Learning to use a wiki definitely has a learning curve, and the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki more than most. Just a warning up-front: the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki has very high quality standards compared to most others and you will be expected by administrators and moderators to meet them. This is a well-established wiki on an often complicated topic.
If you do not have both a deep familiarity with the Warhammer 40,000 universe and wiki editing in general, particularly editing using our particular formats and standards, your articles are unlikely to survive administrator scrutiny entirely intact.
We have strict formatting and quality guidelines and expect every edit and page made to conform to these standards. If you are a beginner at wiki functionality you will definitely need to learn the basics of our quality, sourcing and formatting guidelines before creating your own pages or doing major edits to our existing pages.
It is HIGHLY SUGGESTED that you take time to read many articles on the wiki and become familiar with our practices, formats and standards BEFORE you ever begin trying to create your own articles. Failure to do so will most likely lead to the rollback and/or deletion of your work.
But for those of you willing to learn, this is a guide to providing this same information in a coherent and structured manner. If you are new to wikis in general, please check out the general Fandom wiki editing tutorials before returning here.
If you do not understand how something is done, please ask an administrator or moderator BEFORE making any changes to the wiki. The Warhammer 40,000 Wiki has an extremely limited number of staff who do not have the time to teach you how to use its systems or code its pages.
As a result, you alone are responsible for gaining the level of skill needed to properly edit the wiki. Changes made that do not conform to the standards and formats outlined below will most likely be rolled back or deleted, so please be aware of the necessity for a good comprehension of wiki syntax, proper sourcing guidelines and Warhammer 40,000 lore in general if you wish to be a successful editor here.
Before You Begin
British English Only
First, here are some basic expectations and general tips for any editor of the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki. Please be able to write in full, complete, grammatically correct British English sentences. Warhammer 40,000 is a proudly British intellectual property, and like all of its source material, the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki is written in British English. As your sources will also be in this variant of the language, you should have no problems writing in this spelling even if you are otherwise unfamiliar with the differences between British English and American English.
The only variation from standard British English is the use of the American double quotations ("") for quote usage, as this both better sets off a quotation and also helps avoid possible mistaken interactions with the wiki's code in the Source Editor when using the single quotation mark (').
However, PLEASE DO NOT CHANGE spellings of common words that are unfamiliar to you on existing pages unless you have actually checked that they are misspelled! It is highly likely that the word may simply be the British variant spelling of a word you know in American English, so please check that possibility before altering a spelling you believe may be erroneous.
English Fluency
The Warhammer 40,000 Wiki is an English-language wiki. Please do not post any material here that is in another language. Please also do not add anything to this wiki from a source that is not in the English language unless there is also an English translation available.
Additionally, while we welcome the participation of those editors for whom English may be a second language, we do expect that you will possess at least the written fluency of a native speaker to be able to contribute here. If you do not possess that fluency, or an administrator or moderator feels that your work is simply not fluent enough to be easily understandable or requires too much editing to be easily understandable to a native speaker, you will be asked to stop editing.
Cut and Paste Artefacts
It is a common and recommended technique for editors here on the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki to cut and paste a great deal of text out of legitimate canon sources. However, when doing so, please be aware that certain code artefacts of the original source can also appear in the wiki. This is especially true of the apostrophes (') that carry over with some words, particularly in their possessive form. These are actually not characters as recognised by the wiki, but GRAPHICS. If you leave them on the page, that word can never be properly linked.
Please, after pasting text, make sure that you convert ALL of the apostrophes in the pasted text over to the real apostrophe character recognised by the wiki's systems. This is done by simply deleting the apostrophe that you pasted over into the wiki with one typed in manually.
Source Editor
It is highly recommended that when you edit the wiki you use the Source Editor rather than the default Visual Editor, as it allows for a much finer control over exactly what the page will look like when you publish your edits. While it does take some getting used to since the Source Editor displays the underlying Wikimedia syntax and code that actually governs the wiki, familiarity with this tool will make it much easier to create pages that follow the formats presented in this manual.
