Team Fortress Wiki:FAQ

Wiki

How can I find help?

A lot of our editors are regularly active in our IRC channel. You can feel free to mention any questions you have there.

Additionally, feel free to post on the talk page of any of the staff (moderators and administrators). They would be glad to help with any issues.

How do I get a Wiki Cap?

See Team Fortress Wiki:Wiki Cap.

Are staff hired by Valve?

No. All editors are volunteers only. There are a number of Valve representatives however, and they can be found listed here. Please do not contact them with queries; instead, pose questions to the IRC channel or a discussion page.

Do staff receive 'insider info' on Team Fortress 2?

No. They do not have any secret information regarding upcoming patches, items or gameplay changes. Information on updates are obtained by monitoring feeds and mailing lists. Information on items and gameplay changes are often found on forums and are simply collected by editors and put into articles.

How can I become a moderator?

There is no 'application process', and instead, qualified users will be selected when the need arises for new moderators. The majority of the time, there is no need for any new additions to the team.

As for localization moderators (or loc mods), generally one user is selected from each translation group to head translation efforts. Localization moderators are only assigned to the most active languages with more users. If a particular language requires more general moderation, please make a mention of the issue in the #tfwiki-staff IRC channel.

How quickly is new content added to the Wiki?

As quickly as possible. Users attempt to gather all the information they can and add it to the wiki as it is received from Valve. Pictures, galleries and undocumented content will be added as they are taken or discovered.

Why two wikis? tf2wiki.net and wiki.teamfortress.com?

In 2007, the first wiki for Team Fortress 2 was created at tf2wiki.net. The wiki was maintained and expanded by the community at that address until June 2010, when Valve accepted the idea to host the site. A copy of the wiki was made and placed at wiki.teamfortress.com, and the majority of users from the old site migrated with it and continued to expand it at its new home. The new wiki, known as the "Official Team Fortress Wiki", would also incorporate information about Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic. Valve also added links from the Mann Co. Catalog to wiki pages with item details, and frequently links to the site from other web pages. The Wiki Cap was also introduced as a way to reward editors who have made significant contributions to the site.

While all this was taking place, however, the old wiki at tf2wiki.net still existed with a decreasing number of active users. The tf2wiki.net domain and control of the site was auctioned online, changing the owner of the site multiple times. Valve has indicated that it has no intention to purchase the domain. As the number of active users fell, tf2wiki.net's content quickly degraded and became out of date.

Suffice to say, the most accurate and up-to-date of the two sites is the Official TF Wiki at wiki.teamfortress.com.

Editing

Before I get started editing, what should I do?

The first thing to do is read through the Help:Contents page which can be found on the left toolbar under "Help". Here you can find information about editing and the wiki in general. Check out the Tasks page to see what might need to be done.

Where can I find a listing of all the code syntax for editing?

For quick reference, Wikipedia has a Cheatsheet with some of the most-used code that applies to wiki editing in general. It also has a full Wiki markup page that contains most of the code that would ever need to be used.

What do the colored plus and minus numbers mean next to an edit?

They represent the number of bytes (or characters) added or removed in a particular edit. For example, (+264) means there were 264 bytes in total added to the page. (0) indicates that content was changed, but the amount of bytes remains the same.

These numbers are not related to points or scoring in any way. They simply indicate at a glance what was changed in one particular edit.

I made an edit and it disappeared, where did it go?

Check the article history by clicking the History tab at the top of the page. It shows the edit history of the article and a reason should have been given for the removal of an edit.

Where can I track my personal edit progress?

If you are logged in you can either click on the My preferences button in the upper right corner of the page to see your total editcount, or for a more elaborate overview of your edits you can click on 'My contributions' which is also located in the upper right corner of the page. This will give you an overview of all of your edits and information on when they were added, if they have been undone, and allows you to search for certain edits if required, among other useful features.

Where do I go to discuss a page's content or edits I have made on a page?

Post on the article's talk page. A link to the talk page can be found at the top of any article, labelled 'discussion'. Here you may discuss the page and any changes you think may be made. Be sure to sign the ends of your comments by adding --~~~~ .

What/who is WindBOT? Why is it always changing my edits?

WindBOT is an automated editing bot run by WindPower. It monitors the recent changes feed for pages, scans and then edits them according to a list of filters; among the most common of the bot's tasks are correcting capitalization and misspellings, links, templates and applying other fixes.

How can I get WindBOT to stop editing a page?

WindBOT can ignore a selected part of a page by wrapping text inside the template {{botignore}}. For example, with a sentence like It was a {{botignore|direct hit}} on the target., the bot will skip over the words 'direct hit' and leave it capitalized in its current form.

More complicated cases can be added to WindBOT's page blacklist.

Is there a way to automate tedious or repetitive edits?

If the scale of the changes to be made is large, it is best that you propose the change on Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion or another appropriate talk page to first gain consensus. Once it has been decided what to do, it is best to then contact a user who maintains a bot account (see Help:Group rights#Bots). These users may offer assistance in automating a number of tasks.

Additionally, WindBOT automatically makes changes to pages appearing in Special:RecentChanges, and reads from a list of filters. For proposals of new filters, please post them on the filter's talk page.

Someone has made a bad edit, what should I do?

