Factorio:Wiki rules

This page is used for contributors on this wiki.

Get an account

Just follow the instructions for registering. It takes normally one or two days to be added, because every user is added by hand to avoid spam.

If you need more rights to the wiki (deletion, moving...) you need to ask the developers directly, or ask in the forum board.

Understanding the wiki

There is currently a forum article which should give you a good introduction to how the wiki works: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5994&p=46947#p46749

Contributing to the wiki

This wiki is the work of a team. The goal is for people to add information or bring it into better context, do videos, or design the layout of the pages.

The team communicates through the talk-pages ("Discussion" tab at the top) or through the forum ( http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=50 ). It's very important to check recent changes ("View History" tab at the top of the page). History will show you all the changes people have made to the page.

(BTW: You can change the shown results in preferences!)

There are different jobs you can do. This list goes from simple to complex.

Corrector

Read through the pages (of your language) and correct mistakes or bad language usage. If it sounds ugly then change it. If you're new to wiki's it might be difficult at first, but keep at it and you'll learn to do more. :)

Translator

Take an English page, copy the content into a subpage (see below for an explanation) and translate it to your language.

Writer and Linker

If you find useful information in the forums thenb it's a good idea to add that information to the wiki. No special knowledge is needed, just search the right page, the right chapter, or add a new page and make it. If it isn't okay the next user will take care of it. :) Sometimes you don't have time for writing it all out. That's okay, just follow the steps below. Someone else might see it and add the relevant information.

• Step 1: Simply copy the link and put it into the right page under "See also". This is to document the link for later usage.
• Step 2: The next person who sees it and has time will take the information from the linked page and add it to the wiki.
• Step 3: If the sub information is too big or too long, then move it to a subpage. (There are some examples in the wiki on how to use subpages, in general it's just adding a "/subpage name" to the existing page.)

News-maker

There is also the News-page. Just add new links as new interesting information comes out. The rest is explained in the page as comments.

Don't add stuff that isn't news. Before you add any, ask yourself: If I was looking at this from the future, would it still be relevant?

Designer

This is about the look and feel of this wiki. It is quite interesting what can be done with such relatively simple nesting. But it is also quite confusing. :)

Deep knowledge of Mediawiki's template system is not really needed, but will help. For the beginning just try to understand how the current templates work. Make your own test-page in your user-space and try to program around. It can be really fun because this task is more or less like programming.

Look here for some help: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents And for some extra help: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5994&p=46947#p46749

Tutor for beginners

This is about writing basic tutorials for the game. Tutorials are important to help beginners understand the game. This is currently a problem since the game changes. The plan is to be about ready in summer 2015. So if you write a tutorial now it will be outdated in a few months. But don't let this discourage you. If an update makes your tutorial obsolete, just update the tutorial to fit the most recent update.

Pictures and videos are encouraged since they make understanding a tutorial a lot easier.

Architect

The wiki is created in an agile process: writing, reading, testing. :) If you find out that this process is somehow inefficient, for example the changes are in the wrong place, then you need to change the wiki in general.

This is for example currently the case for the whole "networks". They are no longer a good idea. The logistic network and robotic network are in truth a "robotic system", which contains a construction- and a logistic-area. And the logistic area can be extended over the logistic network.

So the job of an architect is to bring the existing pages into the right context by adding some new pages and/or renaming existing pages, and then changing the links to the pages. And sometimes old stuff must be deleted.

Dowhateveryouwant

These "roles" are not fixed! There is no rule saying that a translator cannot write poems about the deep insights he has gained by playing Factorio. And there will eventually also be an audience which will like that. (I mean that seriously.)

So, if you have an idea:

• Don't be afraid: There is nothing which you can really break, the wiki has a version history.
• If you are still afraid: You can use the a test page in your home-space. That's the page beginning with "User:<your user name>". You can add a subpage like "User:<your user name>/MyTests". Ask others what they think about it. Communicate!
• Begin with slight changes. The others will watch (the "Recent changes") and help you out. If after a week or two is no response/follow up change, your change was good. Keep going, make bigger changes.

Basic

• Read the wiki pages.
  • If you don't like something, change it.
  • If you find typos, change it.
  • If you find something is described wrong, change it.
  • If someone disagrees about it, try to work it out on the talk pages or on the forums.

Advanced

• Add missing information in the right places.

In most cases this is easy, but sometimes can be really difficult. Ask for help if you're unsure.

• Split the information on big pages into subpages.

See for example the Railway network.

• If you find that a topic belongs to two pages, then don't copy the information into the two pages, but create a new page and link them.

Best example for this is the Power Production page.

• Use the correct choice of words.

Factorio has a set of words which have a fixed meaning. For example: An entity can be mined, an item can be picked up. Getting entity and item mixed up means something different! Ask the users if you are unsure which is which.

• A picture says more than a thousand words.

Use pictures if possible. In some cases use GIFs! See below.

• You can also go to the Wiki To-do List and see if there is a job you like.

Discussions

I (ssilk) prefer the forum for discussions and I hope this is not a problem, because I think, discussions on wiki-pages is to high-end for most potential wiki-writers.