Spacing
Please try to ensure that your paragraphs are reasonably spaced out. The vast majority of the users of the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki are on mobile devices; massive walls of text are very difficult to read and off-putting for mobile users. While most editors do their work on a desktop or laptop computer, you should be aware that your work is primarily viewed by a mobile audience and every effort should be taken to make text easy to read on mobile devices.
Check Your Work
Please read this manual very carefully before beginning work; nine times out of ten, you will find the answer to almost any formatting question within this document. Additionally, please ask an administrator or moderator if you have any questions about a format or how to do something else you are not sure about.
However, one of the most important things you can do to be a helpful editor is to CHECK YOUR WORK before you publish it on the site. You will easily catch multiple typos, misspellings and other easily avoidable mistakes if you just read over what you have created even once before publishing it. This tip alone can dramatically decrease the need for administrator review and spot-checking of your contributions.
Basic Structure
Lead Paragraphs
Every article needs to start with a lead, introductory paragraph. The introduction can be as short as a single sentence or two, or include several paragraphs if necessary. The title of the page should be placed in BOLD text as close to the start of the first sentence as possible.
The goal of the first paragraph and any other follow-on introductory paragraphs is to summarise the main points of the article, which means answering the questions of who, what, when, where, and why, if relevant. If the subject of the article is a character, any by-names or titles should also be included in the first sentence, also bolded and set off by quotes ("") if a title or by-name.
Bold and Italic Text Use
PLEASE DO NOT USE BOLD OR ITALIC TEXT ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE ARTICLE EXCEPT IN THE FIRST INTRODUCTORY SENTENCE. If you feel another concept, item or character anywhere else in the introduction or article is important, please link it. A link is a far more useful way to help other users understand what is important in the article than bolded or italic text.
One exception to this is the use of italics for words from a foreign language, such as words taken from the Aeldari Lexicon.
The other is for the name of a unique relic item or psychic discipline, the title of a book, or the name of a starship or other vehicle such as a Baneblade super-heavy tank or Thunderhawk gunship. So, for example, Roboute Guilliman's sword, the Sword of the Emperor, would be placed in italics, as would the Book of Magnus, the great work about Chaos sorcery that inevitably produces corruption and insanity in its readers, and the Invincible Reason, the name for the Dark Angels' ancient flagship.
Headers
A solid and consistent heading structure for an article aids in providing users a good experience and saves time in development. It is better to use the wiki's header source code than a manual heading mark-up. The reason for this is the wiki will automatically create a table of contents including each header label used.
Below is an example of how a structural information hierarchy works and how it would be placed on a wiki page using the Source Editor.
==History==
This (Header 2) is an overview of the history of a person
(This is the highest level of the document hierarchy.)
===Origins===
This (Header 3) is a section dealing with part of the person's life, and thus a subset of their personal history.
This is the middle level of the document hierarchy
====Education====
This (Header 4) is a subsection dealing with a part of the person's education during their early years.
This is a low level of the document hierarchy
====Allies====
This (Header 4) is another subsection dealing with a part of the person's origins and the allies they found.
This is the lowest level of the document hierarchy
The table of contents that the wiki generates from this structure will look like this at the top of the new page:
- 1. History
- 2 Origins
- 2.1 Education
- 2.2 Allies
- 2.1 Education
- 2 Origins
Warhammer 40,000 Specific Headers
The wiki uses standardised headers for certain topics, such as characters, campaigns, and units. For instance, a basic Warhammer 40,000 Wiki character article should have the minimum following specialised top-level Header 2 categories placed below the introductory paragaraph(s) as depicted in the Source Editor that can be filled in as the sources permit:
==History==
==Appearance (If necessary)==
==Wargear==
==Canon Conflict (if necessary)==
==Sources==
Here is another example of the slightly different standard headers that should be used for a unit page, such as the Necron Warrior.