If you feel it is in your ability to correct the bad edit, please do so by clicking on 'View history' on the upper right corner of the page and clicking the 'Undo edit' button next to the name of the last editor. Make sure to note clearly why the edit is being undone, as it is important to make this clear to all editors to prevent misunderstandings. Additionally, you can post to the talk page explaining in more depth the reason for undoing the edit.

If you feel you cannot rectify the bad edit please contact another editor who can. The best way to do this is to ask someone on the IRC channel.

Talk pages

What is a talk page?

Every article or page has a talk page associated with it. This is a place where editors can discuss the page in detail regarding edits or content. To get to a page's talk page, click the Discussion tab at the top of the page.

When should I use talk pages?

You should use the talk page when:

• You want to change something major about the page; e.g. add or remove an entire section
• There is a dispute regarding a specific edit
• To discuss new content or changes to a game item

How do I use talk pages?

Post like you would on a regular article, but make a new heading for new topics. If you are replying to a previous editor, tab over your comment using colons (:) in order to make it easier to read. Once you are done typing your comment, sign it by adding ( ~~~~ ) to the end of your comment. This will add your name, a link to your userpage and the date of your post. For an example of a formatted talk page, see Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion.

My talk page is getting really long, what should I do? Should I delete it?

The most popular method for maintaining the size of talk pages is to archive them. See Help:Archiving for more information.

Alternatively, you can delete the text from the page and provide a link to the revision with the text (either by copying the "Permanent link" in the sidebar or selecting one of the links in the page history).

Images

How do I upload images?

First of all, see the image guidelines for information regarding images and uploading. On the left sidebar, there is a link to "Upload file". Here you may choose a file from your computer to upload to the wiki. be sure to describe it well in the description box. Also, choose the appropriate licensing for the image. Add categories to the image as well before uploading by adding them to the summary box (Ex: add [[Category:Heavy images]] for any images involving a Heavy). Before uploading, ensure that there are not already images that could be used instead of the one you are uploading by searching for it.

How do I change an uploaded image?

You need to upload a new image over top of it. Simply go to the file's page and click "Upload a new version of this image". Sometimes the image may not update right away and may continue to display the old image for a while. This is expected and it will update automatically given time. Please do not continue to upload the updated image.

What if I want to upload an image for my userpage?

In that case, upload the file as usual, but add "User USERNAMEHERE" to the front of the image name. For example: User Firestorm Sentry.gif. Also, under licensing, choose "User page image".

Why do some images appear stretched or sometimes appear as the wrong image? Why don't images appear immediately after uploading?

Images uploaded to the Team Fortress Wiki are placed into a "Cache" where they are stored and are shown to users. Often, this cache takes some time to update when new images are uploaded to the Wiki. In this case, the image may change resolution, but will not appear as the correct instance. If this happens, do not upload again. The cache will update within the next few hours automatically and your image will be displayed.

There's a poor image that needs to be improved, what should I do?

Go to the file page and click the "Edit" button. In the edit box, add {{improveimage|REASONHERE}} to the page. This will add a template letting editors know that the image needs improving.

Translation

How do I start translating pages?

See Help:Language translation.

How do I translate templates?

See Help:Translation switching.

Is translation into <language> supported?

See Help:Language translation#List of supported languages.

Are there statistics for page translation? Which pages is <language> missing?

See Team Fortress Wiki:Translation progress.

Where are other people translating <language>?

See Team Fortress Wiki:Translation progress.

How do I know which names I should use for official translated names within the game?

You can find lists regarding official names such as weapons, hat, game modes and so on for each of the supported languages at Category:Text files. It is important to always use the official translations of anything that is already officially translated in the game itself in order to preserve consistency. For namings of items that have not yet entered official localizations, the name to use should be decided by consensus with a discussion on each project's discussion page.

What should I do if I am uncertain about a translation?

If you are not sure you have the right translation for a certain word and/or sentence, please consider the context of the piece you are editing and check dictionaries whenever possible. Keep in mind that sometimes things cannot be fully translated because they are bonded to a certain cultural reference e.g. you cannot translate a movie name. If you are still not sure you can ask other editors in the IRC channel that speak the designated language for advice.

Someone else has not properly translated a page or made mistakes, what should I do?

If it is in your ability to repair what has been broken please try your best to fix it. Of course you should notify the previous translator, which can be done by clicking on the View History button at the upper right side of a page and checking who made the last edits to that particular page. This user can be contacted by clicking on Talk next to the users name and you can leave a message as desired.

If, however, you suspect that a page or part of it was translated with a translation software such as Google Translate, we advice you to report it to any of the staff, either on the IRC or on their discussion pages, or leave a message about it on the translators noticeboard.

Other

What is IRC?

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and is used as an online chat service. Users of the wiki often use IRC to collaborate and discuss edits to the wiki as well as current TF2 events. There are many uses in the Tfwiki channel to assist users with any questions that they may have. For more information see Team Fortress Wiki:IRC.

What is the Weapon Demonstration Project?

The Weapon Demonstration Project focuses on creating videos showing characteristics of each weapon and uploading them to YouTube. These videos are created by the community for the community and cover the functionality of each item. For more information see Team Fortress Wiki:Weapon Demonstration.