Proposal (still in progress):
| Malazan Wiki Policies |
|---|
| Manual of Style • Layout Guide |
| Spoilers • Rules |
Lots of visitors of the Malazan Wiki seek to avoid major plot points that they have not yet read in the carious books. This wiki takes several steps to help minimise the chances of the spoiling of such major plot points from happening. Editors are advised to adhere to the following recommendations.
Definition of a spoiler[]
There is a wide variation in what people decide a spoiler is. This wiki will only try to control the most significant types of spoilers. Our definition of a major spoiler is:The death of a major character, a significant betrayal, a completely unforeseen major turn of events, or similar.
Moratoriums[]
When a new book is released please refrain from adding new information from that book until it has been in wide release* for 3 months. For chapter summaries the moratorium is reduced to 1 month. As per usual don't write spoilers in your edit summaries.
*A wide release shall be defined as the book in question being available to purchase from a major publisher (e.g. Bantam or Tor, not PS Publishing). If after 3 months of limited release if no publisher heralded forthcoming wide release date has been announced then the limited release date shall count as a wide release.
Upcoming or recent publications[]
| Wide Release Date | Moratorium End Date | |
| 25th February 2016 | 26th May 2016 | |
| 21st April 2016 | 22nd July 2016 | |
| Limited release only (?? May 2016) |
1st September 2016 | |
| Deadhouse Landing | forthcoming |
Spoiler control methods[]
General warning[]
There is a general spoiler warning on the main page as we can not guarantee all content to be spoiler free. However, precautions should be taken when writing articles to ensure that the information is displayed in such a manner that the site can also be used by new readers. We recommend that new readers access the site via the New Readers Zone.
Page specific warnings[]
Safe
Unsafe
We have begun adding spoiler icons to the top right corner of a page. An open eye as seen on this page means that the content has been deemed to be displayed in a spoiler friendly manner. A page displaying a closed eye may contain spoilers at any point.
In addition, an open eye symbol (
) is in use on Dramatis Personae pages indicating pages which have been deemed spoiler friendly.
Please note that previously vetted pages may be rendered temporarily unsafe by newly added content. Should you spot any issues, please edit them or let one of the regular editors or admins know.
Spoiler hiding system[]
The spoiler hiding system is used to hide the most egregious spoilers. These are indicated by the circled book cover icons.
When you click to show the spoilers from a book it will reveal all spoilers across the whole wiki associated with that book. Clicking on the circle icon will close them, again this is applied site wide.
...
Infobox blanking templates[]
Greyed out strips of text...
Writing Style[]
General[]
Please beware of inadvertently disclosing major spoilers about a character/place etc. which is not the subject of the page ahead of its timeline. Remember that maps and images may also contain spoilers. Use appropriately.
Article Introductions[]
When writing an article introduction, only use information which is available to the reader soon after they first come across the subject matter. Do not include any overt spoiler information such as a character's death. If the article isn't long enough to have anything more than a summary then keep the spoiler information towards the bottom of the article. Try lengthening the article by including an image, a map, book header etc. to bring the spoiler info further down.
Article Main Body[]
Character pages: On the whole, the content on character pages should be displayed under book headers in publishing order with the main series first, followed by the ICE novels and then the later books. In the case of one or two characters, where ICE novels may be interspersed with the main series, this should be stated, preceding the first book header. On character pages, extra spoiler warnings should not be needed unless in very, very extreme jaw dropping, not anticipated, it is in the interest of the sanity of the reader type cases.
Other pages: For other pages, for example places, items, organisations etc. there is currently no uniform spoiler policy other than that where possible, again book headers should be used and in the case of spoilers being disclosed in non-timeline fashion use the {{Spoiler}} and {{Endspoiler}} templates.
This is just me trying to figure a few things out, please wait until I'm done to comment. --Jade Raventalk 00:16, January 16, 2017 (UTC)