Help:Contributing

Thank you for your interest for wanting to contribute to the Roblox Legacy Docs project! Apologies for the short page here, we have a lot of work to do.

Discussion

If you would like to discuss anything about the project - pages we should take a look at, ideas for new articles and guides, etc. it's recommended to reach us at the ROBLOX Client Search Discord server. There is a forum post dedicated to discussion about the project, and all the editors are in it. You may also contact the site admin, realjame, directly.

Getting Started

Editing pages is exclusive to creating accounts, and account creation is private. Only realjame can create accounts for new editors. But don't worry! It's not at all a complicated process to get an editor account.

Contact us, preferably in the Discord server, about getting an account. It's extremely lax, and as long as you have some previous history or knowledge with old Roblox, you'll most likely get an account. If you were already active in the Client Search server, it's practically guaranteed.

Things To Do

There's always more work to do. Here's some quick links:

• Category:Unwritten_original_pages for new pages that are not yet written.
• Category:Lacks_media for pages without enough media (screenshots, diagrams, video recordings, etc.)
• Category:Low_quality_media for pages with low-quality media that should be replaced.
• Category:Needs_improvement for pages with low-quality writing (the topic is good, but the article should be rewritten to be more professional/readable/understandable/etc.)
• Category:Object_Needs_Description for objects in the API documentation lacking a description.
• Category:Unfinished_Object_Documentation for objects in the API documentation that are not fully documented.
• Category:Outdated_pages for pages that were either noticeably written before 2012 or partially write about the classic Roblox website or client.
• Category:Stubs for pages that have very little information and should be expanded.
• Special:Categories is a list of all categories/tags, so look through for any to-do categories not listed here.

Here are more useful quick links, for reference:

• Special:SpecialPages is a list of all special pages.
• Special:NewFiles is a gallery of all images and videos, check here for existing icons you can reuse.
• More reference links is to-do...

Page Standards

This section is somewhat to-do, but here are some things to keep in mind:

Information is circa-2012

As a knowledge base for working with old Roblox clients, 2012 has been selected as the cut-off year for information, for 2 reasons:

1. This Wiki was started from an archive in mid-2012, so all existing information is written in that era or previous. 2. It's a heavily debated topic, but 2012 is generally considered the cut-off year for "Old Roblox". While 2011/12 had appearance revamps and new features of their own, the appearance and gameplay still retains the classic energy started in 2006. Roblox gradually deviated away from that in the next 4 years.

No documentation of clients from future years may be written about on this wiki. In addition, articles noticably written in an earlier time must be corrected, this also includes screenshots taken in older Roblox versions. Please replace them with an equivalent screenshot taken in a mid-2012 client (on Novetus snapshots, 2012M).

Images must not be modern design

There are no plans or wishes by the editors to rework this wiki into a more modern, 2020s feeling website. We're keeping the look just the way it was in 2012. To that end, new images (primarily icons) must fit the style used in images uploaded by the original Wiki editors back then.

The best example of this is on the home page, with the original "Improvement Project" section. The icons look straight out of the 2012 wiki, being skeuomorphic with complex shading and texture, as seen with the magnifying glass icon and "new" icon.

There may be icons that resemble flat design, but they generally have a detailed design that does not fit with modern-day approaches, such as the checkmark.

Articles not to edit

Old user pages

Pages stored under original Roblox Wiki users are considered archived and shouldn't be edited. If they show up in categories, please avoid them. Generally, people stored articles under their account to show that it's a work-in-progress they're still writing. If you want to expand it and make it a real article, please fork it (copy the article and write it in a new non-user URL).

Archived pages

Speaking of archived pages, all pages with the "Archived" banner and/or in the Category:Archived_pages category shouldn't be edited in any way, except to further restore the article (by re-uploading missing images).

The only exception to these 2 rules is to replace external links with Wayback Machine archive links. Make sure to find an archive closest to when the article was last edited (check the history tab).

Editing Help

There are a lot of templates, categories, and more to consider.

The rest of this section is to-do, sadly, except for the tags.

Tags

Tags are important for alerting the reader about things that need to be done, or just a quality of the article itself (if it is archived).

Stub

Categorize pages as a stub when there is either little information on the page, or none at all. These pages need some love, so if you know what you are doing, then go ahead and try to expand them.

Stub This article is a stub. If you think you know more about this than we do, please help us by contacting a writer. Thank you!

Outdated

Pages marked with this are outdated for varying reasons:

• It reflects an older version of Roblox or is noticeably written before 2012.
• The article is partially about the Roblox website or client as of 2012, which no longer exists in that state.

In the first case, they must be rewritten to fit the "information is circa-2012" standard. In the second, the article must be edited to remove or rework any references to the Roblox website or client. Outdated pages are categorized in Category:Outdated_pages.

Outdated Page This article has outdated information. Please update this page to fit our current standards!

Archived

If an outdated article is solely dedicated to the Roblox website or client or is otherwise historically valuable, mark it as archived instead. It will be added to its own category.

Archived Page This article has outdated information. It is now archived, only kept for historical purposes. Generally, outdated articles write about how to use or interact with the Roblox website. The services and features as written at the time have been changed or removed by Roblox Corporation. External links may be substituted with a Wayback Machine archive link.

For clarity, the difference between an archived and an outdated page is like so:

• If the article is about the Groups feature on Roblox.com, it has to be archived. Groups were only a feature on the website, which doesn't exist as it did in 2012.
• If the article is a tutorial about [| how to build your place] and it mentions how to select Roblox's default maps, it should be marked as outdated, not archived. The topic of the article is good, because you can still use the old Roblox client via 3rd party launchers and build a place in Studio, simply remove the mention of that defunct feature.

Placeholder

For planned new articles that haven't been written yet. Feel free to take the initiative and start them, even a basic outline or a stub is good enough.

Placeholder This article is empty. We are still planning this article and what it will contain exactly! Sorry for the inconvenience.

Work in Progress

If a page is unfinished, let readers know by adding this tag to the start. It'll also add the page to [[:Category:WIP_Pages}}.

Work In Progress This is currently being worked on! Check back later for more information... hopefully.

Needs Improvement

To quote TCRF:

"Oh boy... Some articles look like they were made by people who have no idea how wikis work. At least they're trying to help out... right? Anyway, use this template, like so: {{Sucks|reason=The grammar... The image alignment... The poor jokes...}} to point out that this page needs a rewrite."

This page sucks. If you could make it suck less, that would be awesome. Specifically: Describe why it sucks.

Lacks Media

Pages should have media. Some examples of "media" are:

• Screenshots
• Diagrams
• Video recordings

If a page is lacking media, tag it as such. They'll be put in Category:Lacks_media.

Low Quality Media

A page's media may be considered "low quality" for several reasons:

• It is blurry.
• It is outdated (e.g a screenshot of a Windows XP menu or pre-2012 client).
• It is quite simply bad: poorly made and/or unhelpful.

Note: for improving a page's media, the | official Roblox Creator Documentation is a perfect example of this, and the quality we should strive for with our project.