Editorial Guidelines (Yellowstone: 1936)

These are the editorial guidelines for the Yellowstone: 1936 community timeline. Please familiarize yourself with these rules before editing this timeline. Because of the vast universe that Yellowstone: 1936 takes place in, it is important to maintain continuity and article quality by using a simple editorial guidelines system.

Canon
Once an article is approved by the community, it is noted as canon. All pages that have no major continuity issues are automatically elevated to this status.

Canon means that the article in question is plausible, logical, and an accepted part of the YS lore. It is deemed appropriate, and fits nicely into the YS universe. Once an article is canon, proposals must follow its already established lore, not the other way around.

For further understanding of the idea of canon, proposals, and probability read QSS and QAA. It is also recommended that you familiarize yourself with the timeline so you have an idea for the current canon.

Proposals
When you create something new, it should be tagged as a proposal. This is done by adding   to the top of the page. This adds the article to Category:Proposals (Yellowstone: 1936). It is also helpful to add a note about your new page to the bottom of list of proposals on the talk page.

Tagging the page as a proposal indicates that the entire group has not yet had a chance to discuss, debate, and possibly recommend changes to it. If you feel your article is ready to be recognized as canon, then say so on talk page. If nobody raises any objections to your page, you can remove the Proposal tag after a certain amount of time. After this your article will officially be considered "graduated" and a part of the YS canon.

Important note: the fact that a page or idea has been accepted/graduated does NOT mean that it is "finished". All of Yellostone's pages are undergoing constant updates and expansion. The graduation process simply means that what has been written, the essential or fundamental elements of the idea, are part of the timeline's canon.

Obsolete
Sometimes, articles are not graduated into canon. This is because they either contradict canon or are too implausible to be a part of the timeline, and no one (neither the article's original creator or another editor) is willing to revise the article. To prevent these articles from remaining proposals forever, we have developed a procedure to archive them in case someone wishes to revise them in the future. In the list of proposals someone moves to mark the article as obsolete. If this passes the   template is added to the top of the article and all reference to the article is removed from the timeline. In case anyone wishes to revise the article, the only thing they have to do is add the proposal template to the article again.

Review
Sometimes, articles are graduated into canon even though they contradict current canon or are improbable. We have a procedure for dealing with that as well. If you feel an article should not be in canon, mark it with the   template and give your reasons why on the article's talk page and on the timeline talk page. If consensus is that you are correct, the article will need to be changed in order to remain in canon. If it is changed the proposal template is removed once someone moves to graduate it back into canon. If the article is not changed in 30 days, the article will be marked as obsolete. If consensus is that you are wrong, however, the proposal template will be removed without having to change the article.

Plausibility
Please try to keep things to a plausible level. Despite changes in the timeline from ours, the real world works in the same way in this alternate timeline as it does in OTL. Generally, things that couldn't possibly happen in our timeline shouldn't happen in this one. Please do not insert aliens, magic or supernatural elements, as this ATL is already quite fictional on its own. Also remember that even if certain things are possible for people or nations, they should remain at least somewhat practical and achievable for them to have it happen. Unlikely but possible things can be allowed, as long as there is a good explanation as for why it happened over a more likely thing or outcome.

Hometowns
Furthermore, the purpose of Yellowstone: 1936 is not to transform your hometown into the bright center of civilization. Chances are that the place you live is no better or worse off than its immediate neighbors. Keep that in mind if you ever try to develop a nation that encompasses your hometown.

Time Frame
This ATL is intended to be a "current" or "Parallel" ATL where everything happens within the same time frame like OTL. So please avoid future history apart from short-term (like scheduled sport events,elections etc). However, feel free to fill in any historical gaps between 1936 and the present day.

Adopting articles
Sometimes, real life causes editors to go missing, leaving their articles with no one to update them. Due to the nature of the timeline, its unrealistic to allow articles to remain unchanged while the history of this world marches on. So, if an editor has been missing, or has no intention of adding to their articles, another editor can adopt his articles. We ask that the adopting editor make an attempt to contact the missing editor by leaving a message on his or her talk page. If the missing editor does not respond in one week, the adopting editor can safely become the new caretaker of the article in question.

Some Tips
Some tips to help you in your editing:


 * The American Midwest was very badly damaged by the Yellowstone Eruption, so it is unlikely that any state could possibly form there. Avoid the area just east of the west coast and west of the Mississippi entirely.
 * Small self-sufficient, independent communities are more likely to rise in damaged nations then large, complex nation-states.
 * Lack of mention to a certain nation does not necessary mean that it does not exist. Remember that there are likely several small African and Asian nations that have survived, and are just waiting for someone to write about them.
 * If you are going to use a historical figure, make sure to research where he or she was in 1936 because he or she may be dead or stranded in a place where you don't want them. At the same time, this kind of research can get historical figures into interesting and unexpected situations.
 * SLOW DOWN! Rome was not built in a day and neither is any of the nations that grew out of the post-eurption world. It is very unlikely that a struggling survivor community can become a world class "empire" in just over 2 decades.
 * This is NOT the CIA World Factbook. Feel free to write articles besides nation profiles.