit, the only protection level used is Administrators only, which speaks for itself. Wikia staff and VSTF are unaffected by this action.

Pages can also be cascade protected, which will cause all images, pages, or templates transcluded onto a page to be fully protected. This feature is not currently active.

If you believe a page has been protected without good reason, you may make an inquiry to an admin.

Special page directory
Universal Tracking
 * Special:Watchlist
 * Special:Log
 * Special:SpecialPages

User Management
 * Special:UserList
 * Special:UserRights (admins only)
 * Special:BlockList

Article Tracking
 * Special:AllPages
 * Special:PrefixIndex
 * Special:NewPages
 * Special:TagsReport
 * Special:Undelete (admins only)

Page Protection
 * Special:ProtectedPages (monitor and minimise)
 * Special:ProtectedTitles (monitor and minimise)

Redirects (monitor and minimise)
 * Special:DoubleRedirects (ensure is clear)
 * Special:BrokenRedirects (ensure is clear)

Categories
 * Special:MostLinkedCategories (navigation)
 * Special:MostCategories (organisation)
 * Special:UncategorizedPages (ensure is clear)
 * Special:UncategorizedTemplates (attend necessary)
 * Special:UnusedCategories (ensure is appropriately clear)

Housekeeping
 * Special:WantedPages (ensure is clear)
 * Special:WantedTemplates (ensure is clear)
 * Special:WantedFiles (ensure is clear)
 * Special:LonelyPages (ensure is clear)


 * Special:MostLinkedPages (delete expired)
 * Special:MostLinkedTemplates (delete unused)
 * Special:UnusedTemplates (delete unused)
 * Special:UnusedFiles (delete irrelevant)
 * Special:UnusedVideos (delete unused)

Other
 * Special:Upload
 * Special:Leaderboard

Miscellaneous Data
 * Special:Statistics
 * Special:WikiStats
 * Special:Version