Project: Strat Update

Update: 25th Nov, LP Help Page online
Liquipedia Tutorial now: User:GeckoXp/Strategy

Update: 26th Nov, Chef made a Strat Guide Collection!
Check out the shit and expand: Chef's Collection in the Forums

Update: 10th Dec, T Guides
Cryoc added two updated Terran Guides:

• Fake Fake Double (vs. Protoss)
  
• 4 Barracks Sunken Break Build
  

Update: 12th Dec, Build Order Tables
HP.Shell added new category: Category:Missing games ; if something misses, go for it!

Update: 26th Nov. - 16th Dec, Build Order Tables
HP.Shell updated most of the Build Orders -> new tables

Update: 16th Dec, PvZ Build Draft
I finished a draft how the PvZ Strat Portal could look like: User:GeckoXp/PVZBuilds

For some time now a lot of different users, beginners and experienced players alike, argued about the currently documented strategy resources of this page. Apparently a lot of the sticked threads and Liquipedia I articles are not up to date. While some of the advice given is timeless, especially builds and mechanics drastically changed. Hence this project. Help updating it. You really should, if you care about Brood War, as we desperately need new players. The easier new players can enter the game, the more chances we have to keep a healthy community.

      How to Contribute: Beginners, No-Time-People

Let's see this topic as more than a simple discussion. The point is, everyone can help, regardless of experience or rank. Even and especially beginners might give some insights regulars miss.

      I'm a beginner

If you're a beginner, you can share your experiences. You can post here by answering the following questions:

• Did you find help easily?
  
• Was there misleading advice?
  
• Did you find the resources in time?
  
• What could be done better?
  
• Was the information too basic or too specific?
  

Keep in mind we're talking either about the strategy forum sticked threads or the strategy sections on Liquipedia.



      I don't have a lot of time

If you already or actively read strategy articles on Liquipedia, you most likely already found broken or halfway filled articles like Zerg Counter to 14 CC. Let's show with this example what you can do without having to spend more than three minutes of your time. Log in on Liquipedia, click the EDIT tab and enter one of these:

• {{Strategy-stub}} -> tells us there's information missing (so we can expand it)
  
• {{cleanup}} -> it's written in horrible English (you don't understand the sentences at all, because some drunk Russian wrote it while fighting a bear)
  
• {{evidence}} -> if the article suggests that a lot of forum articles discussed the strategy/build, but nothing is linked
  
• {{delete}} -> if the article makes no sense whatsoever; be careful though, this won't happen too often. The only example I could come up with, would be an article how to open with a 5 Pool on Island maps
  

This is already a tremendous help!

      How to Contribute: People with more time

That's best. Let's assume you have time and motivation, but little to no idea where to start. There are a few things to help out the TL.net crew and Liquipedia.



      Strategy Forum

Re-read the recommended Guide sticky. Go through them, post here what you find still good advice, post here if you think something is missing. It's fairly easy, even beginners can help with that.

Also, some of the guides listed in the sticky often have a really good OP and even more helpful posts later on. You could write a short summary for the OP and give links to the posts, so a beginner doesn't have to read a one year old post with 40 pages to only find help in the OP and three other posts. This could look a bit like this (it's a fairly silly example):

Recommended Guide TL;DR

Very good collection of strategy tutorials. Raning from beginner's level to expert wisdom.
Helpful Posts in the thread:

• Chill promising to update the thread in 2007
  
• Equinox_kr cheering for Chill
  

Note: you get links to a post by pressing the "#" symbol on top of the post you want to link. The new url can be copy/pasted from the browser search bar thing.

Futhermore, you can scout the strat forum in between today and 2009 for good guides, which aren't in already.

Also, if you're experienced, you could write an article yourself. Just like Nina's ZvP Guide.


      Liquipedia

Let's start with the idea that you have no idea how to edit Liquipedia. The first step is quite easy. Log-in on Liquipedia. Hooray, you can do work.

