Hey all,
If you'd like to contribute to a quality edit of an article from RBY, GSC or Advance, there are a few things you should keep in mind before applying yourself.
1) First and foremost, if you are going to suggest structural edits to an article, you must have a very keen knowledge of the mechanics and quirks of the competitive gameplay pertaining to the generation of the article in question.
There is no reason to believe that someone who just started playing pokemon within the past year should know much of anything about the complicated competitive strategy inherent in the articles of past generations. More often than not, any questions or issues someone who has not played a given generation may have about one of its strategy articles will likely be steeped in ignorance about why the strategy was suggested. Granted, there are bound to be a few exceptions, but for the most part this is a rule of thumb I feel is fair. Please feel free to address the style and grammar of the articles though, as this is the main point of this project.
Also, please pay attention to which generation the strategy article in question is belonging to, as I will put in the title of each thread in parentheses. Nothing says "I wasn't paying attention" like suggesting a DP move for a pokemon in an Advance article.
2) Please quote the text you feel is deserving of an edit, state what your edit is and why.
I am going to post the 27 articles in 27 separate threads a handful at a time to maximize the efficiency with which we tackle our older articles. Most suggestions aren't 100% obvious if they don't deal with something typographical or similarly surface, and therefore they would benefit greatly from a line of two detailing their aim.
3) Stay on topic, and use proper punctuation, grammar and capitalization.
These kind of go without saying. Some discussion of similar or otherwise pertinent strategies and ideas is welcomes but can be overdone. An immediate example is starting to talk about a pokemon that does strategy x better, then someone else arguing that it doesn't because y, and then another person cites z somewhat unrelated reasons that the first pokemon does strategy x better, etc. Remember that the goal is to increase the quality of the strategy article, so focusing on the strategy itself is paramount.
As for the second issue, most people don't respect and/or pay much heed to a suggestion that looks like it was typed by a seven-year-old. But further, as chaos stated in the Analysis Workshop forum, your suggestions and posts in general should confirm that you "understand the subtleties of the English language and can write prose that flows well."
4) Read my article on what a good writer looks out for if you haven't already.
It's a great starting place for those who would like to help out but aren't sure of some of the common things to keep in mind when reading strategy articles.
5) Don't worry about physical eyesores like paragraph spaces and bolding that are largely HTML issues.
We will address the HTMLization of the articles after they've been checked for quality.
That's it. Have fun reading these articles—in a way they detail the history of Smogon in a way an article intended to do so would fail. By that I mean that we are a competitive battling site first and foremost, and we strive for excellence in our strategy articles and analyses. This fact not only is the reason for these quality edits on articles "finished" largely over a year ago but it also speaks to the real pulse, backbone and cornerstone of our community.
Thanks,
Jump
If you'd like to contribute to a quality edit of an article from RBY, GSC or Advance, there are a few things you should keep in mind before applying yourself.
1) First and foremost, if you are going to suggest structural edits to an article, you must have a very keen knowledge of the mechanics and quirks of the competitive gameplay pertaining to the generation of the article in question.
There is no reason to believe that someone who just started playing pokemon within the past year should know much of anything about the complicated competitive strategy inherent in the articles of past generations. More often than not, any questions or issues someone who has not played a given generation may have about one of its strategy articles will likely be steeped in ignorance about why the strategy was suggested. Granted, there are bound to be a few exceptions, but for the most part this is a rule of thumb I feel is fair. Please feel free to address the style and grammar of the articles though, as this is the main point of this project.
Also, please pay attention to which generation the strategy article in question is belonging to, as I will put in the title of each thread in parentheses. Nothing says "I wasn't paying attention" like suggesting a DP move for a pokemon in an Advance article.
2) Please quote the text you feel is deserving of an edit, state what your edit is and why.
I am going to post the 27 articles in 27 separate threads a handful at a time to maximize the efficiency with which we tackle our older articles. Most suggestions aren't 100% obvious if they don't deal with something typographical or similarly surface, and therefore they would benefit greatly from a line of two detailing their aim.
3) Stay on topic, and use proper punctuation, grammar and capitalization.
These kind of go without saying. Some discussion of similar or otherwise pertinent strategies and ideas is welcomes but can be overdone. An immediate example is starting to talk about a pokemon that does strategy x better, then someone else arguing that it doesn't because y, and then another person cites z somewhat unrelated reasons that the first pokemon does strategy x better, etc. Remember that the goal is to increase the quality of the strategy article, so focusing on the strategy itself is paramount.
As for the second issue, most people don't respect and/or pay much heed to a suggestion that looks like it was typed by a seven-year-old. But further, as chaos stated in the Analysis Workshop forum, your suggestions and posts in general should confirm that you "understand the subtleties of the English language and can write prose that flows well."
4) Read my article on what a good writer looks out for if you haven't already.
It's a great starting place for those who would like to help out but aren't sure of some of the common things to keep in mind when reading strategy articles.
5) Don't worry about physical eyesores like paragraph spaces and bolding that are largely HTML issues.
We will address the HTMLization of the articles after they've been checked for quality.
That's it. Have fun reading these articles—in a way they detail the history of Smogon in a way an article intended to do so would fail. By that I mean that we are a competitive battling site first and foremost, and we strive for excellence in our strategy articles and analyses. This fact not only is the reason for these quality edits on articles "finished" largely over a year ago but it also speaks to the real pulse, backbone and cornerstone of our community.
Thanks,
Jump