Candypedia:Editing guidelines

Welcome to Candypedia, future contributor! Here's how we'd like people to work on this wiki:

Contributing

If you leave a wiki open to the web, dangerous creatures will link to dubious pharmaceutical websites. Because of this, we whitelist editing access. Join #group-project in the BCB Discord server and we'll let you in.

We welcome new contributors eagerly and would love it if anyone took a stab! ✨

Tone

Candypedia has a slightly TVTropesy, gently humorous vibe. Write clearly and precisely, with a focus on laying out the facts, but don't be afraid of a spoonful of sugar to make all the info digestible. Try to capture the collective voice of this fun, by-fans-for-fans sort of resource, but don't be cloying or crack jokes that get in the way of the actual content. Find a balance! We know you can do it.

Consistency

Use the same styling, structure and layout as similar pages in the wiki. That means looking at complete pages in your category as the models to imitate. Don't add or remove sections – we want a uniform experience for readers. All the way from the peppy, punchy intro paragraph to consistent use of prose vs bullet-points to the uniform footnotes style.

Tweaking pages to make everything consistent is always appreciated!

Fan work and theory crafting

Keep unofficial stuff minimal. 🤏You can reference unofficial works and write stuff that's not explicitly in official materials – but only as small asides. The target audience for this wiki is the general BCB reader, and they will want to know about the real thing, not pet ideas.

Creating new pages

It's generally not needed! However:

• Don't bury your work. It's critical that all pages are accessible from the homepage or a navbox.
• Most pages that should exist do exist. Unless it's a new chapter, character or major location, consider that we probably decided against adding a stub for your page for a reason. But feel free to pitch it to us in Discord!

Generative AI policy 🤖

Candypedia would not be possible without LLMs (generative text systems like GPT, Claude and Gemini). There's just too many chapters to synopsize and too few people in the community with wiki writing chops. As such, there's a place for generated text here, but if you're using an LLM to write stuff for us, treat the wiki with care:

• Exercise restraint. Your own writing would be better than the robot's. Try writing as much as you can first!
• Generate excellent prose or none at all. Nobody wants to read verbose, cliche-ridden blather from a robot, so pick your poison carefully. Generally what I mean here is: use Claude with a very carefully written prompt.
• Do a first-pass edit before uploading. Truly raw material is unacceptable. Cut it. Edit it down. Redo what's wrong.
• Label it with

  {{Notice LLM Raw}}

  so a human can attack the prose and make sure it's up to scratch.

Let's work in harmony with our robot friends (but supplant their work whenever possible.)

Oh! And it might seem to go without saying, but: there's no place for generative art on this wiki, so please don't upload any.

Contributing when you're unsure of yourself

Be bold! As they say.

We encourage people to give writing for the wiki a shot, but years of experience has shown us that some people are shy!

If you're ever struggling to structure and write for this wiki, remember that it's still immensely useful to write a sloppy info-dump bullet-point draft with a bunch of reference links. We'll make use of it! Someone will use it! Send it to us.

Alternatively, there may be work available on the Candypedia:Community hub page that doesn't even require writing! There's tons of stuff to do.

So start small if you desire! And don't be afraid to ask for edit access even if all you want to make is a small change.

Good luck!