==Role==
==Wargear==
==Canon Conflict (if necessary)==
==Sources==
Each of these examples are just basic templates, and further subheaders within each main header can be added as needed for the topic at hand. There is usually a standardised header format for any given topic, please ask an administrator or moderator if you are confused about what headers should be used to organise your topic.
Templates
There are a large selection of templates present on the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki for editor use, such as infoboxes for better page development. They make articles that benefit from them more uniform in structure and are not difficult to use. Usually they are deployed at the top of pages that match their respective subject, below any quote templates present on the page, such as the infobox templates deployed on pages for the nation-states of the Old World, while there are others for cities, battles, monarchs, etc. These templates, if used, should usually be completely filled out. If information for one of the template's provided categories are not known, please simply fill them in as "Unknown" or "N/A" for "not applicable." If there is more than one item on one of a template's lines, each item should be set off by a line break (coded as <br> ) between each item rather than a comma, so that the template grows vertically down the page, rather than horizontally, which is aesthetically much worse because the text is forced to wrap around to a great degree.
Templates can be added to a page simply by pasting its code at the top of the page. For instance, if you wanted to add the template for a new nation, you would add to the page in the Source Editor the Infobox Nation template and then fill in each of its criteria as required. Other templates, such as a template designating, for instance, a page as content that is no longer canonical because it is related to the non-canon, original timeline of the 13th Black Crusade, would be represented by this code simply pasted at the top of the page:
{{Template:Warning 13th Black Crusade Ending}}
It should then be centred on the page and a break line added so that the content below is set at a uniform distance from the template. Thus, when completed, the code would read in full in the Source Editor:
<center>{{Template:Warning 13th Black Crusade Ending}}</center><br>
While you may use any template present on the wiki where it is appropriate, please do not create new templates or alter existing ones without first discussing what you would like to do with an administrator.
Quote Template
It is very common in Warhammer 40,000 source material to see a quote appended to the start of a section of text which is designed to better invoke the in-universe feel of this grim dark fantasy setting. This is a stylistic affectation that the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki has also adopted on some of its pages. However, we ask that users do not just add any quote found in any source to a page.
If a quote already exists in a source about that topic it can be used on a page, but please do NOT just randomly choose quotes from a source like a novel and place them on a page. The quotes used in Warhammer 40,000 source material are specially written to illuminate something specific about their topic or provide an added, in-depth illustration of how characters within the universe feel about an event, organisation or character. We want this same purpose fulfilled on the wiki, so please make sure the quotes that are chosen are quotes that have already been used for a similar purpose within an existing, legitimate canon source.
Once a proper quote has been chosen, it should be the very first thing placed on a page, above all other text or code. Please use the quote template, which can be placed on the page in the Source Editor using the syntax:
{{Quote|The red, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.|Said by a watching farmer}}
Obviously, in this case the text would be replaced with a proper quote followed by the person who is identified as its source. Please do not place a period (.) after the end of the person who is identified as the quote's originator unless this state is a full, grammatically correct sentence with both a subject and predicate.
When used correctly, once the template is in place, the wiki will autogenerate a quote placed in italic text and with the proper quote marks and other formatting for an English quote displayed in this traditional, literary way.
While most such quote templates are placed at the very top of the page to introduce the topic as a whole, on certain very long pages it is perfectly acceptable to also place another quote template containing another quote that is appropriate for information under that sub-heading, also at the very top of the heading before any other text or images are placed. Please simply repeat the use of the same template above with the additional chosen quotation.
There is no limit to how many quotes can be placed on a page, but the rule of thumb is to not overwhelm a page with quote after quote. The style soon loses its effectiveness if it is overused.