A somewhat helpful approach would be to randomly read over existing articles and correct the spelling and typos. You can add the templates listed in the short paragraph for people without time. That's already some help.

Some articles have exemplary VODs linked. Some of these VODs are entries from the TLPD. Click the links and check if the correct VOD is indeed linked. Usually it's not. At least in some cases. If you find a broken VOD link, find the right VOD and replace the existing link with the correct one.

If you find utter bullshit on an Liquipedia article, which might be the case, thanks to the vandalizing edits done by Shade, feel free to erase the information and replace with a better explanation. As this only needs text-input the editing shouldn't be too hard.

If you find utter bullshit and you're not entirely sure if you're correct or not, click the Discussion Tab instead of the Edit Tab and comment on the article. Explain what you think is wrong, paste URLs to forum discussions or VODs if you have any. Add "--~~~~" at the end of your comment, so we know who you are.

Theoretically, if this project finds more helpers, you can also target broken, badly phrased or incomplete articles. Whenever some adds the "Strategy Stub", "Evidence needed" or "Clean Up" template, the pages will automatically be displayed in these categories:

• Category:Articles needing cleanup
  
  • Most times spell check, bad language, broken images -> fix this by using your brain
    
  
  
• Category:Strategy stubs
  
  • Incomplete information. Often only feature a few words, make a text out of it!
    
  
  
• Category:Articles needing supporting evidence
  
  • Find guides (TL.net Forums) to source the statements, or VODs or Replays
    
  
  

The last point is a bit difficult. You can add sources by either linking them, which is done like this:

[http://google.com Google Com]
first is the target url, second will show as VODs 
This is a direct link

Or via references. References are the small numbers in blue, which look a bit like this: ². These link to the bottom of a page. Creating References is done like this:

5 Pool is great <ref name=5PoolGreat>[http:google.com Gecko on 5 Pools]</ref>

and give out this: 5 Pool is Great²

Please note, that References need this at the bottom of the page to be displayed:

==References==
{{Reflist}}

If not, you'll get an error.


Moreover, regardless of how experienced you are, Liquipedia II (the SCII one) has a new "Build Order Box". For now a build order in Liquipedia I is written like this:

==Build Order==

*8/9 Pylon
*10/17 Gateway

This only displays a bullet point list. It's good enough, but the Liquipedia II BO Box has a "?" Symbol, looks nicer and links to an article explaining a beginner on how to read a build order. Since almost all Liquipedia I articles only have bullet points, you can help us making strategy pages better by using (replacing) the old bullet points with the new box. To do it, you simply need to code it like this:

{{build|name="Examplary Build Order, Supply"|width=400px|race=Protoss|
*8/9'  Pylon
*10/17  Gateway
}}

That's only two lines of text, but could make a difference for a beginner. It helps you to get coins as well for your contributions.

This brings me almost to the last point. You can write on Strategy Articles if some are missing. Open an existing build order guide and copy it all. Replace the text and simply edit the templates, the way you want them to be. It's fairly straight forward, not really complicated and saves you a bit of time. If you need a place to experimentate with your page, click on your nick after you logged in. That's your sandbox. You can write anything there and nobody will edit it but you. (Unless you write gross stuff and propagate something which might kill eSports).

Lastly, I tried to re-write the Help:Reading Build Orders section (which the ? of the Strat Box will link you to) from the SCII Wiki. The original wasn't really fitting for BW, hence this. If you disagree, start editing. Please.


      How do you check for quality?

Yes, Chef and others once told me they don't feel like editing, because there could be morons out there to troll their posts by editing bullshit in. Please, for the love of god, don't let that stop you. If you're a really experienced player and want to help, post in this thread. If you have a good rank, know what you're talking about and are not braindead, we could use you simply for doulbe checking the content of edits. Enter discussions, feel free to question anything that's on LP or the Strat Forum. Your voice matters. The less you participate, the higher the chances for trolls trolling the people wanting to make LP a better place.





That's about it. Now go editing.