I think that this would probably be most appropriate for the /articles section on site. It seems to be used for various articles that relate more to Smogon than competitive Pokemon (like the grammar standards and tournament running guide).
ignore the < and> things, they just stand for < and >.
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SCMS guide
SCMS is Smogon's content management system
; it allows badged users to upload new content
and edit pages on site. This guide will guide you through the basics of SCMS and show you tips and tricks which will allow you to use SCMS to efficiently and effectively improve the site.
Getting started
The first thing you should do is add the SCMS jump to your bookmarks. This will allow you to go directly from any page on site to its SCMS entry rather than navigating through SCMS to find it
, and to get to people
's SCMS profiles from their forum profiles:
On Firefox
, go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > Organize > New Bookmark (when the destination folder is selected) and paste the
JavaScript into the location bar.
On Chrome
, click the bookmarking star on any page
, then select edit and change the
URL to the SCMS jump.
On Internet Explorer 8
, (please just change to Firefox) (should this be mentioned? i absolutely agree, but eh) bookmark a random page
, then right click it on the bookmark drop down, go to
Properties and change the URL, and say yes to the warning box.
Now that you have your bookmark
, try it out
. Go to almost any page on site (a few like the main page and list of Pokemon don't have SCMS entries) and click the SCMS bookmark. You should now be able to edit the page. You can view its history by clicking its name near the top of the page. Comparing two versions is almost self
-explanatory
: just select the checkboxes next to them and click compare. Removed text will be in red
and added text will be in green.
When you click add content
,your change will not instantly go live on site
: a member of Site Staff has to approve and cache your edit. This is a last line of quality control,
but do not rely on it and submit poor quality content.You should always include an edit reason
; this makes the job of site staff slightly easier and makes it much easier to review your editing work. You don't usually need to put more than a couple of words
; "Spelling", "Standardization", "EV Ordering", and the like work perfectly well. If you're uploading an analysis
, it's a good idea to put the name of the writer in the edit reason. This helps give them credit and makes it much easier to track down the original write
-up if something comes up.
Using Google to find mistakes across the site
If you find that, say, we have been using the wrong capitalization for Ho-Oh and want to find and fix all instances of "Ho-oh" on site, you may think you have to read through or at least Ctrl-F every analysis and guide on site to find all of them. This would be a mammoth task, and it would take many hours just to find them all. However
, by using Google's search site feature you can quickly find them all in one convenient place. To search the /dp/ section of Smogon for all pages containing Ho-oh
, simply put site:smogon.com/dp "ho-oh" into the normal Google search bar to get
this (going on a few pages you can see some
Ho-ohs that still need fixing). If you want to check more of the site then replace /dp with /rb, /gs, /rs, /ingame, /cap, and /articles (or whatever part of the site you think the error may be on). If you want to narrow down your search to find
, for example
, all items with the word "Overview" (which indicates that it has an item analysis) then use /dp/items
; you could then search for "Description" in the same section (which all item analyses
should have) and find by comparing the two lists find which items need "Description" added. You can search the whole of Smogon but almost always will end up with a huge number of forum results, which you can't fix. Sadly
, it does not detect capitalization or punctuation, often you must tell it to repeat search with omitted results included, and Google's database normally takes a few days to update
, so if something was changed recently it will not show up, but this can still find many errors quickly and is an essential tool in the arsenal of any dedicated SCMSer.
Common mistakes to watch out for while editing
EV Ordering
One of the more important mistakes, since it causes Doug's calc problems. The order of EVs should be HP / Atk / Def / SpA / SpD / Spe, and must use those abbreviations. Having correct EV ordering in other parts of the analysis (or past gen analysis) is less vital, but helps with consistency.
Pokemon-specific Spellings and Capitalizations
Most people don't have all the Pokemon on their spellchecker, and some Pokemon spellings are rather odd, so a significant minority of the pages on Smogon have mistakes. If you want to check for these
, it helps to add
these.