Linking
Next to proper sourcing, proper linking is the most vital part of creating or editing a page on a wiki. A page that is not linked at all to other pages, or poorly linked with very few links to other pages that are mentioned in its text, is basically nothing more than an online book report. What makes a wiki a unique, almost three dimensional source of information, is the links provided between its different pages so any user can learn more about a topic present on the wiki at any time by simply clicking on a word or concept's hyperlink. In general, every concept present on a page that has its own page on the wiki, or more importantly, SHOULD have its own page on the wiki, must be linked.
Because some pages on the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki are so long, the general rule of thumb is to link a word with its own page on the wiki once in each section. While on short pages this might be considered repetitive and unnecessary, the number of very short pages is relatively few; our pages are far more likely to run long than short! In that case, linking more regularly using this general rule is a very good habit to get into, so that a reader can find a linked page easily without having to hunt through the rest of the page to find where the link to the information they want is located.
One problem commonly encountered on our pages is the tendency to bold or even sometimes italicise words that are considered important. This is incorrect if done outside of the introductory paragraph or the other exceptions mentioned above; if a word or concept is so important to the reader that one feels it should be bolded or italicised, instead, please LINK it.
Some folks may be afraid of adding the dread "red links" to the wiki of concepts that have no accompanying page, but in fact that is the crucial way in which the wiki grows. Red links signal to other editors a page that is likely to be a needed addition to the wiki's database, and so this is a vital activity in finding new topics.
How Links Work
Finally some notes on how links work. The wiki is not case sensitive for single words -- if you create a page like "Knight" you can create a link in the lowercase form "knight" and the link will still work. However, if the linked page is more than one word -- say it's called "High King" -- if you create a link in the lower case like "high king" it will not work. Instead, in this case, you will need to create a redirect to get the different case form of the link to work.
The same thing is true for plural links of a singular word. If you create the page "Knight" creating a link to it for "Knights" on another page will not work. Instead, you will have to create a redirect to make a functional link for the plural or singular form of an existing page. One quick way around this difficulty when creating a plural link for a page named in the singular is simply to write the word in the singular form, "Knight" and then link it and add an "s", like so:
The word will show up once published as a fully-linked plural form of the word, even with the "s" outside the brackets!
Redirects
Sometimes a page already exists on the wiki for a concept that also goes by another name that a user might also know. In these instances it is wise to create a redirect. For instance, let's say we want folks to know that the Emperor Karl Franz is also known by his regnal name "Karl Franz I." This is done by clicking on the "Add new page" button on the top left side drop down menu of the wiki, typing in the name of the redirect page you want to create and then placing the following syntax onto the blank page using the Source Editor:
Additionally, sometimes we want to create a new link for only part of an already existing page. For instance, if we want to create a link for the Mark of Khorne, and the primary information about this is already part of the greater Khorne page, we would once again click on the "Add new page" button, type in "Mark of Khorne" as the title of the new page and then place this syntax on the blank page using the Source Editor:
The only differenmce here is the addition of the name of the header on the page we are redirecting to. There is one important caveat here: to create a redirect to a portion of an already existing page, the redirect MUST POINT TO THE NAME OF A HEADER on the chosen page. You cannot redirect to any other part of an existing page other than a section topped by a header.
Proper Noun Usage
One of the biggest stylistic difficulties when dealing with fantasy and science-fiction properties is the often inconsistent use of proper nouns, i.e. nouns used to describe specific persons, places or things. Fantasy properties have a tendency to overuse proper pronouns to what can become a comedic extent. To counter this, and the fact that even Games Workshop has tended to be inconsistent over the many years Warhammer 40,000 has existed in the way it chooses to use proper nouns from edition to edition of the tabletop wargame and in different media like sourcebooks, novels and video games, the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki simply applies standard English grammatical rules to the use of proper and common nouns with one stylistic difference noted below for the names of the intelligent species of the galaxy.
