Help:Constructive Editing
Constructive Editing
This page is a resource to help new users learn how to edit pages constructively to help improve the content.
Spelling and Grammar
When you see an obvious spelling or grammar mistake on a non-discussion page, you are encouraged to change it. D&D Wiki encourages American english for spelling and grammar (as per Standards and Formatting) as well as a few quirks for emphasizing text (such as bolding and italics).
Most of the time fixing spelling/grammar errors should not be a problem, but make sure it does not change the mechanics of the sentence.
For example: "10 damage minimum damage from axes by this skill" should not become "All axes deal over 10 damage when using this skill". The mechanic was at least 10 damage, not over 10 damage. Though this is a trivial example, sometimes it is best to ask the author their intention on the talk page.
Mechanics
If you are going to be editing a page's mechanics, you should familiarize yourself with the precedent for that edition's mechanics.
Generally, it is good to fix mechanics to do what they were intended to do, but bad wording was preventing. Users will usually thank you for helping them get a clearer wording.
You can change game mechanics, but as a courtesy you should ask the author of the page on the talk page, also leaving a Message of Interest on the author's personal talk page, before making any major changes. Pages can always be reverted, so if you want, you can just change it without asking. For a page that is new or has had a lot of work put into it, it is much more polite to ask first.
When writing mechanics, it is best to use the same terminology and phrasing as given in the core books for the game- even if you disagree with that phrasing, or find it confusing. This is a stylistic quirk of making content for an existing game, as opposed to making a game yourself.
Balance Discussions
This community does not recognize balance as a binary property. That is to say, "balance" is not something that a creation does or does not have. Balance also does not refer to how "powerful" a given piece of content may be in play. Rather, balance is a variable, indicating its capacity to function as intended consistently from one game to the next. Something can be fine-tuned, and well-balanced, able to be used in any type of game, by any type of player, under any DM, and still function as intended... Or it can be unstable and poorly balanced, functional in only a few specific game conditions, if even at all... Or anything in between! In general, discussing balance as a binary property here should be considered rude. A comment like, "This is OP" is about as constructive or useful as "This stinks". If something is imbalanced, it is that way for a reason. Constructive editing seeks to identify and communicate that reason to other editors. The objective of this wiki is collaborative creativity. No other user is obligated to serve your desire for content tailor-made for your personal use, and this community owes you nothing more than a reasonable modicum of respect. Repeated and blatant disregard of this will be interpreted as verbal abuse of other users, please see Help:Behavioral Policy.
However, while we don't recognize a binary concept of balance, we do believe that, in general, pages should be more or less on par with first-party content, an exception being cases where users have built campaign settings, or use significant variant rules that are of a different scope than first-party content. In these cases, content should be indicated as such, with appropriate links and references.
Disputes
Sometimes disputes may happen between you and the author on the talk page about changes you have made. The original author's wishes should be used on the page (though feel free to discuss why you changed it to what it is). You can help the author by reverting any changes you have made if necessary. Try not to be offended if the author does not see things the way you do. For more information on this, please see Help:Spirit and Intent.
If you really like the new changes you have made, you can always make a new page and say that it is a modified version of another person's page. For example, Variant Individual Speed (5e Variant Rule) is a response to Individual Speed (5e Variant Rule).
Above all else, be rational and think of disputes as a discussion, not an argument. You should never aim to be right, only to do what is best for the page.
Guidelines
Try to follow the other guidelines presented in the DnD_Guidelines section. There should be a guideline for creating each major type of content in each edition. If a guideline is incomplete or nonexistent, use your best judgement, or ask other users what they think. If a guideline does not exist, or is incomplete, consider contributing to it, so that future editors won't need of learn the hard way.