How to Help¶
You want to help us? Awesome! We’re open to contributions!!!
Currently, the Wiki is quite empty and needs a lot of content written for it, and even the content already written will naturally require gradual improvements and updating as time passes and the Mineclonia team releases new updates.
This Wiki uses Sphinx to generate the website statically. Pages are written in MyST, or “Markedly Structured Text”, which is a Markdown (CommonMark) flavor that has more advanced syntax for documentation websites such as this one. See the Markdown Reference if this is the first time you’re hearing about Markdown. Otherwise, it should be very easy, as MyST is a strict superset of Markdown, meaning you can write formatted text in classic Markdown and it will show up just fine.
Before contributing, please read the Content guidelines. To quickly summarize:
No AI-generated contributions, but using AI for proof-reading/translation is allowed;
Document differences from Minecraft, not everything that’s in Mineclonia and not temporarily missing features;
Don’t make opinionated claims in articles, write from a neutral standpoint;
Use a tutorial-oriented style for how-to’s, and an encyclopedic style for other articles;
Format your MyST/Markdown consistently with the rest of the Wiki, only breaking lines for paragraphs.
To look at your changes live in your local copy, see Building locally.
Directives¶
Sphinx MCL Theme adds a lot of its own built-in directives for game UIs (inventory slots, crafting tables), menu-like layout, infoboxes, gallery grids and more. On top of those, the Wiki uses Sphinx Design, which adds generic badges, grids and clickable cards. Read the linked documentation pages whenever you’re lost and reference the markup of existing articles for examples.
Editing articles¶
To start, you’ll have to sign up on Codeberg (the same Git hosting platform that Mineclonia uses) if you don’t have an account there already.
If you know how to use Git, fork the wiki repo, create a separate branch for your changes, make them, commit them, and submit a pull request.
If you don’t, don’t worry, as Codeberg provides a handy Web UI for contributions.
Fork the repo, and then browse it online under
Code until you find the files you want to edit. From there, locate the
Edit file button and click or tap on it. An editor will open where you can make the changes you want to make.
Once you’re done, give your changes a title under
Commit changes. Make sure the option to Create a new branch for this commit and start a pull request is enabled.
Click or tap the Propose file change button.
The typical pull request creation menu will open; click or tap New pull request.
Leave a more detailed comment explaining your change under Leave a comment if necessary; click or tap Create pull request.
For a single change, that should be it! Wait for a reviewer to check it. If you have additional related changes to make:
Navigate back to your fork’s file tree (under
Code). Locate the branch selector on the left-hand side (with the
icon) and click or tap it. Select the branch that just got created for your pull request (something like
username-patch-1).Same way as before, find the file(s) you wanted to edit and repeat the process described above in steps 2-4.
Make sure this time the option to
Commit directly to the … branch is selected. Click or tap the Propose file change button.
Unless there are spelling/grammar/punctuation errors or obvious vandalism, your changes will be merged soon (especially compared to contributing to Mineclonia-the-game), as it is repo policy not to bikeshed and prefer additional contributions over excessive nitpicking.
Making new articles¶
Warning
This section is unfinished.
This section could benefit from step-by-step instructions for Forgejo GUI users, similar to ones under Editing articles. Once it’s finalized, this note should be removed.
Same Codeberg account requirement applies here, of course, but the process is obviously different from editing existing articles.
Think of what your new article should cover and where it should go.
If it’s an introduction to Mineclonia for players of a specific game, it goes into Intros (
docs/intros/);If it talks about something external from the outside, e.g. describes a neighboring project, it goes into Meta (
docs/meta/);If its goal is to give an overview or explain an aspect of playing Mineclonia, it goes into Guides (
docs/guides/);If it describes content that is exclusive or unique to Mineclonia compared to Minecraft, it goes into Exclusives (
docs/exclusives/);If it’s about player-made structures, farms, mechanical contraptions, it goes into Builds (
docs/builds/);If it’s a technical article about Mineclonia’s internals and code, it goes into the Nerds’ Corner (
docs/nerds);If it’s intended to be an interactive calculator or a widget for Mineclonia, scroll down to the Making Wiki tools section.
Make sure you’ve read and understood the Content guidelines.
Get yourself comfortable and well hydrated, open your favorite text editor, and write.
The process for turning your article into a pull request is very similar to editing existing ones; the biggest difference is that you have to upload the file in its rightful place via Git or by clicking/tapping Add file and then Upload file in the file tree menu of your fork, making sure your target branch is selected.
Making Wiki tools¶
Warning
This section is unfinished.
Once this section is finalized, this note should be removed.
Wiki tools are implemented as regular articles under docs/tools/, where a single article may group multiple related tools together. Each tool consists of an HTML widget isolated in a div and a JavaScript block that reacts to events within it, placed in a script tag and wrapped in an IIFE to avoid naming conflicts. See MC mapgen tools and its source code for an example.
Translating articles¶
At this moment, the Wiki only accepts contributions in English. Non-English speakers are recommended to use online translators and browser extensions or features to read the material published on the Wiki. However, Sphinx does support translating pages and UI elements into different languages, and once the Wiki grows enough “meat” in terms of usable content, it’s planned to also start supporting translations of existing articles.