In general, all nouns that are not specific names of persons, place and things should be treated as common nouns, which are NOT capitalised. This means, for instance, that job titles are NOT capitalised unless they directly precede the proper name of the title's holder. Thus, it would be Captain Ragnar Blackmane, but Blackmane is a Space Marine captain. It is the Emperor when used to refer to the Emperor of Mankind since that is both His proper name and His title, but when used for any other individual, the title is treated as a common noun, so the leader of an alien empire, for example, would be that state's emperor. When the generic title for any job is used alone, it is always lower-case, so it would be "magos" or "archmagos," NOT Magos or Archmagos, unless those titles proceeded a person's proper name.
The exception to this rule in English is for specific titles of royalty and nobility. So if we write the King of Bretonnia or the Tzar of Kislev or the Duke of Middenland, the title is fully capitalised, but if we speak about these folks using only the generic title, it would be the king, the tzar and the duke. Additionally, if we were to say the kings of Bretonnia, not referring to a specific holder of the title, it would also be in the lower-case. If the full title is used after a person's name, such as Marneus Calgar, Lord of Macragge, then this is also capitalised.
Non-noble titles of government and military officials are not capitalised unless they precede the name of the holder, as according to the standard rule.
When speaking of the gods of the various species of the galaxy, always use the lower case. So Khaine is the god of war and murder, NOT the God of War and Murder. In English, when one capitalises "God," that is actually considered a proper name, in this case referring specifically to Yahweh, the Judeo-Christian God.
Finally, there is one exception specific to the style of Warhammer 40,000 and the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki in general that we use. All names of the different species are always capitalised. Thus, we write "Humans", "Aeldari", "Orks", "Daemons" and "T'au" as proper nouns.
Trivia Sections
Trivia sections on this wiki have at times been used incorrectly. Trivia sections should be extremely rare on a page, and should be among the last sections placed on a page, just above the Sources heading. They generally should be used ONLY to delineate a small tidbit of interesting, almost always real world information about the topic of the page. This usually is a historical note indicating what real world figure, culture or event the page's Warhammer 40,000 counterpart may be based on.
Other things which may legitimately be placed in the Trivia section of a page are real world anecdotes about the page's topic, how the page's topic was used in-game, notable, real world community opinions or "meta-information" about the topic of the page and so forth.
What should NOT be placed in a Trivia section is any in-universe information about the page's topic. Please place any such information somewhere in the main body of the text, either in the introductory paragraph or under an appropriate header.
If you see a Trivia section on a page that has been used incorrectly, please correct it in accordance with these guidelines.
Canon Conflict Sections
Warhammer 40,000 is a very old intellectual property, stretching decades into the past and over many editions of the tabletop wargame and the fantasy roleplaying game. As such, in that time, certain lore about the universe has sometimes been contradicted by more recent editions or versions of the game. On the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki, when we discover that there has been a change in the canon or there is a discontinuity between our existing sources, we create a heading at the bottom of the page, just above the Sources heading called "Canon Conflict." That section should identify, with proper source referencing in the text, any contradictions about the page's topic found in the existing, CURRENT canon of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
This is NOT the same thing as a ret-con; retroactive continuity occurs when a later source directly changes something about the universe in a way that the prior fact is no longer compatible with the current one; in this case the facts on the page simply must be changed to accord with the most recent canon. A canon conflict only occurs when there is contradictory information on a topic between two sources both of which can be considered CURRENT canon.
Bullet Point Lists and Timelines
When making a list using bullet points, please bold each name in the list and use a short dash (-), not a colon (:), to set it off from any lines of text you wish to add to that item on the list. Please ensure that this line of text is in the form of a COMPLETE SENTENCE.
Please place a space between each item in the bullet pointed list.
If the list is a chronology or timeline of dates using the Imperial Calendar system, please ensure that each numerical date ends in the IC designator, eg. 2302 IC. Separate the dates from the rest of the entry with a short dash (-) and ensure that every person, place, event or thing mentioned in the entry is properly linked if it has a page on the wiki. A timeline, particularly a long one, without links is effectively useless as an explanatory tool.
