The Metro Wiki has quite a lot of content on it and has had numerous editors over the time since its creation. Because of the plethora of editors creating and refining a large amount of content, and the lack of bots on this wiki, there is a substantial deviation in formatting from page to page. Refer to this page for the current standard guidelines as to page setup written by grammar Nazis.
Scope
The Metro 2033 wiki aims to be the most complete database, online or otherwise, in regards to the work of Dmitry Glukhovsky and 4A Games in relation to the Metro Series; and by conjunction, their fictitious envision of Post-Apocalyptic Moscow the Post-Apocalyptic Metro System. As editors of the Metro 2033 Wiki, we are devoted to the accurate representation and description of the peoples, places, and things, depicted within the novels and video games of the Metro Series, with as little in the way of preferential treatment of the works as we can. We are here to educate, transcribe, and describe, the aspects and experiences of this beautiful series, to which we have all derived enjoyment from. This is who we are, this is what we achieve.
General Wiki Policies
It would be best to view these first, in fact, if you were to read anything it would be best to look at these. There are very few policies which apply across all Wikia. These can be found on the Central Wikia at Wikia:Category:Policy.
Wiki Grammar
Perspective Statements
A first person statement is a comment or question posed in the form of the first person, the narrator or voice speaking from personal accounts. First person is identified by always including the use of "I" in sentences. First person is unprofessional, as it sounds like a blog not a wiki page, and does not leave any room for the reader to form an opinion for themselves or draw on their own experiences. These should be liberally corrected on sight in articles - but are perfectly acceptable, and are even the norm, on profile pages and in talk pages, forums, and blogs.
A second person statement is based on the narrator or voice speaking to the reader or audience, characterized with "you" statements and questions. "You" statements are acceptable, but are not encouraged, as they also leave an informal perspective on an article. Second person statements are acceptable in Walkthroughs and Trivia as they are traditionally not in a formal voice, anywhere else should be edited to third person.
Instead, articles should be written in third person. Third person, like this article, addresses the whole audience, regardless of who they are (gender included) by avoiding specific words such as "I", "you", and "he" (if referring to the player). It uses words that can be understood in a universal perspective. Third person articles identify who they are talking about before using words such as he or she. Refer to the following sentences for an example of each perspective:
1st: I killed a nosalis with my shotgun right before I fell off the rail car. 2nd: You killed a nosalis with your shotgun right before you fall out of a rail car. 3rd: Artyom killed a nosalis with his shotgun right before he fell off the rail car.
Tense
The writing of article tense, as in point of view in time an article should be written in, does not matter. The standard of writing is in present tense however when dealing with a dead character, event, or item that no longer exists as up to the end of the most current and well-known canon, past tense is commonly used. Tense does not matter, however, in a larger picture as it usually does not detract from the quality of an article.
Refer to Boris and Pavel for pages about deceased characters. They are written in different tenses but are both good articles.
Wiki Formatting
"Artyom / Player Disparity"
One of our newest policies is to enforce the difference between statements which specifically identify the player and Artyom as one. What may seem as common sense, may need some clarification. Artyom is a fictious character in a post-apocalyptic subway. The player is a man or woman who is playing a video game in which Artyom is the player avatar. Thus: nosalises do not tear at the player's face, they tear at Artyom's. When editing, please keep this in mind!
Spacing
Spaces or enters should be used to separate information such as in this article, but the article should overall remain compact so this should be used sparingly.
Use of Emphasis
Using bold or italics is a common practice to emphasize information. Use it freely but keep it in moderation. The name of the article if mentioned at the beginning (as it should typically be) should be bolded.
Images
Image sizes don't matter, do what looks best when placing them on a page and there shouldn't be any problem. The standard for most articles is usually 250, 255, or 300 pixels (note: not the glitchy default 250px) so this is a good base.
Titles
Titles or articles should follow standard titling format. Main points / words / ideas capitalized, minor words like "of" and "the" shouldn't be. The first mention of the title in the article can either keep this titling sequence once or not at all, simply bolding is the norm however. Article titles in general are fully capitalized, however exceptions may exist.
Capitalization
Or, over-capitalization of articles is a moderately large problem. Names of people and stations should be capitalized, species and titles like "the surface" and "the player" should not be. Races such as "nosalises" generally, shouldn't be - though "Dark Ones" should. Weapons are optional, conform to the article. The specific case of the word "metro" varies. It is commonly capitalized in the novel, identifying it as a (though never outright) named location and proper noun. However "metro" is not usually capitalized in formal English, and "Metro" capitalized can also pretane to the Metro series, so there is no current standard. Again, conform to the article.