"Pokemon that"
Pokemon are considered to be people for the purposes of grammar. This means that either "Pokemon who" or "Pokemon whom" is correct, never "Pokemon that".
i posted something about this in the standards thread
OHKOes or OHKOs
As the spelling and grammar standards article states:
"OHKOes as the verb form (
Salamence OHKOes Alakazam.) and OHKOs as a plural noun (
Salamence scores many OHKOs.). OHKOed is the past tense (
Salamence OHKOed Alakazam)."
This is not understood by many newer writers, and it's often worth checking each instance with Ctrl-F to see if they used the correct one.
EV Total
The EV total should be lowered when possible without lowering any stats. This means that at level 100 you should never see any EV investment in a stat which is not divisible by 4 without remainder. So, no 6 HP EVs or 255 Spe.
"Resists"
Resists can only be used as a verb. People commonly use resists as a contraction for resistances, which shouldn't be included in on-site analyses. "Magnezone resists many types" is fine, "Magnezone has many resists" is not.
Others
Quite a few points in the
spelling and grammar standards article are not always followed, so read through it and check back to it on anything you are not sure of.
Access levels
In order to know both what you can do and who to ask if you need something above your access level done
, I have
compiled this information. Thanks to DougJustDoug and Colin for their help.
Normal user (including
checkmark and
trophy holders)
Can't view or edit anything on SCMS, must use Small Changes threads (or directly contact a badgeholder) to suggest changes.
Badgeholder (or Community Member)
Can view all edit histories and edit all SCMS entries
, as well as adding new pages to SCMS. In some sections (items for example)
, these new pages will not show up even when cached until a script is run by a top level user (Colin, Doug, chaos).
Site Staff
All of the above + the ability to cache pages. Site Staff are generally the people to go to when you want something explained.
Admins
All of the above + can create and modify sections (like the /ingame section).
Higher
In order to rename or delete entries and sections, or make changes to the site code
, you need to have access to the relevant part of the database. Colin and DougJustDoug have full database access and can put coding changes live on site
, Misty, Doug and Colin have super admin access to the forum software
, Blue Kirby has access to the Pokédex table
and so can add, remove or otherwise edit Pokemon
,ryubahamut has access to the Quote Database table
, and chaos can do absolutely anything possible. Generally, don't pester these people much unless what you are asking for is urgent. They are very helpful and will usually help you, but don't expect your request to be their top priority.
Helpful tools
The Alphabetizer
Alphabetizes lists quickly and accurately
and has a variety of other options for otherwise repetitive and time consuming work.
Dictionary.com
Handy reference for when you're not quite sure about a word.
w3schools
HTML standards.
w3 Validator
For ensuring HTML meets current standards.
FoxReplace
Adds find/replace functionality to Firefox.
American English Dictionary
For
we English users of Firefox. It likes to change back to the default dictionary, so remember to change it before spellchecking.
Specific points
- Links on Smogon only work with all lower case letters; if you link to http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/Porygon2 you will get nothing more useful than a 404 error.
- When including an image, always be sure that it is hosted on Smogon. Sprites are located at www.smogon.com/download/sprites/(generation)/(dex number).png. Watch out for DP sprites, as everything after Deoxys is shifted down several numbers, and the other Pokemon with formes don't help. The easiest way to find the correct location is to go to the dex page and right click->view image.
- If you edit the _config entry you must ask for a cache of the whole section (or do it yourself if you are site staff) in order for the change to apply universally.
- For non-sortable tables you must include <table class="sortable"> in the table head and alternate between <tr> and <tr class="a"> in order to have the correct shading. This means that you can't just add a line in the middle without changing all rows beneath.
- If you and another person are editing a page at the same time (usually because of a post in small changes or you taking a very lone time) and they submit their edit first, you will be warned that there is an edit conflict. Unless your wording is superior or you have made other changes, then discard your edit.
