Wiki Wish List/Infoboxes

Wiki Update: Character Infoboxes

As you may have noticed if you've looked at the wiki lately, infoboxes have slowly been rolled out onto all the character pages on the wiki. And most recently mostly blank infoboxes have been added to all the character pages.

Now we need your help.

There are currently 1,136 wiki character pages, and that’s not counting the last month or so of new characters. This presents a problem because unlike just adding a category to a character page (or even the code that automatically generates the current year of a student or the graduation year of an adult), the infobox requires a lot more time to fill out. Much more than one person (or even two or three) would be able to do.

So what can you do to help make our wiki even more amazing? For starters, filling out the blank infobox for your characters. Now there are currently around 170 active characters and 40-something active members. The first number might seem a drop in the bucket compared to 1000 pages. But it is not. It took many hours of work to do the infoboxes for 119 adoptable characters, and those didn't have tons of information to add to the infobox in the first place. And on top of that, that number doesn't include all the NPC, inactive, and retired characters of the currently active members. Now the second number, 40ish active members. Assuming all the active characters are done and counting all the Adoptable NPC's that leaves around 850 character pages. If everyone fills in one infobox a day all the infoboxes will be filled out in about 20 days. Two a day and it gets done in a week and a half. And so on.

Now maybe you are asking, why is the infobox so important? At first glance, I think it looks really cool and provides a lot of information about a character at a glance. But it does more than that. It automates the generation of a number of categories on the wiki:

• the overall Characters category
• the Non-Player Character category
• the Retired Characters category
• the House, Year(Graduation), House/Year categories
• the Adoptable category
• a Blood Status category (Pure, half, muggle-born, muggle, squib)
• if the animagus parameter is filled in, it adds the Animagus Category
• for non-human characters it adds a species category
• for characters with a death date, it adds the Deceased category.

It does a lot to automate as much of the standard categories as possible without making it too difficult to fill out.

In addition to all that, it makes it much easier to create lists like the adoption center. There will be more lists to come once a majority of the character pages have filled out infoboxes. Everyone likes lists, yes?

So hopefully now you are wondering where do I begin.

First, do you have a wiki account. If not, drop a Curator a PM and an account will be set up for you.

Second, take a look at the basic formatting and links section of the How to Format page on the wiki.

In terms of filling out the infoboxes, the most important parts will be how to make an unordered list and how to make a link.

Third, search for your characters' pages in the search box on the left side of the wiki. Once on the character page you want to edit, click the edit tab at the top of the page.

Fourth, start filling out the infobox. The parameters are generally self-explanatory, but there are a couple to watch out for.

• memberBoard, biography, network, and threads take just a plain URL.
• There is also a parameter called status, if its blank, leave it blank for now.
• Move the profile/biography URL to the appropriate parameter (biography=) and delete the Profile link.
• If there is an image, move the [[File:.....]] (removing the old one in the process) to the image parameter and remove the |left portion of the [[File:....]] if its present.

Definitely visit Character Infobox Help for more in depth descriptions of the parameters.

Fifth, ask questions.

Sixth, try not to worry too much, all edits will get checked, so try to add as much to the character infobox in as few edits as possible, but know if there is an issue, it will get fixed, and I will send you a PM to let you know so you can avoid it in the future.

Seventh, edit away. Fill in infoboxes of your characters, of other characters, document plots or items or clubs. A list of next to fill in infoboxes can be found at

And finally, Be Bold.

-Your Friendly AO Wiki Supervisor, Cody

Infobox fill order

1. Your own Characters
2. Player Characters, Non-Retired
3. Retired Characters

Player Characters, Non-Retired

If this list is empty, please PM Cody {{#dpl:debug=1|category = Unknown Birthdate | Unknown Blood Status | Empty Infobox|notcategory=Retired Characters|notcategory=Non-Player Character|ordermethod=sortkey|columns=5}}