SpongeBob Wiki:Maintenance

Maintenance refers to the ongoing tasks involved in helping to keep the wiki clean, up to date and ensuring that our content is in-line with policy. Users are encouraged to continuously contribute to areas of maintenance which meet their interests and capabilities. However, some tasks are assigned to administrators, who help keep the wiki clean from vandalism by blocking troublesome editors. Certain basic maintenance tasks may also be assigned to a bot, which is able to edit a large number of pages in a short space of time.

Please remember that basic maintenance edits, such as fixing a link or correcting a spelling mistake, should be marked as a minor edit.

We would like to thank the Super Mario Wiki for writing the original policy page.

Main Page

The Main Page is an important way to welcome visitors to the wiki, and invite them to further explore our community by providing them with news, community notices, links to useful pages, and more.

The Main Page has three dynamic sections that present rotating and up-to-date information to visitors. Instead of editing the main page itself, we modify these sections using templates. Certain rules are required for updating each of these templates, which are explained in the section below. Anyone is free to update these templates when necessary. Finally, it is recommended that all templates with bullet points for info should contain around ¾-1½ lines per bullet point.

{{Featured article}}

Featured articles should contain the first 4-6 lines of information from the current featured article. A thumbnail of the article's main image should also be displayed.

{{Did you know}}

This template consists of four interesting SpongeBob SquarePants facts. The first line of info should be accompanied with an image, no bigger than 150px thumbnailed. Please link and bold the character or game relating to the subject of each line, so guests and users alike are prompted to see more information in the article itself.

{{News}}

This is the the template that shows up-to-date news of the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise. In four lines, the info should be about a mix of the following:

• New announcements of upcoming media.
• Release dates.
• Announcements that a game or other form of media has just been released.
• Relevant promotional events or developments.

Whenever a worthy piece of news is revealed, it should be placed at the top of the list. The last line (containing the oldest piece of news) should then be removed.

The first line of info should be accompanied with an image, no bigger than 150px within a thumbnail. Please link and bold the character or game relating to the subject of each line, so guests and users alike are prompted to see more information in the article itself.

File maintenance

Images, as well as audio and video files, are essential to provide examples about what articles are detailing in words. All articles should use at least one image, with the exception of implied or unseen subjects. Various maintenance tasks may be required for the file itself (such as issues with quality and categorization), the use of the file on pages, or the request for the uploading of additional files where required. Files should also closely follow the image use policy, and new revisions to files may only be uploaded by autoconfirmed users.

Unlicensed images	Images without an image copyright tag. Such files can't be found in one specific maintenance category: they must be found manually.
Uncategorized files	Files which don't have any categories at all, including a copyright status. See Special:UncategorizedFiles
Files which are missing a category	Almost all files may be attributed to a game or other form of media. The {{uncategorized}} template seen when uploading files should be replaced with an appropriate media category. See Category:Files with missing categories
Images without aboutfile	Images without the {{aboutfile}} template, or with a blank or improperly formatted template. See Category:Files with broken Aboutfile template
Unused files	All files should be used on at least one page. Some unused files may be eligible for deletion if they are too similar to another file, or otherwise have no use on our articles. See Special:UnusedFiles
Image requested	Articles tagged with with {{image}} require at least one image to illustrate the subject. See Category:Image requested
Articles that need more images	Articles with {{more images}} already have at least one image, although more are required. See Category:Articles that need more images
Articles that need more media	Articles with {{more media}} require one or more audio and/or video files. See Category:Articles that need more media
Broken file links	Pages which are currently linking to a file that doesn't exist. If a file link on a page is unnecessary, then it should be removed. See Category:Articles with broken file links and Special:WantedFiles
Images of poor quality	Images which are of very low quality are tagged with {{image-quality}}, and should be re-uploaded or replaced. See Category:Quality requested

Written content

The following maintenance issues concern the actual written content of an article. Content should be free from spelling/grammatical errors, be of a decent length and containing all available information, as well as following the wiki's writing guidelines.

Wanted pages	Articles that have yet to be created will be shown as a red link. New articles must follow the Manual of Style, and can only be created by autoconfirmed users. See Special:WantedPages
Stub articles	Articles or sections that are very short, and lacking basic information will be tagged with {{stub}} or {{stub|section=yes}} for sections of articles. See Category:Stubs
Rewrite requested	Poorly-written articles which require revising should be tagged with {{rewrite}}. Issues may include being poorly worded, ridden with grammar mistakes, or otherwise going against our writing guidelines. An expansion may also be required with {{rewrite-expand}}. See Category:Rewrite requested
Long trivia section	Articles containing an overly long trivia: such sections should only contain miscellaneous and notable information which does not fit elsewhere within the article. Trivia should be incorporated into other article sections when applicable. See Category:Articles with long trivia sections

General article maintenance

Maintenance that doesn't specifically concern the article's written content or files.

Articles under construction	Articles that are tagged with the {{construction}} template are not fully finished, and may have an informal appearance. Before trying to complete the article, make sure that the user who marked it as under construction does not intend to finish it themselves. See Category:Articles under construction
No category	Articles without a category (please disregard the Main Page). See Special:UncategorizedPages
Wanted categories	Uncreated categories which are currently being used on articles. See Special:WantedCategories
Citation needed	Articles which contain information requiring a valid reference, or replacing links which have since gone defunct. See Category:Citation needed
Page reference errors	This shows pages which contain a citation which has not been coded correctly. See Category:Pages with reference errors
Duplicate template arguments	Such pages currently have an incorrectly coded template, which is trying to use the same parameter with different values. See Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls
Titles from other languages	Article titles with {{another language}} are officially named, although in a language other than English. As per our naming policy, these pages should be moved to an official English title if found. See Category:Articles with titles from other languages
Orphaned pages	Articles that have no links from anywhere else: every article must be referenced and linked to from at least one other article. See Special:LonelyPages
Dead-end pages	Articles that have no links to anywhere else. Article subjects, such as games and characters, must be given at least one link on the article that they are mentioned. See Special:DeadendPages

Other maintenance

This section covers miscellaneous maintenance tasks which do not fit into the above sections.

Uncategorized categories	Category pages should be given a suitable parent category, which assists in navigating through different category levels. See Special:UncategorizedCategories
Uncategorized templates	All templates should appear within Category:Templates. See Special:UncategorizedTemplates
Double redirects	Redirects that lead to another redirect. They should be edited so they both redirect to the same target page. See Special:DoubleRedirects
Broken redirects	Redirects that lead to a nonexistent page. Articles should be created or redirect target changed to an existing page. If the broken redirect is not necessary, then it should be tagged with {{delete}}. See Special:BrokenRedirects

Administrative maintenance

Administrators (also named "admins" or "sysops") are promoted users who are given additional tools, which assist in maintaining the upkeep of the wiki. All admins have the ability to counter vandalism on the wiki by blocking troublesome editors, reverting detrimental edits by using the "rollback" feature, and hiding inappropriate edits if required. Administrators are also able to delete entire pages and images when necessary.

Regular users are also able to assist the admins in various ways. Unnecessary pages and images may be tagged with {{delete}} so it appears in the deletion category, which administrators frequently check.