Fanlore:Portal
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Fanlore is a wiki for and by fans who create and consume fanworks such as fanfiction, fanart and vids, to record and document the culture and activities of their communities. Anyone may register for an account with Fanlore to begin editing and adding pages. Anonymous editing is disabled in order to prevent deceptive practices.
Fanlore is a project of the Organization for Transformative Works.
As of April 15, 2012, Fanlore has 19,218 articles which have undergone 362,225 edits by 7,310 registered users.
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Getting Started
This portal page is designed to help you get around as a new contributor. Welcome to Fanlore!
- The Sitemap will give you an overview of the scope and organization of Fanlore.
- You'll most probably need to read a bit about what Fanlore is and what it is not.
- The Intro to Fanlore FAQ page gives an overview of policies relevant to new users.
- To edit the wiki, you will need an account: Register on Fanlore. Then check out the New Editor? section below.
- To find pages on the wiki, use the search box, browse the categories listed on the sidebar, or have a peek at Help:Tips for Browsing Fanlore.
- To get help, check out the help pages or the FAQ page, or ask a gardener.
If you want to hang out with fellow Fanlore enthusiasts and contributors:
Fanlore Chat is OPEN
Fanlore has a permanently open chatroom! Hang out and chat while editing. Staffers are available for questions and chat also!
We've also added a News page and a social networking community at Dreamwidth, fanlore, where you can ask questions, receive updates, or just hang out with other editors and the fanlore committee.
When you're in an editing mood, you can browse the Fanlore wish list or Stubs category to find pages that need to be added to, and you can of course check the Recent Changes page to see if anything might jump out at you and demand your knowledge. Beware, it might be addictive.
More than anything, please ENJOY. Edit a page and add what you know -- what you have to contribute is valuable and appreciated. You really can't "do it wrong," and any niggles with formatting can be cleaned up later.
The Basics
- About Fanlore - in plain English, the basics of Fanlore; how it's run, who runs it, the principles behind it.
- Fanlore Policies - policies developed by the Fanlore Wiki Committee to guide the wiki into a reliable, rich body of knowledge and experience that's both easily accessible and editable. Please take a look at the PPOV policy especially.
New Visitor?
- The Sitemap will give you an overview of the scope and organization of Fanlore, and provide a launching pad for you to start browsing content. The main categories are also linked from the navigation sidebar, under "Browse Categories".
On a wiki, no page is ever "finished", but here are some examples of more fleshed-out articles:
Return Visitor?
- Recent Changes, as the name suggests, lists all the recent changes made to Fanlore, including edits, new pages, removed pages and so on. There you can see what's happened since you were here last.
- New Pages will weed out all the simple edits and show you a list of all the latest pages that have been created.
New Editor?
- Check out the Tutorial and follow the steps to create an account and start editing pages.
- To edit an existing page, just click the edit tab. Make sure you preview and save your changes.
- To start a new page, check out Help:Starting a new page.
- More help on using and editing Fanlore is available here. If you have questions, you can also post them to a talk page or to the dreamwidth community, or you can contact a Gardener.
Power Editor?
- You might also find it useful to find out how the Sitemap works in action if you're going to do some heavy-duty population.
- Browse the Stubs Category. These pages are marked as needing expansion or additional work.
- Tell us what you need in terms of admin or tech support on Fanlore:Bug Tracking. Old issues can also be found at Fanlore:Issues.
- Check the edits in Recent Changes and make any additions or edits that jump out at you.
Getting More Involved
Fanlore are always looking for editors with a bit more dedication to become Gardeners. Gardeners keep an eye on the edits being made to the wiki and offer both guidance to contributors and weeding & nurturing of information - making sure pages are fitting into the Sitemap, ensuring that wikilinks are included in text, occasionally rephrasing for clarity, creating redirects and so on.
Please contact us if you're interested in becoming a Gardener on Fanlore.