Artyom and Ulman were fending off mutants from Hole Station. They both shot many nosalises in the head with their Duplets.
Referencing and Source Noting
Referencing is nice, but is rarely used on Wikia. All the time and effort could be better put to use for making the actual article information worthwhile, not citing primary sources.
Linking
Linking is strongly encouraged, especially to other pages in this wiki. If a page mentions a linkable subject more than once simply make the first mention of such have the link, not all the instances.
Hunter is a ranger. I think Hunter is real cool guy. He shoots Dark Ones and is not afraid of anything.
Categorization
Categorizing articles and pages is a must and is very helpful for the organization of the wiki. Ensuring the correct categories is good practice and and enables users to quickly and easily navigate similar articles. High level categories are OK to use on pages, for example the character page for Artyom falls under many various categories such as the installments he appears in (Metro 2033 Novel, Metro 2033 Game, Metro Last Light, Metro Exodus) as well as his status as a character in the series and a member of the Rangers.
Superfluous categorization is not needed on this wiki, for example information that is stated within the infobox (such as birth, death, status, gender, physical information) These very specific categories are overkill and clutter the page's categories.
Other Policies
Trivia and Fanwank
If there's ever some wrong information to be put in an article, it's going to be found in Trivia, and probably by an anonymous user. Wikipedia's third definition of Fanwank is as follows:
Fanwank (verb and noun, with derived nouns fanwanker, fanwankery, and adjectives fanwanky, fanwankish), a portmanteau of "fandom" and "wank" (i.e. 'masturbate'), may refer to: * Excessive display of fandom, especially obsessing over fictional details in an out-of-universe context like a casual conversation.
Therefore, if two franchises by part of the same people happen to share a certain faction name, even though nothing else points to the fact that the two parties are remotely related (which wouldn't even make sense in a cross-universe perspective), repeatedly stating that they are the same[1][2] is a good way to get yourself banned.
If someone thinks a scene in the Metro series, and one in some other franchise, are similar - the evidence needed for a fan to post a correlation between two works and have it not be removed must be empirical and non-speculative. Essentially, proven and undeniable. If the edit doesn't provide fact (such as a casual mention from the developers from Twitter), the edit is considered invalid and cannot remain. It's for this reason, that even a capitalization of "The Zone" in Metro 2033 is not a reference, and is not a trivia entry.
Fan Art
Fan Art is accepted on the Wiki, but only in rare instances. Firstly, all art must strictly relate to the subject and theme of the Metro Universe, no cross-over images with other franchises - or mixed -themed (including overly-explicit, immature, or pornographic) are allowed on this Wiki. Secondly, all fan art you post must have the author's permission to be posted, there are legal problems that we don't want to get into otherwise. To the third degree, art has a much better chance on remaining on a page if the subject matter is both impossible to obtain an official image of (such as most novel information), and is of a high quality. If art passes all the above qualifications, then there is little reason for it to not belong on a page, unless it detracts from the overall level of information being conveyed.
Leaked Information
Here at the Metro 2033 Wiki, we have an important policy that restricts the publishing of leaked information about future games. Leaked information that is added to articles will be deleted and the user who added such information will face a ban from editing at the wiki. Leaked information includes unofficial announcements from websites stating either false or unconfirmed information about a game / novel, leaked pictures that haven't been released from the developer team, and rumors.
Banning
Back before all but one of our admins were editing, there was another set of admins from when the wiki first started. Of all their contributions, one of their most underplayed, but longest lasting, was their brutal banning policy. This has gone untouched for years, and still stands today. To reiterate:
Vandalism is not tolerated on this wiki. There will be no warnings, any vandals will be banned for a determined period of time.
It is almost non-existent that this Wiki bans for anything but vandalism. That said, we are a small wiki, with a small team of regulars, who have better things to do with our time than clean up swear words. Most offenses, especially from anons, will receive a ban of 1 year (or more, if we're in a bad mood), with greatly reduced chance of appeal and greater chance of full-ban, if the vandalism spans multiple pages.
Our admins are human, and are willing to hear any ban appeals from users or anons - should they feel the ban was unjustified. By simply accessing your personal message wall, and leaving a well-put message appealing a ban, is enough for us to start discussion. We will be fair and honest, just as we are now in that if you're going so far as to appeal, you probably didn't do much wrong in the first place and there's something to discuss. Exploiting this system, however, is enough to get yourself full-banned, for whatever ridiculous number of years we figure should be sufficient. I am partial to 1263 and 9001 years.