As the Monster High franchise grows, so too must the Monster High Wiki. And this does not only mean edits to existing pages, but also the creation of entirely new pages. But that in turn raises the question: What topics deserve their own page? The Monster High Wiki has a few notability guidelines as detailed below to answer that question. Mind, these are by no means set rules, as what constitutes a worthwhile topic evolves with the wiki's growth and exceptional cases always exist.
Creating a page[]
There are three ways to start creating a new page. One can click the Contribute button in the upper right corner and select "Add a Page"; one can follow a red link (of which a collection is found here), or one can fill out the intended page address in the address bar and click "Create". What follows is a blank slate to work with. It is generally advised to switch from Visual to Source mode when making edits and this goes doubly so for page creation. The reason is that while Source does require much more knowledge of wiki coding than Visual, it also offers much more control and does not produce unnecessary by-coding as Visual is prone to do.
If the new page is part of a 'series', like another webisode page or another character page, it is worth copy-pasting an older page within that series and on the new page delete and replace what is not true or relevant to the new page's topic.
An easily forgotten part of creating a page is categorizing it. Every page needs to be in at least one category, so make sure to know where the topic belongs.
General guidelines[]
- Before any page is created on own initiative (that is, a page not started because of a red link), the question should be asked how it would benefit the Monster High Wiki. For instance, which pages should link to it and why isn't the information better off put on an already existing page? The creator also is obliged to at least take care of a few links to the new page.
- There are three ways information and pages can be arranged. All information can be put on one page, the information can be spread over a main page and its subpages, and the information can be divided among multiple unrelated pages. Consider what would be the best arrangement for new information.
- Page creation, just like any edit, must be done for the sake of the Monster High Wiki. The wiki has seen a number of pages come (and go) that were created because the user wanted to claim a page as theirs. This is a misguided view on the purpose of pages, and has led to much unwarranted anger when "their" page was deleted (for not being a worthwhile topic, not allowed, or not up to standards). Pages aren't anyone's. In the same vein, users shouldn't rush to create a page from scratch. Knowing what a page requires comes from experience, so contributions should start in the form of small edits.
Specific guidelines[]
People[]
Principally, all people who have been personally involved with MH deserve a page. This means that, for instance, Kellee Riley, who has done much artwork for Monster High, deserves a page, but Justin Bieber, who was the inspiration for the character Justin Biter but not himself involved with MH, does not deserve a page.
There are no location~localization limits to people who deserve a page. For instance, the French voice actress of Toralei Stripe deserves as much a page as the USAmerican one.
Companies[]
The guidelines applied to people are also applied to companies.
Characters[]
The main guideline for characters (pets included) is that if they have a name or title, whether individually or as a group, they are qualified as notable. Whether the name is found within the fiction, within the credits, or within an official secondary source does not matter. Evidently, there are some characters, such as Ted and Mike, who have names but are very low profile characters, but they still are suitable for a page.
A few characters manage to be notable even without name or title. Examples of this are the short lunch lady and gingerbread boy. In case of the gingerbread boy, his page is warranted because there is a strong suggestion he will be named one day, but the same can't be said for the short lunch lady.
In this, the Monster High Wiki applies a group hierarchy. That is, characters that belong to the Monster High staff are considered to not just be characters, but also extensions of Monster High, the franchise's main location. This means they are considered to inherently have a right to a page (as per the location qualifications) unless nothing can be said or shown about them.
Nameless students, nameless creatures, and nameless characters thoroughly unrelated to the school require much more to qualify for a page, or else they are lumped along on the appropriate backgrounder page. Basically, any of these characters needs to have activity consistency, showing up regularly (possibly within the story arc) and most of the time in notable scenes. For instance, a character that shows up ten times just walking in the background is not interesting, but a character that shows up twice, once talking to the cast and once burning their hand during Home Ick, potentially is. A good example of a notable backgrounder is the Perfect Guy, since he was the focus on a webisode even if he appeared only once.
Characters that are released as part of the Create-A-Monster line are permanently not fit for a page, since the whole point of Create-A-Monster is that there's no "truth" to them. Those characters are what the ones buying them make of them and thus they are more fanon than canon.
In case of doubt, it's best to ask an admin what they think of a certain character getting their own page.
Locations[]
The guidelines applied to characters are also applied to locations, with the added note that the location has to have been featured in fiction.
Characters' homes are currently not considered fit for their own or a shared page, but feel free to suggest an idea to an admin.
Dolls[]
All doll assortments are worth a page of their own. In order to accommodate all doll releases, there are the pages such as San Diego Comic-Con International dolls, Lone Signature dolls, and Playsets to list assortment-less releases. If more cases of assortment-less releases occur, those are example pages of how to sort them anyway.
Merchandise[]
For the longest time, the Monster High Wiki put most merchandise together on one page, with the exception of exclusive merchandise and video games which have their own pages. Right now, the merchandise organization is lacking and there are no guidelines on how to sort the information. All (official) merchandise deserves a mention on the wiki, and suggestions how to organize the information are welcome.