Help:How can I contribute?

This guide is only made with the assumption that you already own a verified account on Meijin VS.
If you don't have one to begin with, feel free to follow the steps in the "Getting started!" article.

Before you can afford to start anything, you will need approval from the administration. To check whether or not your game is suited for Meijin VS. to begin with, you can manually contact me, the spearhead of this wiki, on Discord.

Step 1: Criterias for Game Submission

Meijin VS. is a wiki that's first and foremost designed to archive the metagame of competitively niche/retro non-fighting games.

Titles that are considered to be obscure, unpopular, or obsoleted by newer entries will therefore all be counted as competitively niche titles.
On the other hand, games that are released before the 2010s, abandoned by their developers, or otherwise put in development limbo can be counted as retro.

Because "competitively niche/retro non-fighting games" does make for a somewhat specific description that leaves only some level of interpretation to begin with, one can infer that each title on the wiki must respect at least two of those three rules of thumb to be validated within the wiki, with those being:

• Is it actually niche?
  • By that, we really mean to ask if the game is only regularly played by a fanbase that is, at its largest, only a small, die-hard community.
• Is it competitively niche?
  • This can include games that are flat-out niche to begin with, much like in the former question, but...
  • That definition can also be stretched to games with a healthy playerbase that are only competitively played by a clearly small subset of said community.
  • A game that would fit the former description would be Mario Kart 64.
  • A game that would fit the latter description would be Team Fortress 2.
• Is it old enough to begin with?
  • Has it been released on severely outdated hardware or antiquated specifications?
  • Was the title released before the 2010s?

If a title respect at least two of those three simple rules, its submission should then be, by all means and practises, fair game, though it can still face rejection, based on whether the title respect these more flexible variables to a certain extent:

• Is the metagame properly documented and compiled?
  • This includes documents such as game data, in-engine labbing, numbers and strategy guides.
  • Factually incorrect data that's readily available online, or conflicting information about a game's mechanic can favour the inclusion of a title on the wiki to counteract misinformation.
• Does the title boast a competitive wiki already?
  • If that is the case, is said wiki properly archiving data for the game, or instead specialises in its competitive history while having a lesser focus on pure data compilation?
• Is the game prone to community misinformation?
  • This can include articles that were not properly fact-checked, as well as community content that relies on personal opinions instead of hard documentation to judge an impartial element of metagame.

If a title mostly abides to these additive variables as well, then it is likely that it can also be properly included into the wiki without obstructing with whatever documentation is made to be available in the first place, which should in that case, make the game's addition pretty smooth.

Step 2: Making a landing page

All pages follows a similar structure to their formatting:

• The usage of a game infobox to display the title's information.
• An opening text which describes the game in a synthetised form.
• A section dedicated to the game's roadmap. A list of the roadmaps for all the title's in the wiki can be checked here!
• A custom-made navbox. To see a list of all navboxes for reference, you can check it out there!
  • It's mandatory for easy navigation across different articles.
• Finally, add a category at the bottom of the page.
  • This will drastically help for sorting pages and documents alike!

Step 3: Making a character page

Building a first page for your game's character is tough work, but can be very resourceful when done right, as it effectively lays out the fundamentals for the rest of the cast!
While this structure doesn't have to be followed straight to the letter, and should in fact be somewhat deviated upon based on the kind of game you're working on, keep in mind however that this can make for a solid guideline that you can use as a point of reference for any character-related contribution you intend to create:

• Story/Profile/Background/Intro
  • Just some basic information about the character. Keep it simple if you can afford to, but refrain from just putting effortless descriptions into it.
  • Shitpost can be made acceptable if it is high-effort, and the character lacks proper background to begin with. Entertainment can aid in the delivery of information after all!
• Data
  • You can afford to make game-specific templates if needed, but for as a long as data compilation in a page is comprehensive to at least some extent, you should be gucci.
• Overview/Gameplan
  • This section is considered a must in a glaring majority of cases. It is primarily used to describe a character's playstyle, archetype, strengths/weaknesses and other tools that they can use to aid themselves in the heat of the action!
• Movelist
  • A list of moves or commands. These can be sorted upon a certain order, based on the key mechanics that the game may have.
  • For example, a character from a first-person shooter may have its moveset sorted by order from primary to melee, before going into universal inputs.
  • Meanwhile, a character from a racing game may instead just count its universal inputs as a "moveset", going from essentials to most situational.
• Loadout
  • In a game where members of the cast may have access to character-specific unlocks, it can be ideal to have a dedicated section to describe the subtleties of each modifiers.
• Videos
  • Links or embedded content can be used to showcase high-level gameplay of the character.
• External Links
  • Information that may be relevant to the character, which can, by chance, be found on platforms such as an online document, a social media or forum (to cite a few examples) can be documented here.

Step 4: Collect some feedback!

Always go out of your way to collect feedback...

Always!

After all, it's always very likely that in your effort for metagame archival, you did forget a point of data in a movelist, made a typo somewhere in your page, or even included points of information that were verifiably questionable at best!
Never forget that reworking on entire character pages because you missed that one thing can make for an incredibly frustrating experience.

So yeah, always double check the factuality of your information, always double check your formatting, always double check everything you can!
(Like, seriously. We strive for proper documentation here, after all!)

Step 5: Progress onwards!

Once you did finally manage to iron out your character page to the point that most would be absolutely fine with, feel free to then use that first character page you've made as a base structure for the following pages of the same kind. With that in mind, you can still take a few things into account forward:

• If you can afford to do so, transclude whatever your can.
  • For proper documentation, you can take a look at this page!
• Categories made for a specific character are not mandatory at all, but should be used for easier navigation.
  • This is especially applicable for characters that appears across multiple games within the wiki.
    

After you are done filling out the introductory work to your page, feel free to contact the staff to get your game added to the list of games under construction on the main page, as it is the place where you will find all titles in alphabetical order!
After a certain milestone is attained, a game can even be potentially added to the list of completed titles for higher visibility on staff's notice.

I hope this guide is resourceful enough! If there's any additional questions you need answers about, well, feel free to ask us about it!