Thread:Barnswallow/@comment-36092572-20180708045453/@comment-25205196-20180709102606

Don't worry about your writing skills. There are basically two approaches to wiki articles. One is more encyclopedic so you adopt a neutral descriptive tone, the other is more like talking to a fellow player and what you would want to know if you were a newbie or a more experienced player. You can use either or both.

Infoboxes

An infobox is the informative box you often see on the right side of wiki articles. It usually displays a picture and essential information like levels, cost, etc. in a very concise way. It is useful for most games but not may not be necessary. Depends on the gameplay.

Infoboxes are coded and styled by default on wikia. I mean that wikia uses special words that their system understands automatically (a lot like HTML if you're familiar with this language). Infoboxes are also automatic displayed and styled a certain way so you don't have to worry about that.

Infoboxes work through a template (probably Template: Infobox which you can find in Category:Templates; I think it's there by default).

Templates

A template is used for formatting information which is going to be repeated on several pages like when you want to use the same table on different pages, or when you want to display a certain type of image at the same size on several pages no matter the original size. It is also used for text which is going to be repeated on several pages. We don't use them for the latter on the wiki but we could. See the blurb we have for ingredients for example: To make an XYZ, players need the following ingredients, in the specified quantities:. We repeat this sentence on lots of page. It could be a template instead.

Anyway, back to infoboxes. Infoboxes are both formatting (a table which is floated to the right of the article, a distinct background color,...) and text (like a title, category labels,...). What you need to do on your end is customize the template to suit your needs. For example, let's say level is a key mechanic in your game so you want to mention the level of an item, a character, a feature,... in your infobox. This is called a parameter. In this case, this is what your template would look like:

See here level is set up as a parameter through data source. The text which is going to be in front of the data (the label) is set up through label.

Now all you have to do in your article is use the infobox template:

And add the level parameter and data:

If you want to add a second parameter like time you'd have:

and use:

Is this clear enough? I suggest looking at https://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Portable_Infobox to see visuals. I think it would help you understand what the coding does. It also provides code you can customize.

Hope this helped! :)