User:AtteSmythe/Cleanup/How to clean

	This article is in the User: namespace, and is only one user's opinion.
	It should not be taken as official policy of any sort.

There are three stages to most cleanup projects:

1. Assessing the Article
2. Gathering Information
3. Performing the Cleanup

Assessing the Article

This stage is all about asking the right questions. Does the article need to be cleaned? Is it lacking in content, or in presentation? Is the content up-to-date? In this stage, we plan.

Gathering Information

Editing an article is easy. Most already have the information you need to get started - a pirate name and an ocean. After that, we have only a couple easy searches to do:

• In game
  Log in on an alt. Do a /who for the character. What crew and flag are they in? Read their public statements. Is the pirate a manager? A shopowner? Write it down.
• In Wiki
  • Search the wiki.
    The search box on the left is tricky. Type the pirate's name in, and click Search. Don't hit enter! That will just take you to the page you're trying to edit in the first place. The search button, though, will let you know if the pirate's name is on any other pages.
    • On the search result page, you'll see a bunch of selection boxes at the bottom. If you'd like to try for more hits, select the box to the left of "Art" and search again. This will repeat the search, but include any fanart or artistic contest entries the pirate may have made.
  • Page History.
    In the name of conforming to old policies, you may find that there is information that has been deleted from the page. That was never the intent of the policies, yet it was tempting when trying to prove the 'notability' of a pirate to remove any non-notable material. Go to a page's history, and click on the second date from the top. You'll now be looking at an old edit. There will be a link at the top to look at the edit before that, even. Go back all the way to the beginning, and see if there's any information there that's been lost.
• On Forums
  Search the forums! Many pirates use their pirate name as their login name. Go to the main forums and click search. You don't need a search term - just search by username.
  • If it gets results, great! You probably have the right person. Just skim over some posts to confirm.
  • If it doesn't get results, go back to the search form. Clear out the author searchbox, and just search for the pirate name. This may give you their real forum account name, and you can search from there.
  • Regardless, skim over posts that seem like they'd have good, juicy bits about the pirate's life. Parley and Mariner's muse are good for this, but don't forget the Bazaar. High-dollar items are remarkable.
• On Flag Forums
  • The Yellow Pages contain links to many flag forums. Google may find more. Give 'em a shot. Mine them for publicly-available information.

Performing the Cleanup

For technical bits, look at the other Cleanup Crew easy links. With regard to content, though, one rule is golden: Never delete information. If a pirate used to be a captain of one crew, but is now of another, don't simply change the crew name. Change "captain of Wondercrew" to "former captain of Wondercrew" and add the new information to the top of the list.

Information added to an article should be real, from a neutral point of view, and preferably verifiable. If you're editing for content, make that your primary concern, don't worry so much about formatting. If you're editing for formatting, try not to change the content much, unless you've done the research in step 2. If you're good at both, by all means, give that page a thorough scrubbing!