Essay:How to Contribute to Archon Arcana
NOTE: These instructions assume you have an account on Archon Arcana and have the "contributor" role. If you wish to help contribute to Archon Arcana, first create an account, then reach out to us on the Archon Arcana discord to get started.
Introduction
Archon Arcana is powered by a small crew of contributors (affectionately known as "The Arcanists") and we are always looking for help. Below is a list of things of small relatively simple things that can help newer Arcanists get some experience.
Cards
Cards exist on AA in two ways, one is as the card's page (sometimes referred to as the "display page"), the other is the data page (often called the CardData page). The CardData page acts as the database entry that feeds into the display page. If you're looking to edit a card, the problem is most likely in the CardData, not the display page, so focus effort there. If you're creating a spoiler, see the process in the next section.
Adding a Spoiler Card
To add a spoiler card,
- Enter the data via the Spoiler creation form.
- After the spoiler data has been entered, on the newly created CardData: page will be a link in red in the space for Name. Click this red link.
- You're now creating the card view page (what most people see when they look at AA). Cut and paste this into the card page, updating "yourcardname" with the name of your card: {{#invoke: luacard | viewcard | cardname=yourcardname}}
- If you have any questions about this process, ask in the contributor channel in the AA discord.
Rules, FAQ Entries, and Commentary
Rules get manually updated whenever a new rulebook comes out. The rule text gets edited directly on the rule page itself. Usually this is an update that I'll do, just because it's easier as a one person job. FAQ Entries and commentary get entered into a database in a method similar to the way CardData pages are made, but it's just one long page of data entry stuff. In that data, you can list the pages where you want the information to appear. (The card's display page or the rules entry handles the actual rendering of that data.)
Tournament Data and Pretty Much Everything Else*
These are all just single articles and can be edited however needs to be. Most of these follow a general standard that is easy enough to copy from the existing information on the page. If there are any questions, feel free to ask.
*Lore
Hoo-boy. If this is something you're interested in contributiing too, you are a brave brave soul and are commended. It's a big project and before just diving in, it's a good idea to get a good handle on overall wiki organization and presentation. If this is something you're interested in, have a discussion first to try to keep the effort focused and functional.
Wanted Pages
Sometimes when writing an article, someone will create a link to a page that doesn't exist to have someone go back and fill in later. If you are looking to create some new pages, the wanted pages is a good place to start.
Special Projects
If you have a special project that you'd like to tackle, reach out to us on Discord to discuss it.