Any player that has an active LOTRO game subscription will be able to edit the Lorebook. This includes adding and editing pages. Please remember that any edits you make must conform to Turbine's terms of service.
Official Game Information
The 'official game information' block at the top each page will remain uneditable by users. This information comes straight from the game data files and should not be edited. In the case of 'official' information that is incorrect (perhaps due to a game bug) or lacking in useful detail, user-created information can be appended to article after the <noedit> tags that surround the official section. However, the official section itself must always remain untouched. This allows players to know what comes right from the game and what is provided by the community.
When appending additional information to these pages, it is helpful to use existing player-created templates. For example, if you are appending information to the official game information about a skill, you should use Template:SkillInfo.
- Important - Do not plagiarize from other sites
- When appending additional detail (or any information), you must not steal other people's copyrighted information and graphics. If you have found useful information on another site, the safest course is to simply include a link to the information on that other site. If you prefer to copy that information into the Lorebook, you must first check that other site's copyright and fair use terms and comply with them.
General MediaWiki Help
MediaWiki uses its own form of markup for formatting of articles. While it is possible to use some limited HTML within articles, it's often desireable to use the MediaWiki markup syntax. This allows users who are less familiar with HTML to use a consistent syntax.
You can find more information on editing MediaWiki pages and the MediaWiki markup in the main MediaWiki help section.
Here are some specific articles that may be useful if you're just starting with the MediaWiki syntax:
- text formatting (Also see the Wikipedia article Help:Wikitext examples for more detailed examples.)
- hyperlinks
- using images in articles
- tables
- categorizing pages
Keeping Discussion pages readable requires certain etiquette and formatting conventions. A good source for information on this subject is the Wikipedia article Help:Talk page.
Templates
- If you are unsure how to use a template, edit an existing article that contains a template to see what portion of the template you should replace with your own information.
- To find a list of all existing templates:
- In the Toolbox, click Special Pages.
- In the list of special pages, click All pages.
- From the Namespace drop-down list, select Template.
- Click Go.
Custom XML Tags
To allow cross-referencing of information in pages, several custom XML tags are available. These tags can be used in the body of any article to provide information about an 'official' game entry. For more information on how to use these tags, see the Official XML Tags article.
Google Maps
You can add custom LOTRO Google maps to articles using the interactive map editor. For more information about adding custom maps, see the Editing Maps help article.
Images
The Lorebook does not allow posting of external images. Any external images will be displayed as a hyperlink to the image file. If you wish to display images within the Lorebook, you must first upload them using the 'Upload file' link in the Toolbox menu.
All images must have unique filenames. Be careful to not overwrite someone else's file if you chose the same name as a previously existing image.
NOTE: Because of our web caching for images, it may take a while for a modified image to be available. The old image will appear until the cache expires.
Search
The Lorebook has a comprehensive search tool. Just enter your search terms in the Search box to the left and click the "Search" button to view your results.
Namespaces
Each article in the Lorebook is assigned a namespace (the word or words preceding the colon in the article name) according to the type of entity it represents. For instance, articles about quests are in the "Quest:" namespace, while articles in the about traits are in the "Trait:" namespace.
For a full listing of namespaces and the articles they contain, the Lorebook has a list of all pages organized by namespace.