Sourcing
Sourcing is quite simply the most important facet of a wiki. A wiki that is poorly sourced, or even worse, unsourced, is one that cannot be trusted by the community that it purports to serve. As such, sourcing and source formatting are perhaps the most important part of page creation on the wiki after finding the information to create a page itself.
Failure to properly source anything added to an existing page, or any newly created page, will lead to the deletion of that material by administrators and moderators, so please, cite your sources as described below for everything you add to an existing page, or for any new pages you create.
Endnote Citations
The Warhammer 40,000 Wiki uses a modified endnote citation system created specifically for citing Warhammer 40,000 content. The wiki will generally autogenerate the correct formatting if you use the right code in the right places. In general, we expect every topic covered on a wiki page to have its sources properly cited beneath a heading labelled "Sources" at the very bottom of every page. Note, this heading is always plural, "Sources", NOT "Source" even if only one source for the page is currently listed.
To do a proper citation, create the source citation under the Sources heading using the following code in the Source Editor (obviously this is a placeholder, use the title of your actual source instead):
* ''Codex: Space Marines'' (9th Edition), pp. 3-11
Now we turn to the actual formats you should use for each citation displayed under the Sources heading.
Citation Format Examples
On the Warhammer 40,000 Wiki there are seven main types of sources that you will inevitably encounter -- sourcebooks for all eight editions of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop game, sourcebooks for all the editions of the Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game, including both editions of Dark Heresy and Wrath & Glory, Black Library novels, non-novel background books, video games like the Dawn of War and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide series, articles from White Dwarf magazine and external webpages. Let's go over the proper citation format for each of these standard types of sources.
Please note that only the title of the source is ever italicised in any citation, and do not list the name of any series of which the source is a part, only the actual title of the source exactly as it is printed on the cover page.
When citing page numbers, if only one page is cited it should be proceeded by "pg." (pg. 12). If multiple pages are cited, they should be preceded by "pp." (pp. 12-20, 32).
Warhammer 40,000 Tabletop
Any sources for Warhammer 40,000 sourcebooks, which are usually codices, should have the following format used in the Source Mode of the wiki editor, including the exact title of the source, the edition of the game for which the book was written in parentheses and the citations for the page numbers used in the source:
*''Codex: Space Marines'' (9th Edition), pp. 5, 38-49
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay
Any sources for both editions of the Dark Heresy as well as the Wrath & Glory Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying games must use the following format in html code, including the exact title of the source including the edition of the game and an indicator in parentheses that the source is an RPG or roleplaying game.
If the title has multiple parts, such as Dark Heresy: Dead Stars - Haarlock Legacy III (RPG) , separate the main title (Dark Heresy: Dead Stars) from the subtitle (Haarlock Legacy III) by a single dash (-).
*''Dark Heresy 2nd Edition: Enemies Within'' (RPG), pp. 8, 67-69, 71-72
Black Library Novels
Any sources drawn from Black Library novels must use the following format as coded in the Source Mode. In general, the citation should read: novel title exactly as it appears on the cover, type of work in parentheses (Novel, Short Story, Novella, Anthology or Omnibus Novel), followed by the name of the author(s) or editors if the source was a collected anthology of short stories. Please remember that ONLY the title of the work is italicised.
We do not use page numbers to cite novels, as many folks only use the digital editions which often lack them. As such, please simply indicate the chapter number or numbers of the novel from which you drew the citation. Anything drawn from a prologue or epilogue should simply be listed as such (i.e. Prologue, Epilogue).
*''Daemonslayer'' (Novel) by William King, Prologue, Chs. 1, 2, 5
Background Books
Games Workshop has published a number of non-novel sourcebooks written from an in-universe perspective outlining various aspects of the galaxy and its inhabitants that are neither sourcebooks for the tabletop wargame nor the roleplaying game. These sources are simply referred to as "background books" for lack of a better term. For these sources, such as Xenology or The Sabbat Worlds Crusade: The Ongoing History of this Famous Stuggle Against Chaos, the following format should be used in the Source Mode.