Existing discussions

In descending order of date:

http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2047

http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3205

http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2429

http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2255

Translations

For translating the in-game texts, the dev-team uses https://crowdin.com/project/factorio

This is how it should work in the wiki

This method is used by the Mediawiki-Team and we want to adapt it. Examples:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Navigation The English default

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Navigation/es Spanish translation

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Navigation/de German translation

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Navigation/ru Russian translation

First some rules

• The default language is English.
• Any other language has no right to obtain a pagename which collides with English.
• No other language has the right to use a pagename which means the same or something different in another language.

This is the logical consequence of the above rules

• Let's say we have a page named Transport network.
• Now someone translates that page to German: Because he doesn't know better, he names the page "Transport netzwerk".
• This is a mess! Because for example in Swedish (it's just an example) this is also the translated pagename.
• What's now right? Is Transport netzwerk now a German or a Swedish page?

Solution to this

The right pagename is Transport network/de for the German and Transport network/sv for the Swedish page.

Whuuaaaa... "Transport network" - that's not German!

Yes, but it is the only way to keep the namespace clean.

And there is nothing wrong about making a redirect page Transport netzwerk which redirects to Transport network/de. Or make a page where the user can choose if he wants the German or Swedish page.

So what do I need to do now?

• If you want to translate a page, then don't rename the page, just add a "/" and the standard macro-language-code to the pagename.

"Inserters" becomes "Inserters/fr" for France, "Inserters/ru" for Russian etc.

• If you are working on a page which has a translated pagename then rename (Move) it! Search the original pagename, add the language-code (see above), and move it to the new pagename. A redirect is automatically left for the old pagename!

(More to explain, language macro, see main-page at top right)

Pictures

Picture formats

For making things simple we should use only formats based on 100. This is to avoid different sized pics which look staggered. This is especially important for the width, for the height it is not that much of a problem. For example: 200x200, 300x100, 400x232. For existing pics (old pics use often a width of 256 px) reduce the text to 200 px (and analogous).

• (100 - 200) x (100-300) px

For flowing with the text, pictures which explain the text, the browser can embed this into it's own rendering. You can put them left or right, the text should flow around.

• (400 - 600) x (100 - 600) px

Something like a banner. A big picture which stays alone in its line. You may put simply a ":" in front of it to indent the picture and keep it away from flowing text.

• 300 x 300 px

This is especially good for gif animations. Gif animations cannot be reduced in size, because mediawiki re-renders the picture and the result is the first frame of the gif! See for example these pics: http://www.factorioforums.com/wiki/index.php?limit=200&ilsearch=Mpstark&user=&title=Special%3AListFiles

• The biggest format for flowing text should be: 600x600px

Making pictures out of the game

Do's:

• Take pictures at day! Turn on daylight! Use night or dawn only if you need to explain something that only works at night (for example, the lights).
• Turn off clouds! The shadows in GIF-animations are not useful.
• Steam/smoke is also not that useful.
• Use god mode! Lua/Player#controllertype. You can move anywhere on the map and your character won't be in the picture.
• You can slowdown the game to find the right moment for the picture. Slowdown is also useful if you use Gifcam, which makes screenshots in 30 frames/sec only.
• You can also use the Lua/Game#peacefulmode to be not disturbed by the natives.
• You can stop the game in the right moment using SHIFT-SPACE key. That also blends the grid in.
• Learn how to use the Debug mode to add relevant information into the picture.
• Go into the highest zoom level you possibly can without missing any vital information.
• A good in-game picture should be rebuilt so that only the relevant entities/items are shown. Anything in the photo other than what you're trying to show/explain is unnecessary.

Dont's:

• Don't take pictures of clutter! The only stuff in the photo should be the stuff you're trying to show. The Exception to Clutter: If you're showing what a fully finished factory or setup might look like.
• Don't just take a screenshot. Try to remove all unneeded information from the picture.
• Try to make a picture without the character, except if to show something; then face the character toward it.

See http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2472 for more.

Taking screenshots, animations and videos

Taking screenshots

• It's possible to take screenshoots out of the game! The second trailer is made like so. See http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5591
• Calculate screenshoot dimensions.

Optimizing the picture before upload

• Cut as much as possible/nice.
• Resolution should not normally be higher than 600x600 px. Use multiple photos or ask a trusted wiki user if you need a much larger photo.
• Do not add text to the photos Write any needed text outside the photo on the wiki. You cannot search text that is in a photo and users might not find what they are looking for.
• Sharpen the pictures. For the wiki it looks a lot better to sharpen the pictures once or twice.

Making animations

This hasn't been tested fully yet:

Gifcam (PC only)

Licecap (also for Mac)

Good example pictures: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3920

Making videos/streaming

Youtubin' & Streamin'

In-game API for screenshots

http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4109#p30605

Looks like a plan: create a world. Walk through the world. Start a replay of this walk and then add making screenshots.

More or less like the method used in the demo-video, but take only some gif-animations or single pictures.