Editorial Guidelines (Knightfall)

These are the editorial guidelines for the Knightfall ATL. That being said, make sure to read and familiarize yourself with these rules before making any edits/adding new pages to the timeline.

Canon
Canon articles are articles accepted as a part of the Knightfall timeline by members of the community. Canon articles must be plausible, logical, and an accepted part of the lore. Before an article is canon, it should be marked with the Knightfall proposal template. To graduate an article to canon, you must bring it to the attention of the contributors at Talk:Knightfall, which is the discussion page for the ATL.

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 (Knightfall). It is also helpful to add a note about your new page to the bottom of Talk:Knightfall.

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:Knightfall. If nobody raises any objections to your page, you can remove the Proposal tag after a certain amount of time - we have started to call this process "graduation". After that, the page will be considered a part of the Doomsday canon.

Important note: the fact that a page or idea has been accepted/graduated does NOT mean that it is "finished". All of Knightfall's pages are undergoing constant updates and expansion. The graduation process simply means that what has been written - the essentials of the idea - are part of the TL'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 Talk:Knightfall 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 at Talk:Knightfall. 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 ATL 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.

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 for three months, 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.

Another way to adopt an article is to find one with the adoption banner and remove, thus making you the new caretaker. But remember, RESPECT CANON!