In general, the citation for background books should read: title as it appears exactly on the cover and then parentheses containing the type of source, in this case a background book. Page numbers are cited when using background books.
*''Xenology'' (Background Book), pg. 5
Video Games
Licensed PC and video games set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe are generally considered canon sources. As such, they can be cited like any other source. In general, the citation for video games should read: Italicised title of the game, followed by whether the title is a PC Game only playable on PCs or is a video game that is available on PC as well as gaming consoles like the XBox and Sony PlayStation, in parentheses. When citing video games, the following code format in Source Mode should be used.
*''Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus'' (PC Game)
White Dwarf and other magazine articles
One of the major sources of canon lore for Warhammer 40,000 is White Dwarf magazine, Games Workshop's own monthly fan magazine for all things Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. Articles from White Dwarf are a major source often used for topics on theWarhammer 40,000 Wiki and should be cited using the following code format in Source Mode.
Please note that in older White Dwarfs, the magazines were published in different regions with slightly different content, so it is important for these older articles to inlcude which region the magazine was published for, which should be indicated in parentheses by the national edition, usually British (UK), American (US), or more rarely Australia and New Zealand (AUS).
If the White Dwarf cited is more recent (post-2014), it will not have a country of origin. Article titles, authors and page numbers should be cited, with the article title placed in double quotes (") and NOT italicised, as shown below.
*''White Dwarf'' 310 (UK), "Return of the Lichemaster" by Rick Priestley, pp. 42-48, 51
Other magazines can be cited in a similar manner:
*''Inferno!'' 40, pp. 27-31
*''Citadel Journal'' 17, pp. 12-17, 21, 49
External websites
Sometimes the only source for a citation is an external website. In these cases, the website's URL is placed within a single set of brackets ([]) followed by a space and then whatever actual name you wish to give to your source. Please note, this citation is never italicised. When citing external websites like Warhammer Community or a page on Wikipedia, the following code format in Source Mode should be used.
*[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/09/21/read-the-official-background-for-total-war-warhammer-iiis-most-deadly-units/ Warhammer Community - Read the Official Background for Total War: Warhammer III's Most Deadly Units]
Categories
Finally, to complete the new page, you must add it to the wiki's system of categories. The page will auto-highlight a vast number of our existing categories for you to add to, and you should be able to pick one or more that are appropriate.
No matter what, always add your page to the category that corresponds to the alphabetical first letter of the name of the page you have created. Categories are important and represent one of the main advantages of organising information in a wiki format, as they allow our users to find all the pages that may accord with their areas of interest.
Please DO NOT CREATE NEW CATEGORIES without the permission of an administrator or the administrator who is in charge of maintenance for the category system, which at present is Montonius. In fact, it would be best, if you are new to creating articles on the wiki, to ask any administrator to help you choose categories for your page until you are more familiar with the system.
Images
The Warhammer 40,000 Wiki maintains an image policy that concerns the proper sourcing and licensing of all images uploaded to the wiki.
There may come a time when you need to add an image to an article. The easiest way to do this is to take the image you wish to add and place it in the small box in the Source Editor labelled "Drop files here". You will then be prompted to upload the image. Once it is uploaded, you will be asked if you wish to place it somewhere on your chosen page.
Please separate the image from any text around it by ensuring there is one space both above and below the image script. Please then set the image size to 250px, which means 250 pixels square, and ensure that the image is a thumnail and not the full image, as otherwise it may take up way too much of the page.
ALL IMAGES SHOULD ALWAYS BE SET TO 250PX IN SIZE as this is both the default size in WikiMedia and will ensure uniformity and rapid loading of pictures across a page. As all images can simply be clicked on by a reader so that they may see it at full size, the default image size is best for both readability and uniform aesthetics.
When complete, in the Source Editor, your image's code should look like this, with obvious changes based on the actual image and the caption you write:
[[File:DaemonettesofSlaanesh.jpg|250px|thumb|The [[Daemonettes]] of Slaanesh, the [[daemonic]] embodiments of both the beauty and sadistic pain that is incarnated in the Dark Prince.]]
