Help:Cleaning

Occasionally you will come across a page with the template. What does this mean? Well, it means you need to do your part and clean up the damn page. But how?

=Cleaning up, part one =

First off, check for glaring grammatical and spelling mistakes. A few here and there do not constitute a bad page in need of cleanup, but when the entire page is peppered with them at every angle, it's a shit page. Cleaning up spelling errors should be easy, and so should grammatical ones if English is your native language.

Of course sometimes the bad spelling is part of the charm of the page, or even its purpose. Don't clean up pages like this.

Cleaning up, part two
Sometimes, in addition to spelling and grammar errors, there will be wiki syntax errors. For example, links to image files that don't show, stray ]]s and }}s where links and templates were erased, tables left unfinished, etc. The job for you here is to close brackets, add extensions, whatever it takes to fix these syntax errors and have the page look like it's supposed to.

Even then, the page may be lacking links to other pages, or it may have links to pages that don't exist. If you see a spot where a link to another page is appropriate; add it! If you see a red link to a page which doesn't exist, finish your editing and make the page when you're done.

And God forbid you should find a page that has no categories. If you do, use your common sense and add it to all the relevant categories so the page isn't impossible to find.

Cleaning up, part three
Sometimes the page is perfectly categorized, spell-checked, and written, but it also happens to be shit nonetheless.

Some pages purport to be funny but aren't. These pages need to be either reformed or completely rewritten with new content to make them acceptable. Shitty pages like these are often the hardest in cleaning up because the quality of the page is subjective to whomever is reading it. If you want to completely rewrite a page because it has a template, use good judgment and ask around to see if other people think it is bad too.

In serious pages, the problem may be that the information is completely unhelpful or inaccurate. Only clean up a serious page if you have the knowledge to correct it.

In addition, vandalism is pretty common on wikis. Cleaning up the work of the dirty vandals isn't too hard; simply go to a previous version of the page under "history" and make that the current page.

Cleaning up, part four
When all is said and done, and the page is glistening and glorious, simply delete the template on the top of the page and go on your way.