Changing territory (Differently)

Note: For the sake of simplicity, the word "country" in this page refers to a sovereign state in the present-day Differently world. As such, none of this applies to dependencies and historical nations because changing them generally involves little work.

This page details the step-by-step process required for any change to the Differently timeline that would involve altering the current world map, that is, any change that would involve creating a new country, splitting an existing country, annexing an existing country into another one, or relocating land among existing countries. If the change is merely a change of the country's name, flag, form of government, etc. none of this applies either (but it of course also needs to be proposed first, and in the case of a flag change, the flag map needs to be edited - remember to keep its full resolution!)

Keep in mind that it can be a long, tiresome, and boring process. Do not expect it to be done with a few clicks, as it should take you from 30 minutes to 1 hour at the very least. Do not proceed if you are not at least moderately experienced in wiki editing, or before reading all steps first. All steps are very important and none should be skipped unless otherwise stated. If you have any trouble, ask the community for help.

Step 1: Get approval on your change in the Discord server. Your proposal, be it a new country, the removal of a country, the splitting of a country, or simply the relocation of land between two or more neighboring countries, needs to be approved by your fellow editors first. If no clear consensus is reached, a vote may be called. Only proceed to the following step when you are sure that most of the community has approved your proposal.

Step 2: Create an article for your country. If your change does not involve the creation of one or more new countries, ignore this step. If it does, remember that the page should contain basic info such as the country's common name, official name, capital, demonym and spoken languages in both the text and the infobox (and the infobox should be NationBoxDifferently). A flag is also required for reasons that will be clear later. The text should also mention the continent(s) it belongs to and its bordering countries/bodies of water so that we can know where it is located. Any further info (map, form of government, coat of arms, anthem, history etc.) is not required at this point. Remember to place the correct categories and the Differently Portal template at the bottom of the article. Also, the page needs to have a proposal template at this stage.

Step 3: Calculate and apply all area and population changes. If you haven't done this already, you should calculate how the area and population of all involved countries will change; this often affects neighboring countries, so be careful. In the case of one or more new countries being added, you should obviously estimate those new countries' area and population as well. Once you're done, apply those changes by editing each country's respective article (area and population are informed in both the lead paragraph and infobox of every country's article). Remember that the area in the infobox must be in square kilometers (km²) without commas or spaces, otherwise the template will display an error. The result will automatically add commas and display the square miles equivalent.

Step 4: Properly format the flag's name. Again, if there are no new countries, ignore this step. For the flag miniatures to work correctly (which will be required in the next step), there must be a page named "[country name] flag Differently.png". It can be either the flag file itself or a redirect to another file with a different name. Examples: File:Madras flag Differently.png directly contains the flag, while File:Ganges flag Differently.png redirects to File:Flag1535DelhiRaj.png.

Step 5: Rearrange area and population rankings. Go to our area and population rankings. Change the area and population of all countries affected (in both world and continent rankings) and add the new ones if there are any. Afterwards, rearrange the entire ranking to accommodate the changes (again, both world and continent rankings). Countries should go up or down depending on their new positions.

Step 6: Change every country's lead paragraph and infobox to reflect its new rank. This is the most long, repetitive, and tedious step, but must be done nevertheless. Every country's population and area ranks (both world and continent!) are stated in their lead paragraph; for example, the article Italy states that it is "the tenth-largest country in Europe and the 78th-largest in the world", and "the fourth-most populous country in Europe and the 27th in the world". All these values in all countries' lead paragraphs and infoboxes should be changed to reflect the ranking updates. This will take long so be patient and be careful to avoid mistakes.

Step 7: If there are new countries, add them to all other country lists. You have already edited population and area lists, but there are also several other lists to update. Those include:

List of nations
Detailed list of nations
List of countries by population density
List of countries by form of government
List of states by date of formation
League of Nations (contains a list of all the world's countries)
Any other possible lists, such as regional lists

Step 8: Edit the world maps to accommodate the territory changes. First things first, make sure you are editing the maps in full (original) resolution, not in preview resolution; the full resolution for maps is normally around 1,425 × 625 pixels, while the preview resolution is 800 × 352 pixels (and is the standard resolution when you click the file; alternative resolutions are available below the file). The first maps that need to be altered are the political map and the blank map.

Once those are done, you need to edit the following world maps to accommodate the territory changes. If there are new countries, you should color them accordingly (if you are not sure yet, leave them in gray). You can copy the affected area from the blank map, paste into each of these other maps, then adjust the colors (alternatively, you can use the blank map as a basis to re-do each map):

Step 9: Edit the flag map. Edit our flag map in full resolution to reflect the territorial changes, including any new countries, with their respective flags added. You should either be able to edit it yourself or have it done by someone else.

Step 10: Edit the historical maps if needed. If there are any historical changes, apply them to the historical maps as well.

Step 11: Perform any other required edits. If there are any additional things that should be done to update the timeline, do so.

Step 12: Complete the creation of the new nation(s). If there are any new countries, you are finally free to edit and expand their articles.