The Quality Standard (DnD Guideline)

Expectations of Conduct

At a bare minimum, all submissions to the wiki must conform to our Help:Behavioral Policy. This is not limited to your personal social conduct on talk pages and edit comments. Any page which, if read aloud by one user to another would constitute a violation of that policy, is unacceptable, and will be removed when found, even if it is a user subpage. Treat your fellow humans, community members, and hobbyists with a basic level of respect. The behavioral policy trumps all other policies. Anything in violation of it will be removed or altered, and will likely earn you a warning or a block.

SOME mature/adult content may be permissible with the inclusion of a {{Adult Theme}} template, but even that has its limits. It exists to warn users that content may be unsettling to younger audiences- not blatantly offensive to the majority of contemporary human beings. For those who are unsure: if it's anything along the lines of MYFAROG or FATAL, one would recommend against posting it.

Minimum Quality Expectations

The Help:Improving, Reviewing, and Removing Templates set the minimum standards of page quality that this community has deemed valuable. Just reading down the list, we expect:

• At least some degree of tech support, from at least one editor, after "completion". (Take your coat off! Stick around and chat!)
• An attempt to retain the style of a wiki, mostly by supporting the preloads. (Even if we need to tweak the preloads a little.)
• An honest attempt at balance. (Even if you make a mistake)
• An effort made at discussion and review. (Collaboration and compromise are basically synonyms here.)
• An attempt to produce a work which is "complete" in the sense that all basic information is available and the content is usable. (Really, that's just the practical thing to do.)
• Decent technical writing, producing an understandable and usable product. (If nobody can read it or understand it, nobody will use it.)

Also, on addition to these standards, we have a variety of disclaimers for expanding the wiki's horizons and utility. As long as you use the proper disclaimer...

• It's OK to post joke material. (It still needs to aim for all other standards where the comedy does not interfere with practicality)
• It's OK to post mature content. (As long as it is not in violation of the behavioral policy)
• It's OK to design to a specific playstyle or standard outside of precedent. (As long as that playstyle or standard can be explained or justified)
• It's OK to post fan-works. (As long as they are given appropriate credit)
• It's OK to put a "completed" page through a major revision, be it long- or short-term. (As long as some kind of change actually happens and is beneficial to the page and wiki)
• We appreciate pictures. (Because, really, who doesn't?)

Content Design Guides

Help:Precedent Sets a specific, generic standard for how we qualify what counts as "balanced" for this wiki. For a thorough explanation of how to discuss balance on this wiki, especially in regards to the usage of the {{Design Disclaimer}}, see Help:Balance. As a policy, precedent sets an official point of agreement around which all of our design guidelines may revolve, which simultaneously justifies those guidelines as a basis for applying improvement templates on substandard pages. As such, while the design guidelines are not explicit policies, they are a close second, and are justified by it. This allows the specific guidelines to be more active and flexible as living documents which change with the community, without necessarily having to make frequent changes to any particular policy. It gives us strength and flexibility. So, if someone starts trying to change or remove a page based on something in a guideline that you disagree with, one of your options is to discuss whether or not the guideline is correct, or if it can be changed!

The Quality Objective

Beyond those most basic, bare-bones expectations, we also have the standards set forth by our Featured Articles project. These describe, not the minimum expectations, but the desired goal; the standard of quality we would wish to see on all pages if it were possible. To quote them verbatim...

A truly great page worthy of being a featured article has the following qualities.

1. It is eloquent, comprehensive and stable.
   1. "Eloquent" means that the prose is succinct, engaging, even brilliant, and of professional standard.
      1. Thus, pages that are in effect "options", (equipment, feats, skills, etc) of DMs and player characters cannot normally become featured articles, as they are typically lacking in total content. A rule of thumb for a bare minimum from any page is 3 paragraphs containing three complete sentences apiece, plus listed mechanical properties, (Weight, price, prerequisites, etc.) containing both mechanics/rules and descriptive/flavor text.
   2. "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details, and it means that the article is not subject to any improving, reviewing, and removing article template's meta.
   3. "Stable" means that the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and that its content does not change significantly from day to day, except for edits made in response to the featured article process. A rule of thumb for this criteria is about 3 weeks to a month without any major changes or debate regarding page content.
2. It follows the articles related preload (with referenced source material), it follows Standards and Formatting, and grammar conventions including, but not limited to, When to Italicize and Capitalize.
3. It has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. The images should be relevant and high quality thumbnails sized 300px, 600px, or 750px for very short horizontal images.
4. Where it makes reference to pre-existing rules, they are referenced via a link to the relevant SRD or Homebrew page, or otherwise by a correct book/page/section citation, (IE: PHB pp. 222, under "Example Citations").
5. Variant rules should be beneficial, understandable and elegant.
   1. "Beneficial" means that the variant rule should be useful to the D&D game. (For example, a variant rule which adds a drinking game on top of play would have no direct impact on the game, has nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons itself, and so would be a poor candidate.)
   2. "Understandable" means that the variant rule is written in such a way that it can be comprehended by the average player by utilizing conventions including, but not limited to, When to Italicize and Capitalize.
   3. "Elegant" means that the variant rule should not be more complicated than is absolutely necessary, preferably as efficient as possible, and should be in its most understandable state. It should enhance game play and not slow it down.

The Point of Contribution

And finally, I'm going to give you some personal, specific advice that you should try to keep in mind whenever you decide to contribute anything to the wiki. Read the policy, Help:Spirit and Intent. There, it says twice-over that the purpose of editing any page should be to do what is best for that page. That's a good baseline goal. More than that however, if you want to make really great contributions, if you want to be true to the spirit of the policies, guidelines, and wiki as a whole, you need to aim just a little higher than that. (You don't have to, but it's always good to aim for the stars.) Consider that your page will one day be the reason someone comes to this wiki, and imagine for a second what that person's first impression may be. Your page could be the only reason a stranger decides to use content made by any other contributor, not just your own. Every page is the face of the wiki. Every page is a piece of our community's reputation. What you bring to this table affects the entire community. Think about that when you make changes and additions to this wiki and consider, not just what is best for your page, but what is best for the wiki as a whole. --Kydo (talk) 10:41, 7 January 2017 (MST)

---

Back to Main Page → Help Portal → Guidelines