44 Cats Wiki

What you can do to help is to get some photos of some side characters that don't have good photos yet (such as Lola), check for any missing details about the characters, fix infoboxes and add infoboxes where they're needed, create new pages for characters that don't have any, proofread any page that has blatant grammatical mistakes like improper capitalization or misspelled words, and overall try to keep the articles consistent, detailed, and well-written. It's okay if writing's not your strong suit, though. I (or other members of the community) can help keep the writing consistent. Signs of bad writing include but are not limited to:

1. Redundant statements. If it says something like 'Milady is a gymnist who performs gymnastics', change it to 'Milady is a gymnist' because her being a gymnist would imply that she does gymnastics, thus making it unnecessary to say that she does gymnastics when it's said that she's a gymnist. Also, try to avoid repeating things where possible. If you can put that Milady is affiliated with the Buffycats in the Infobox, it's not necessary to say she's in the Buffycats anywhere else. One exception is for the Appearance section of an article. You can repeat things like eye color and height from the InfoBox for the sake of describing their appearance in detail, but not TOO MUCH detail. See the next point about 'excessive detail'.

2. Excessive detail. If it says something like 'Milady plays chords on her bass', it's probably improper writing style for a wiki, but there may be certain exceptions depending on the context. WARNING: WHAT I'M GOING TO USE AS EXAMPLES ARE NOT CONFIRMED IN THE SHOW, DO NOT ADD THE EXAMPLES I'M USING TO THE ARTICLES BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST EXAMPLES AND ARE NOT THINGS THAT NEED TO BE ADDED BECAUSE THEY DO NOT EXIST IN 44 CATS. I USE THE WORD HYPOTHETICALLY A FEW TIMES TO EMPHASIZE THAT THESE THINGS I SAY ARE NOT CONFIRMED TO EXIST IN 44 CATS. HYPOTHETICALLY MEANS 'IN THEORY', OR 'IF THESE FACTS DID EXIST - WHICH THEY DON'T BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST EXAMPLES - THEN THEY'D BE GOOD EDITS FOR THE ARTICLES'. THE ONLY TRUE STATEMENT IS THAT MILADY PLAYS BASS FOR THE BUFFYCATS, NOTHING SPECIFIC IS SAID ABOUT THE STYLE IN WHICH SHE PLAYS THE BASS. ALL WE KNOW IS THAT BUFFYCATS PREFER TO PLAY ROCK, BUT NOTHING IS SAID ABOUT MILADY'S BASS IN PARTICULAR. For example: if you're talking about Milady's hobbies under the 'Personality' section, it should (hypothetically) say 'Milady plays the bass for the Buffycats' rather than 'Milady plays pentatonic scales on her bass that she performs with in the Buffycats'. But in a very specific context, it (hypothetically) might be okay to add such detail. Here's an example: in a trivia bulletin point on Milady's page, you could (hypothetically) say 'Milady prefers to play major chords on her (specific model here) of bass' to give implications about the style of music that she plays. But even then, it'd probably be unnecessary flavor text, unless it serves an important role in defining her personality or serving as something important in the plot. If what you're wanting to say in a sentence could be removed and it wouldn't take away important details from the page, then consider whether or not it's necessary to be there, and remove that detail if it's not necessary. It can be hard for some to tell what too much detail is, so it might be a good idea to look up the 'precise, concise, and consistent' rule used by the SAT. In a nutshell: if your edit makes the article contain nearly as many words as this comment, you're probably writing either too much unimportant detail or your writing style is redundant. (I wrote this comment with excessive detail to make sure you're not too confused. Normal articles on this wiki should be far more concise.)

3. Bad grammar.

3a. Redundant Sentences. Sentences should breathe. They should be spaced out properly so that people can comprehend a certain set of ideas at a proper pace. Redundant sentence: "Milady wears pink glasses and an undersized shirt and she plays bass for Buffycats." Proper sentences: "Milady wears pink glasses and an undersized shirt. She plays bass for Buffycats."

