Help:Editing

Hello and welcome to the wiki! We want you to enjoy your time here. In that spirit, the following is a list of "do" and "don't" activities that we hope will be helpful. Most of the items are based on common sources of confusion or error that have been encountered most frequently.

Please note this is not an exhaustive list of rules, but an effort to convey the general practices and conventions used on the Stardew Valley official wiki.

What is the Stardew Valley Wiki?

1. This is the online encyclopedia of the game, not the social area. For social interactions and general gameplay questions, use the Official forums, subreddit, or discord server.
2. This is not wikipedia. Wikipedia conventions and rules may or may not apply.
3. This is not any other game's wiki. Other game wikis' standards and conventions probably don't apply either.
4. Please do not use the wiki (including your user page) to keep track of your personal game progress. The administrative staff of the Stardew Valley Wiki is small, and they do not want to review multiple edits for every milestone you've achieved in-game.

New Editor Restriction

1. Newly created accounts cannot make large edits. This is to combat spam and vandalism. If you're encountering this problem, make a series of smaller edits, saving in-between, until you are no longer considered a new user.
   • It's a good idea to save large changes to a text file on your computer, so your work isn't lost in case of problems.

Images

1. Please upload only Stardew-related images that will be used in the main or modding namespaces, not your user space. Avatars can be used on the Official forums, subreddit, or discord server.
2. Upload high-quality images using the smallest file size possible.
   • Use the game's "screenshot" feature, or use screenshot mode (F4) to remove the inventory bar and season/day/time display, unless it is relevant to the image.
   • Don't use the .jpg format for images containing transparency. Instead, use .png for static images and .gif for animated images. For large images, such as screenshots of an entire map area, .jpg format usually gives the smallest file size with good quality.
3. When uploading a new version of an existing file, try to use the same file format as the existing image, even if the file size is large.
   • When uploading a new version of an existing image, it may take several hours for the new image to display on the wiki. This is a transient problem that keeps recurring, despite several fixes.
4. When uploading non-English versions of existing images, please use the existing file name and append the 2-letter language code in capital letters to the end.
   • Example: File:Bundle Purchase.png. When uploading the German version, name the file File:Bundle Purchase DE.png. The full list of language codes is: DE (German), ES (Spanish), FR (French), IT (Italian), JA (Japanese), KO (Korean), HU (Hungarian), PT (Brazilian Portuguese), RU (Russian), TR (Turkish), and ZH (Chinese).

Bugs

1. Report game bugs on the Official forums first, and not the wiki. The developer team does not monitor the wiki for bugs, but they do monitor the forums.
   • If you have made a bug report on the forums that includes the platform, version, and language where the bug happened, then feel free to add the bug to a "Bugs", "Glitches", or "Exploits" section of the relevant page(s). Feel free to create the section if it does not already exist.

Translations

1. Please be familiar with the game, and the words used in-game, and use in-game terms on the wiki.
2. If you find bad translations, please report them on the Official forums. There are separate threads for each language.
   • Until the translation is fixed, use the (incorrect) in-game name of the item. It's perfectly acceptable to add a "Notes" section to the page explaining why the translation is bad.
3. Template names (and many of their parameters) must be in English. Examples:

   • {{Prezzo|120}} will cause a redlink.
   • {{Nome|Blobfish}} will cause a redlink.
   • {{Name|澄んだスープ}} will cause a redlink.

   The correct format for these examples are:

   • {{Price|120}}
   • {{Name|Blobfish}}
   • {{Name|Pale Broth}}.

   These will automatically be translated into the native language.

4. Don't delete formatting that you don't understand. This includes internal and external links. If [[Animals#Produce|Animal produce]] looks like gibberish to you, you should probably leave it alone and research mediawiki syntax first.

Version 1.6

Editing & Formatting

Please note that new content added with version 1.6 does not require discussion first! Please add new information as it is discovered. Formatting of new content does not require discussion either.

Remember to add {{Spoiler}} to pages and sections with heavy spoilers. Not every new change will require a spoiler tag. Examples of changes that do not require a spoiler tag: price adjustments, percent chances to obtain an item, and gift preferences.

Please be sure to add to the "History" section for changed items. Thank you!

Editing

1. Preview your edits before saving them. Look for redlinks, formatting glitches, missing table cells, etc. and fix them before saving the edit.
2. Provide a code reference when removing or changing existing information.
3. Discuss large scale changes before making them. Large changes to the English wiki must be carried out in 11 other languages. The time and effort required to implement the changes must be taken into account before the changes are made.
4. For new pages that lack complete information, especially those related to new content, it's a good idea to place {{Stub}} at the top of the page.
5. When updating a page after a game update, please add a "History" section to the page, or add to the existing "History" section. Example: {{History|1.6|Introduced.}}
6. When making edits, please try to remember to edit all affected pages. For example, a change to Spice Berry may affect that page, the Spring Seeds page, Foraging, and Crafting.
   • Ensure that similar pages read the same. For example, don't change the wording about the profitability of Spicy Eel without changing the wording of all profitable recipes.
7. Don't edit the Crops or seasons pages to add additional calculations of profit, ROI, ROE, or any other way to calculate gold per day. This issue has been discussed and debated for years, with multiple ways to display profit. The debate is over; if you wish to share your personal preference for calculating profit, create your own web page or post a link to a google spreadsheet on the official forums. There's a thread specifically for "Guides & Resources".