Captions
Please place an informative and entertaining caption on your image, as shown in the example code above. ALL IMAGES ADDED TO THE WIKI MUST HAVE A CAPTION. If possible, please source the image using the endnote system described above, though sometimes this is not possible. If the image is drawn from a source already cited in the text in the article's Sources section, that will suffice to meet the sourcing requirement.
If the caption is not a complete sentence, with both a subject (noun) and predicate (verb), it should not get a period or other punctuation. If it is a complete sentence, it should end in a period or other punctuation.
Disclaimer
Every image added to the wiki must be properly licensed. In the case of images taken from canon Warhammer 40,000 sources, simply go to the image's information page and paste in the following code, which will add the wiki's standard legal disclaimer to the image:
{{disclaimer}}
Overflow Picture Galleries
Sometimes, a page may have many more images of its subject available than can be easily placed in all the relevant sections of the page. When this overflow of pictures happens, we place a gallery of all the overflow pictures at the very bottom of the page, BELOW the Sources section, so that it is the very last thing present on the page. Any gallery should be centered and each image within it should be properly captioned and licensed as described above. The code to place a gallery on a page in the Source Editor should look like this:
<gallery position=center>
Total_War_Wardancers_Render_1.jpg|A Wardancer as rendered for Total War: Warhammer.
Total War Wardancers Render 2.jpg|A Wardancer as rendered for Total War: Warhammer.
wh_dlc05_wef_wardancers.png|A female Wardancer in combat.
</gallery>
Videos
Videos about the topic of an article can be an effective way to enhance the information already provided in text form on the page. Adding a video is simple. First, simply add a heading near the bottom of the page, but above the Sources heading called "Videos." Then, go up to the Explore menu on the wiki's top rail and choose "Videos." From there simply select the button "Add A Video" in the top left corner and paste in the URL of the video you wish to add, which is most often simply the URL of a video already uploaded on YouTube. Once the URL is pasted in, refresh the page and copy-paste the full title of the newly added video.
Return to the page you wish to add the new video to and create a gallery under the "Videos" heading. Simply paste the name of the new video you copied into the gallery and voila! You've added a video to the page! The code for the Videos heading and the video gallery you create in the Source Editor should look like this:
==Videos==
<gallery position=center>
Total War WARHAMMER III - Champions of Chaos - Azazel
</gallery>
Things to Avoid
There are several practices that are cause for concern.
Copyright Issues
Get permission if you are using copyrighted material from any source other than Games Workshop or Games Workshop-licensed sources, particularly for images, which MUST be licensed.
Game Statistics
All tabletop war game and roleplaying game statistics are off-limits. They are the most important intellectual property of Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games and posting them is a violation of their copyright and can cause legal problems for the Warhammer 40k Wiki. PLEASE DO NOT POST ARTICLES OR CREATE PORTIONS OF ARTICLES WITH GAME MECHANICAL INFORMATION OR STATISTICS. IT WILL BE DELETED BY ADMINISTRATOR FIAT.
Fan Created Content
This wiki is for official, Games Workshop and official licensee-produced Warhammer 40,000 material only, and not fan-based content, images, artworks or fan fiction.
Fan-based Space Marine Chapters, characters, planets, vehicles, units, stories, images and campaigns will be removed from the wiki as soon as they are discovered in the database by administrator fiat, with no warning to the creator.
Lexicanum Plagiarism
The Lexicanum is a great Warhammer 40,000 wiki that is another invaluable resource for the community. However, please DO NOT COPY ARTICLES WORD FOR WORD from the Lexicanum. This is plagiarism and will result in the immediate deletion of your work and most likely a permanent ban from this wiki. You may use the Lexicanum to find the sourves necessary to research and write your own articles on the same topics independently, but you may not take those articles whole cloth and simply paste them in here.