Warcraft Wiki:Item articles policy
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This page is an official policy on Warcraft Wiki. This policy has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow.
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Item articles are one of the most populous types of articles in the Wiki, and as such, are prone to the most variation. This policy outlines what consistencies must be used when creating or editing an item article.
It is not the intent of this policy to construct a platform for a strict database for items, rather, one that organizes them in a consistent manner and allows for comparison and discussion above and beyond what is available on database sites while still offering the capabilities of broad edits and updates.
Naming
The article name must match the item name exactly, complete with any punctuations. If there are multiple items with the same name, a "disambig" redirect article should be created, with the items disambiguated by their defining characteristics at separate pages. See Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian for a good example of this behavior.
Content
Item articles are required to follow the base formatting of Help:Item articles.
Required
The following elements from the boilerplate are required as documented on the Help page:
- Tooltip (created with Template:Itemtip which is included in the Help Page)
- Source
- External links
- Categories (as detailed on Help:Item articles)
Optional
These elements are optional, but should be included when it relates to the item:
- Screenshot of item in-use
- As an ingredient
- As a quest objective
- Patches and hotfixes
- Notes
The Boilerplate and Itemtip template are very well documented and together will provide almost all of the functionality that will need to be used for both required and optional elements.
Images
Images of items that have models in-game should be limited to one or two at the most. They should depict the item being equipped/used by a character in-game and cropped accordingly. (Example: File:Dawn's Edge.jpg).
Inclusions
There are to be no sub-articles for any element of the item article, which means that all of the information must originate from the base item article.
Additional content
As long as the previous required elements are included, any additional information in relation to the item is encouraged to be added to the article. This can include lore, previous versions, bugs, connections to the TCG, undocumented effects, etc. Normally the Notes section of the article is ideal for this, though others may apply as well.
Exceptions
Rarely, some item articles may require a different or modified format depending on the type of item and the related content. If an author feels an exception should be made when stepping outside of the required format, they must document this in the item's Talk page and be aware any changes may be reverted at the discretion of admins.
Pages which have extremely short sections (for example, only an intro and a one-sentence source section) can have their section titles removed. If all the relevant information is presented in a few sentences this is preferred, as it reduces unnecessary whitespace. For an example, see [Ring of Arathi Warlords].
Policy enforcement
- Any item articles that do not yet have all of the required information or are using outdated tooltip formatting should be marked with
{{Stub/Item}}. - Any sub-articles should be marked with
{{Speedydelete}}as long as the information is also present in the article (if relevant).
See also
- Help:Item articles - Standard for formatting all item articles
- {{Itemtip}} - Template used to generate item tooltips
- Project:WoW Icons - Resource for browsing and finding item icons