Left 4 Dead Wiki:About

The Left 4 Dead Wiki, created on May 11th, 2008 by ShadoW, aims to be the most complete and accurate source of information about Left 4 Dead that anybody can edit.

Welcome
Welcome to the best place to learn everything about the universe of Left 4 Dead!

Left 4 Dead, developed by Valve Corporation, is a co-operative survival horror first-person shooter, taking place in a "zombie apocalypse," which is set tangible future (evidently taking place in the fall or winter of 2009). A demo for the game was released on November 11th, 2008, and the full game was released a week later on November 18th, 2008.

If you're not a big Left 4 Dead fan, then this probably isn't the place for you. All information found on this wiki is related to Left 4 Dead, either directly, or peripherally.

Now you are probably wondering: What exactly is a wiki? Well, a wiki is a site where anybody―not just webmasters or members―can edit any page. Wikis are best used for collaborative knowledge-base type documents. For instance, one of the most successful wikis is Wikipedia.

What this means is that you could be an important author on this wiki! Know about some hidden cache of weapons that the Director always spawns? Do you know every tiny glitch and exploit? Want to help us catalogue everything about Left 4 Dead? Go ahead! If you ever need to find something, use the search bar. It should help you find what you're looking for.

If you decide to stick around, use the log in link at the top of this page to set up a username. To edit a page, click the "edit" link at the top of any page. Please be respectful, and briefly describe any changes you make in the "Summary" text field on the edit page. Your "Summary" comments will appear on the recent changes page. This wiki does not support fanon or any other Left 4 Dead self-creations. The only page you can edit however you wish is your User Page, which you will receive when you log in.

If you ever have questions about the wiki, feel free to type them up on the help desk. A knowledgeable person will most likely provide you with an answer within a few minutes. This wiki is absolutely free, no money is ever paid. Ever.

We hope you'll feel welcome here among fellow fans of the greatest game of all time.

Guidelines
The most important things to bear in mind when editing articles on the wiki is to avoid adding speculation, trivial details and personal opinions. Encourage others, including those who disagree with you, likewise to BE BOLD!
 * 1) BE BOLD! in updating pages. Go ahead, it's a wiki!
 * 1) Be civil to other users at all times.
 * 2) * Be tolerant. Please remember that we welcome editors of all age, gender, race, nationality, religion, sexuality, and many other things beyond, and all users should respect everyone. No derogatory terms should be used anywhere against any of the aforementioned differences, and no user should be attacked period—as further expounded upon below.
 * 3) * No personal attacks. Don't write that user such and so is an idiot, or insult him/her (even if (s)he is an idiot). Instead, explain what they did wrong, why it is wrong, and how to fix it. If possible, fix it yourself (but see above).
 * 4) * Watch the language. While we do not by any means wish to censor our wiki (Left 4 Dead itself is a Mature rated game), unneeded and obsessive profanity is rather unprofessional and can be used to provoke anger, causing conflicts. We ask that while you are allowed to swear on the Wiki, just don't overdo it. If you have to question your sentences, it would be best you try to change some of the words in your post.
 * 5) When in doubt, take it to the talk page. We have all the time in the world. Mutual respect is the guiding behavioral principle of Wikia and, although everyone knows that their writing may be edited mercilessly, it is easier to accept changes if the reasons for them are understood. If you discuss changes on the article's talk (or discussion) page before you make them, you should reach consensus faster and happier.
 * 6) Respect copyright. Wikia uses the GNU Free Documentation License. Everything you contribute must be compatible with that license.
 * 7) Decent edit summaries and clear and transparent explanations are universally appreciated. Other editors need to understand your process, and it also helps you yourself to understand what you did after a long leave of absence from an article. Please state what you changed and why. If the explanation is too long, add more on the discussion page.
 * 8) Assume good faith; in other words, try to consider that the person on the other end of the discussion is a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to the project—unless, and only unless, you have firm, solid, and objective proof to the contrary. Merely disagreeing with you is no such proof.
 * 9) Particularly, don't revert good faith edits. Reverting is too powerful sometimes. Don't succumb to the temptation, unless you're reverting very obvious vandalism (like "LALALALAL*&*@#@THIS_SUX0RZ", or someone changing "1+2=3" to "1+2=17") . If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like "(rv) I disagree strongly; I'll explain why in talk." and immediately take it to talk.
 * 10) Be graceful: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Try to accommodate other people's quirks the best you can, but try to be as polite, solid, and straightforward as possible yourself.
 * 11) Sign your posts on talk pages using ~, which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit Save. But don't sign on mainspace articles.
 * 12) Use the preview button; it helps prevents edit conflicts and mistakes.
 * 13) Provide citation; not everyone has seen what you have. If you add something that isn't well known, add a link at the end of your addition using the brackets. Without reference, it is likely no one will believe you and delete your edit.