Formatting

1. Discuss formatting changes before making them. Explain what you feel is wrong with existing formatting, and how it could be improved.
   • Be mindful of the fact that the wiki exists in 12 languages, and changes to the formatting of the English wiki must be carried out in the other 11 languages.

Templates

1. Template changes MUST BE DISCUSSED before being implemented. Template formatting and content should be kept consistent across all 12 language wikis. There are two exceptions to this rule:
   1. Discussion is not required to translate terms used in templates copied from the English wiki.
   2. Addition of new or existing items to Template:Name, Template:Description, and Navbox Templates (Templates whose name startes with "Template:Navbox") can generally be made without discussion.
      • Note that when translating Navbox templates, any major formatting changes should be discussed before being made.

More Info

Read below for more general information about wiki editing. Have fun, and happy farming!

The Stardew Valley Wiki is a wiki, meaning that anyone can edit any unprotected page and improve articles immediately for all readers. You only need to register to do this. The Stardew Valley Wiki uses wiki markup (wikitext).

Some pages, like the main page, are protected from editing. These pages have a View source link instead of an Edit link. You can still edit these pages indirectly, by submitting an "edit request" – by clicking on the Discussion link at the top left of the page and making a comment.

Content protocols

When adding content and creating new articles an encyclopedic style with a formal tone is important. Instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated writing, Wiki articles should have a straightforward, just-the-facts style. The goal of a Wiki article is to create a comprehensive and neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about game aspects. Ideally all information should be cited and verifiable by reliable sources.

Edit screen(s)

Editing most wiki pages is simple. The Stardew Valley Wiki uses classic editing through wiki markup (wikitext). Wiki markup editing is chosen by clicking the Edit tab at the top of a page (or on a section-edit link). This will take you to a new page containing the editable contents of the current page. Wiki markup is used extensively throughout the site for such things as hyperlinks, tables and columns, footnotes, inline citation, special characters and so on.

When you have finished editing, you should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend. To see how the page looks with your edits, press the "Show preview" button. To see the differences between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page, press the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, press the "Save page" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to all wiki users.

Note: Do not sign the edit summary line with your ~~~~ signature, as it does not work there.

Minor edits

A check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, etc. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. The "minor edit" option is one of several edit options. Editors should not feel that marking a change as minor devalues their effort.

Major edits

Any change that affects the meaning of an article is technically not a minor edit, even if the edit is a single word. If you've made a minor edit and checked the "minor edit" box, then proceed to make a major edit, please ensure the box is unchecked.

Adding references

Generally sources are added directly after the facts they support at the end of the sentence and after any punctuation. The Stardew Valley Wiki permits editors to use any citation system that allows the reader to understand where the information came from, and strongly encourages use of inline citations to do so. Common methods of placing inline citations include footnotes, shortened footnotes and parenthetical references.

Inline citations are most commonly placed by inserting a reference between <ref> ... </ref> tags, directly in the text of an article. When one saves, that will display in the text as a footnote (e.g., ^[1][2]), and the source you keyed in will appear on the page in a collated, numbered list corresponding to the footnote numbers in the text, wherever a template or <references /> tag is present, usually in a section titled "References" or "Notes". If you are creating a new page, or adding references to a page that didn't previously have any, don't forget to add a references section with this display markup.

Adding images

A file that is already hosted on the site can be inserted with the basic code "[[File:FILENAME|thumb|DESCRIPTION]]". ("Image:" can be substituted for "File:" with no change in effect; the choice between the two is purely a matter of editorial preference.) Using "thumb" generates a thumbnail of an image (the most common placement option), which is typically sized differently from the original image.

Talk pages

Every article on the Wiki has a talk page, reached by clicking the Discussion tab just above the title. There, editors can discuss improvements to the content or formatting of an article. If you ever make a change that gets reverted by another editor, discuss the change on the talk page! The edit, revert, discuss cycle is a popular method of reaching consensus. It is very important that you conduct yourself with civility and assume good faith on the part of others. Edit warring (repeatedly overriding or reimplementing contributions) is highly discouraged.

Most other types of pages on the Wiki also have associated talk pages, including the User page each editor is assigned once they sign up. When other editors need to contact you, they will usually do this by leaving a message on your talk page. When someone has left you a message that way, you will see a notice the next time you log in or view a page on the Wiki.

Sign your contributions to a Talk page by using four tildes (~~~~), which automatically produces your username and a time/date stamp.