User blog:SlyCooperFan1/Acepedia Update: Explanation & the path forward

It's been a while since we've had an official updates blog post, aces! Things have been in the works in the background for a couple of months on changing things such as aircraft article formats, game articles, infoboxes, references, and the like. A lot has changed, and a lot will continue to change. But I think we're at a point where we can talk about these changes and figure out where we are and where we're going, especially with the rules of this site going forward.

Before I do that, I want to extend a formal apology for my lack of progress (or at least, visible progress) over the past couple of months. After I became an admin, I put in motion some very important changes, and I did so in a quick-fire manner, getting rid of most of the outer problems that plagued the wiki - most importantly the themes and Main Page - before concentrating on our wiki's content. However, my personal life got in the way in mid-December.

Without divulging too many details... I've not been in the best state of mind. In a mental aspect, I think I'm weaker than I've ever been. Because of that, I've been taking time to concentrate on other things as well as Acepedia to try and get my mind off of what's been annoying me. But that led to a decrease in updates on here. I know I probably shouldn't be apologizing for something that isn't exactly my fault - we all get into a bad mental funk from time to time - but I profusely apologize. The best course of action I should have taken was to lay low for a while when everything got crazy and leave the wiki to Proto, Koveras, Yellow 94, and Infinity 1 (our only other active administrators) while I sorted everything out. But I didn't. So I apologize, to both the other admins and to the members.

Things are set in motion now, however, and I'm more focused and more healthy. I'm bringing back my quick-fire updates and getting Acepedia back onto the path to the future. The only problem facing us now is that there's a lot to cover. But let's take it all one-by-one. I trust you guys in helping all of us make this the greatest encyclopedic source of Ace Combat information on the web!

The following sections are planned updates that are coming very soon to Acepedia. I'm working on all of them, and one-by-one I will make a new Acepedia Updates blog post detailing a completed update. Click here to get email notifications of new Acepedia Updates blog posts, or click here to follow our Twitter account, or click here to follow our Google+ page. (If you want a Facebook page as well, leave a comment saying so and I'll make one!)

Editing Guidelines
The site's general guidelines, specifically on editing as well, haven't been updated in forever. New editing guidelines will be put in place so that everyone knows exactly how they're supposed to be performing their edits to pages.

For example, two new guidelines that will be put into effect are as follows:
 * You MUST have an edit summary for all of your edits, and it MUST reflect what you changed. Otherwise, your edit will be counted as spam. (Proto, I'm looking at you! No more "...")
 * Categories will no longer use shorthand, such as "Category:Ace Combat 04". It will be the full game's name from now on, such as "Category:Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies".

More guidelines will be added in the very near future. These are just two of the ones I'm planning to implement.

Article Formats
We've been in need of a "default article format" for some of our articles such as aircraft for a while. To that effect, we are currently discussing (and finalizing!) plans for an article format for aircraft. Next up will be missions and operations, and after that... well, we'll see!

Photos
There are still 5,483 photos uploaded to Acepedia, and about 5,000 of them are unsourced/uncredited/duplicates/from real life/low quality/some other problem. There are some important guidelines that are going to be implemented very, VERY soon for photos:


 * All file uploads will have to use a new template as well as copyright notices to clearly denote what they are, where they came from, and what their copyright status is.
 * Duplicates are going to be deleted. The criteria for which one is going to be saved is the upload date; the earliest photo will be saved while the later photo(s) will be deleted. If one of the deleted photos was higher quality, then the earliest photo will be replaced. Higher-quality uploads of previously-existing files should replace those files, not be uploaded by themselves.
 * The only exception to this is the extension of the files. No uppercase extensions will be allowed; they will be renamed to lowercase.
 * More coming soon!

Canon
There seems to be some disconnect on what is considered canon. These are my proposed rules for what constitutes canon information (but these are open to debate, and might warrant an official discussion soon):


 * Ace Combat Advance and Ace Combat: Northern Wings are not considered canon.
 * Information of a later game overwrites that of a previous game. Best example: Information from Ace Combat 2 is no longer canon if it conflicts with information from Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy.
 * Information from published media that conflicts with in-game details should be taken on a case-by-case basis; use your best judgment.

Infoboxes
The infobox style has been finalized, it appears, and can be seen, for example, at Template:Conflict. This style will be used for all infoboxes going forward.

Anything else?
PLEASE, please respond to this blog post with your thoughts, concerns, questions, comments, rantings, anything! I'm all ears, I want to hear, and I want to know. There's a lot going on with Acepedia, a lot we have to do, and it's time for us to do it, so please, tell me anything you want to. :)