Wiki Etiquette
If you're still unsure of how stuff works around here, you may want to check out the MediaWiki User's Guide. There you will learn how to make bold, italics, and other wiki stuff. Out of courtesy, you really shouldn't edit pages unless you are adding something meaningful, or fixing grammar and spelling mistakes. You also shouldn't delete pages unless you have an extremely good reason. If you want to play around and get a feel for editing pages, please do so in the Sandbox, or make your own personal sandbox via User:Username/Sandbox.

Wikipedia has a great WikiCivics section. They cover a lot of information about what is accepted and what is not accepted on a wiki. There are really no rules, but there is a definite level of etiquette involved. Some of the suggestions they offer are only relevant to Wikipedia, but many of them apply to any wiki. Anyone interested in being a valuable contributor to any wiki should read them.

A Warning
Above all, never use defamatory language or deface documents our community has worked hard to create. Note that the wiki gives everyone the ability to revert documents back to their original state; therefore, no one can permanently harm the wiki by deleting pages. All an offender will accomplish is to slightly annoy our wiki community. After repeated defacings, our administrators will permanently block the offender's IP address. If defamatory language is seen it will be changed or deleted.

It's important to have fun... but try to make sure those around you have fun, too!

When you will be warned

 * 1) Minor vandalism to a page or multiple pages.
 * 2) Constantly revert edits in a destructive manner.
 * 3) Making contributions with the intention of being vulgar, racist, or destructive.

What can get you blocked
NOTE: The block duration can depend on which administrator does it.
 * 1) Using a sock puppet to get around a block. (Extends duration of current block)
 * 2) Ignoring a warning posted on your talk page. (3 days - 1 month)*
 * 3) Majorly vandalizing a single or multiple pages repetitively and have made no effort to be constructive. (3 months - 6 months)*
 * 4) Harsh racism. (Infinite)

-*Duration may be extended if actions continue either through Talk Page, a sock puppet, or once the first block expires.

User Space policy
While we welcome users and encourage all our users to express themselves, this is not a social networking site. If you were looking for a social networking site, we will gladly redirect you to Facebook or Twitter where you may freely post your personal info.

Here, we ask that users actively contribute to the main space without worrying too much about their user page. Here are a set amount of guidelines that we expect users to follow to ensure their stay.

1. Be civil: While you're technically allowed to put whatever you want on your user page, we ask that you not place a full out assault to other users on your page. This includes but is not limited to:
 * Placing harassing comments aimed towards a single user or group of users.
 * Threatening users via your page.

2. Be constructive: We ask our users that wish to have a custom user page to active and constructive on the main space. A custom user page is a privilege, not a right. If you have 100 edits, but only 15 were to the main space, and the other 85 were related to your user space, this is unacceptable. Because this has become an issue, we will now be enforcing a policy that a user may not edit their user page more than 5 times within a 24-hour period. Failure to comply will first earn the user in question a warning, followed by protection of their page. If this continues afterward, the users will be blocked for a short period with their user page being protected indefinitely until the user meets a certain amount of contributions.

3. Please log in. We no longer allow users to edit their user space without first logging in due to the risk of vandalism. It is hazardous to assume an IP belongs to a certain user who was merely updating their page. So we ask that you please log in before editing your user page.

