World Of Darkness Wiki:Introduction

The WOD Wiki is a collaborative project that provides an important community resource for the World of Darkness. The WOD Wiki aims to:

• create the most definitive, accurate, and accessible encyclopedia and reference for everything related to the new and old Worlds of Darkness; and
• create an archive where users can store their original, World of Darkness articles and materials.

Formerly, it also served to provide a framework for users of the now-defunct World of Darkness Chat to store character records and items of interest regarding their games. Many of these characters continue to be maintained on the wiki, while other users have chosen to remove their characters.

The WOD Wiki is written collaboratively by its readers. The site is a WikiWiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can edit any article right now by clicking on the "edit this page link" that appears in every WOD Wiki article.

Browsing WOD Wiki

WOD Wiki is, essentially, an archive for articles - from original material (e.g. new bloodlines or fanfiction) to encyclopaedic reference items. You can start browsing by selecting a subject on the Main Page, and follow any link to a subsequent subject. All WOD Wiki articles are interlinked — that is, they have inline hyperlinks to other articles on related subjects. Alternatively, you can use the search box that can be found at the top of every page.

If you're feeling lucky, you could also try clicking the "Random page" link found in the quickbar on your left. You could also try the "Recent changes" link to check out the latest updates to our database.

If there's something we don't cover, or you're having difficulty finding what you're after, just ask us in our Community Portal, or add the topic to our list of requested articles.

Warning: The WOD Wiki contains spoilers! For any book that has been released in stores in North America, that material is considered fair game for inclusion in articles. See our Spoiler Policy for more information.

Editing

Anyone is allowed to edit practically any page in the Wiki — yes, anyone and any page! Just click on the "edit this page" link that can be found at the top or bottom of every article. You don't have to be logged in. (See also: Why Contribute)

If you want to start off easy, you could find a page that is either incomplete or has an error, and correct that mistake by clicking on the "edit this page" link. If you can think of a way to improve the page, go ahead and do it! Anyone else can come along later and fix it up if you make a mistake — just as you're fixing someone else's mistake. And if you're worried about messing up an article, try editing using the wiki style in the Sandbox first.

If you see a link that is colored red, that is a link to an article that has not been created yet. Again, you can create one of these pages yourself. The red links lead directly to the page editing form, where you can write the article yourself. Type the article like you would a normal document, and then just click on the "Save page" button to upload your contribution.

Of course, the WOD Wiki does have a number of policies and guidelines to remember when editing a page. (See World of Darkness Wiki:Copyrights for more information.)

Philosophy

Some people feel uncomfortable with the concept of a wiki — it's too open, it's unreliable, and so forth. But believe it or not, this system does work — and we have 5,813 distinct articles to prove it!

In a nutshell, a wiki works because it's made as simple as possible for anyone to contribute, in a medium in which the sensible contributors outnumber and overpower the disruptive ones. Additionally, the wiki allows an easy, free exchange of information that allows false or misleading information to be quickly corrected. (For more discussion on the viability of the wiki system, check out Wikipedia: Replies to common objections.)

Rather than numerous small and limited personal databases, the WOD Wiki has the potential to become the largest, most reliable fan database available. We hope you'll join us!

See also

Here are a few links to more introductory information:

General information, guides and help

• About the project
• Help pages - help on editing, starting new articles, and many other topics.
• WOD Wiki FAQs - frequently asked questions about the site.
• Glossary - a glossary of common Wikipedia terms.
• Policies and guidelines for contributors
• Manual of Style
• Guide to Layout

Tips and guidance for starting

• How to write a great article
• Most common WOD Wiki faux pas
• Tips on contributing to WOD Wiki
• How to edit a page
• Etiquette — the WOD Wiki etiquette.