Help:Mod Profiles

Please consider the following if you intend to create an article for a modification (mod):

The Valve Developer Community wiki, is a wiki

The main function of the VDC wiki is that of any wiki, intended to contain facts relevant to the developing community. While this may stretch to include listing reknowned third-party projects and mods that the community may already consider participating in or playing, it is not intended to contain personal or official pages for mods.

If you are looking for a page to house a mod, you should consider posting it in the Mod DataBase instead, because that's what that site is for.

People are allowed to alter your article

Note that (unless you write an article as a subpage of your own User page) what is written at the bottom of the editing window, goes for mod pages as well:

"Please note that all contributions to Valve Developer Community may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here."

Further, a wiki article is meant to contain a relevant summary using objective facts. Subjective words such as "awesome", "amazing", "cool" or "fun" does not adhere to wiki standards, and editors are meant to remove them.

Proof of concept

Like any wiki, articles about things that do not exist, or only exists in the mind of a few people, are not allowed, and will thus be flagged for deletion for lacking what is called a "proof of concept". Please be aware that there are many millions of active Steam users (and that's just on Steam) and most of these have had some kind of idea for a mod, so just declaring that you want to make a mod, is simply not noteworthy enough. It lies on you to provide proof that a mod is actually physically in the making, such as links to official sites or pages dedicated to the mod (such as ModDB pages), as well as screenshots of models and/or levels. Posting the mods "awesome" or thought-out storyline, or just assuring readers by writing that the work on the mod is doing well, is not enough.

If an editor can not find any sites listing the mod, or can get a hold of any screenshots for the mod, and can not tell whether the mod has ever existed, he should flag the article for deletion with the reason "Lacking proof of concept".

Checklist

So, before you write a mod article, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you have proof of concept? (Can you (through links or screenshots) prove that the mod is more than an idea or a plan?)
• Is the mod widely known? (Has it been posted as news on other sites such as Planet Half-Life?)
• Are you prepared to accept that the mod article will be edited according to wiki rules and policies?
• Is it written as an acknowledgement of the mod, or a promotion for the mod? (Does it contain subjective wording, or unnecessary details?)

Dead mods

Articles are not removed from the wiki just because the mod has died. The mods are instead flagged as dead in these articles.

A mod can be flagged as dead if there's cause to believe that development has ceased without a final or a near-final release. Apart from a project member declaring the mod to be dead (which should be quoted in the article to remove all doubt), lack of news or updates over a period of twelve months, or all sites housing the mod having been removed, are other valid reaons for declaring a mod dead.

Note that blanking (removing all contents of) a mod article, even if it is due to the death of that mod, and even if you are the author of that mod, is considered vandalism. Again, the VDC is a wiki, and the mod article is not your article.

Formatting a mod article

Aside from spellchecking the article, and not writing it as a promotion, a mod article should include a ModStatus Template that is as complete as possible. Note that this template automatically categorizes the article. Links to ModDB entries has their own template, called Moddb.