Editing other user's User space
Editing another user's User space is prohibited for any non-staff member. However, please report to an admin if the following things occur: 1. Incorrectly categorized: A user may not be categorized as a Survivor, or an Infected, or any sort of category other than user categories. Usage of navigation templates (Such as the list of Survivors) on user pages is also prohibited. 2. The page has been vandalized: Self explanatory. If someone has ignored the rules and edited another user's page without permission, and/or vandalized the page, another user may revert the vandalism until an active admin is available to deal with the vandal. This is the only instance where it is acceptable for a non-staff member to edit another user's page.

Talk Page Policy

 * 1) Please do not edit another user's discussion&mdash;even if it's full of spelling errors.
 * 2) Removing comments is also frowned upon, unless it is spam or content that would be better suited to the Left 4 Dead Wiki forums. This also includes the welcome template, and warning templates left by administrators.
 * 3) Always sign your comments with four tildes (~). If you forget to sign, you or someone else may use the Unsigned template.
 * 4) Conversations are only to be relative to bettering the article, not one's personal opinions on the article. In other words, comments like "Zoey is my favorite Survivor! She is so cute! <3" are inappropriate and will be removed. Please take discussions like this to the forums or post about your personal opinions on your talk page.
 * Likewise, user talk pages are not meant for personal topics of conversation either. Email the user using Special:Emailuser, or chat with them via PMs on the forum, or any other method of your choosing besides the talk pages.

Image Policy
All users are allowed to upload images to be used on either their user space or the main space. However, we expect them to follow the following rules:


 * 1) Images used on the main space must be related and constructive.
 * 2) Make sure your image hasn't already been uploaded. Duplicates will be removed unless they are of better quality of the existing which the image may be removed and uploaded as a replacement through the existing image, or the old file may be removed as superseded.
 * 3) User page-specific images are limited to 5 per user. This does not include images linked from image hosting sites such as Photobucket, Flickr, or Imageshack. However, images used on the main space are free to use on user pages if the user so chooses.
 * 4) Images uploaded that are not in any way related to the wiki or used on a user page will be permanently removed from the archives. If uploaded again without reason, the user contributing the images will be warned and possibly blocked if deconstructive actions continue.
 * 5) Photographs are especially tricky. We ask that users please consider the nature of a personal use photograph before uploading it. We encourage users not to upload photos of people they found online. We are not an image-hosting site; therefore, your user page should not be a gallery of random images you found online. However, self photos are a user's choice, and while they can be dangerous, we do not prohibit the use of photos of oneself. But please be timely between uploading them and posting them on your user page. Any photograph left unused within an hourly period will be removed without question.

Capitalization, Abbreviations, and Acronyms
What needs capitalization and what doesn't?

As a general rule:


 * Survivor ― referring to any non-infected human being. They are Survivors. Francis is a Survivor. There is Survivor graffiti in a lot of safe rooms. This doesn't apply when referring to the condition of something. Did everyone survive Blood Harvest?
 * Infected ― referring to any Infected human being. They are Common Infected, Uncommon (Common) Infected and Special Infected. This doesn't apply when referring to the condition of a human being. The Church Guy is Infected and will turn into a Special Infected!
 * Special Infected types ― Tank, Boomer, Hunter, Smoker, Witch, Spitter, Charger, Jockey. Treat their types as their names, even when referring to them in the plural. For example, in The Plantation, oh snap, there's two Tanks at the same time!
 * Weapons ― when referring to a weapon in-game, use capitals. For example, the Auto Shotgun. Or the Submachine Gun. A Golf Club. Two Molotovs.
 * Locations ― follow how it is spelled on the wiki. The Passing is always The Passing, even in the middle of a sentence.

What needs abbreviations and acronyms? Nothing! Only if it is used in-game as a corporate entity, such as CEDA. For the Submachine Gun and Silenced Submachine Gun, don't use SMG over it. Common Infected do not become CI. Special Infected do not become SI either. Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 do not become "L4D1" or "L4D2" except when directly quoted from Valve sources, such as the Blog Post.