3b. Syntax Errors. This is somewhat subjective, but here's my take on it. Add two left brackets before a hyperlink. A hyperlink should be used for: the first time a character in mentioned in their respective article and ONLY the first time they're mentioned (bracketbracketMilady is a cat in 44 Cats. She is the bassist of Buffycats. Milady enjoys the presence of her friends), sourcing information from outside sources (Fancey Dancey's design is based off of bracketbracket Wikipedia Link To Christmas Elves; there is a slight glitch where if you put a Wikipedia link in brackets there won't be a title so go to edit, click the button that has 3 parallel vertical lines [three sideways lines in a row], click 'Source Editor' from the drop-down menu [it has two bracket symbols to the left of it], look for your Wikipedia link between the brackets, then press the space key one time and add what you want to hyperlink to say [like if you want to link to a wikipedia page about ducks, you might want to write the wikipedia link to ducks then press the space key once and write out 'duck' before the clothing bracket]), when a character (or some other page on the wiki like the Boom-Boom Steppers, 44 Cats itself, or an episode of the show) BESIDES the character the page is about (don't hyperlink Milady's name in the part of the infobox that says what her name is) are mentioned in the infobox, the first time a character BESIDES the character the page is about is mentioned (bracketbracket Milady is a white cat in bracketbracket 44 Cats. She is friends with bracketbracket Meatball and is a part of the bracketbracket Buffycats. Infobox: Name: Milady Marital Status: Dating: bracketbracket Lampo Died: bracketbracket Pilou the Kitten Sitter), and the first time a non-character page is mentioned in the article (bracketbracket Meatball is an orange cat who's constantly hungry. In bracketbracket Pilou Saves Bob-Omb Battlefield, he can be seen eating Reese's Puffs). Other syntax errors include but are not limited to: improperly-placed images outside of an infobox, infoboxes not at the start of the article (you can check this with the source editor; if the infobox code is not at the beginning of the article before the introduction line, it is improperly placed), links to the BuffyCats page instead of the Buffycats page (BuffyCats redirects to Buffycats but hyperlinks SHOULD go to Buffycats rather than BuffyCats), two spaces where one should be, misspellings, and anything else that makes the articles inconsistent.

3c. Punctuation errors. This is stuff you gotta learn from other guides, as they'd explain it better than I can. Try to make sure you're using apostrophes, periods, parantheses, brackets, and other punctuation correct. Periods go OUTSIDE of the parentheses when the parentheses are in a sentence, but they go INSIDE the parentheses when the parantheses are not attached to a sentence. Brackets go inside parantheses. How to use parantheses are for things that aren't important to the first statement but are details you want to add, like "I saw her standing by the water (the way she stood made her look like she had bad posture). (The water was blue [but didn't flow].) She stood there to scoop up the water in a bucket." But like I said with excessive details earlier: it's probably not necessary here. The writing here is supposed to be more encyclopedic than it is personal. That means you should keep things precise, concise, and consistent rather than with as much detail as you can possibly add.

3d. General bad grammar. The easy ones to spot are things like punctuation and misspellings. The harder ones to spot can be things like improper writing style ('Pilou is a sweet kitten with an aggressive side to her. She is loyal to her friends.' instead of 'Sweetness embelishes Pilou with its milky embrace, but greater still, aggression fiendishly overtakes this feline in a whim. Pilou oozes loyalty from her neurological receptors in preparation for the receivance of it from her dearest friends.') and concepts not brushed over too much like perfect present participle and standard present tense ('It was said by the creators that Lampo will become an astronaut' instead of 'It has been said by the creators that Lampo will become an astronaut') but possibly some proofreaders will come along and fix these errors as they come along.

All of this stuff is subjective, which means different people will see it differently. But here's a general guide to some standards we can set to keep this Wiki consistent, concise, precise, accurate, and easier-to-understand for readers. There are of course other things that can be done, like promoting the wiki to communities where people would be willing to help out, reaching out to 44 Cats' staff (depending on their willingness to comply with the encyclopedic archival of information) or the episodes to verify some information, and possibly bringing in new moderators if things like vandalism become more persistent, but I'd say making good edits that help keep the Wiki professional are a positive thing. In the case of vandalism, their edits can be easily undone and administators can choose to ban, warn, or otherwise deal with the vandals. Or lock pages only for certain people to be authorized to edit (and things others would want to contribute, they would have to comment what they want to edit and any relevant evidence, but since this site doesn't have a talk page like Wikipedia, we'd have to rely on the comments section).