Contributing

You do not need to be a programmer to help. Useful contributions include correcting a fact, adding a missing chapter reference, improving an explanation or pointing out a problem in an illustration.

Is editing open?

Not yet. The GitHub repository is private. Only invited collaborators can currently read it, open issues or propose changes. The contribution licences are now published. Public editing still needs the maintainer’s approval to open repository access. This guide explains the process in advance; it is not a working public submission channel yet.

The simplest way to help

When you have repository access, you can report a correction without editing any files. Open the repository’s Issues tab, choose New issue, then Correction. Include:

• The wiki page URL or title.
• What is wrong and what you think it should say.
• The book title and chapter number or chapter title that supports the correction.
• For a picture, the part that conflicts with the story, such as the setting, era, size or anatomy.

Describe the evidence in your own words. Do not upload a book, chapter, scan or a long quotation. Do not post private contact information. Copyright, privacy and removal requests need the private contact route that will be published in the site’s Legal notice before launch, not a public issue.

Edit a page in your browser

These steps work for invited collaborators now and for outside contributors once public editing opens. GitHub needs an account. You do not need to install anything.

1. Find the wiki page you want to change. Its URL tells you its category and filename. For example, /places/great-nest/ comes from src/content/places/great-nest.md.
2. Open that file on GitHub and choose Edit, shown with a pencil icon. If you do not have write access, GitHub may ask you to create a fork. A fork is your own copy of the repository.
3. Make one small, focused change. Keep the existing format. The block between the first two --- lines holds the page settings; ordinary paragraphs and headings go below it.
4. Add or update the supporting chapter reference in the sources list. Describe what that chapter supports. Page numbers vary between editions, so use chapters. Add your chosen public credit name to the contributors list, keeping earlier credits. A pseudonym is fine; do not add a private legal name or email.
5. Preview your edit. Choose Commit changes or Propose changes. Use a short description such as “Correct Great Nest population by era”. If GitHub offers a direct commit to main, choose a new branch instead.
6. Open a pull request. This asks the maintainer to review your proposed change; it does not publish it. Fill in the checklist and explain your evidence.
7. Respond if a reviewer asks for a change. A maintainer decides whether to merge the proposal. Connecting the site to deployment is a separate launch step; a proposal never gives you direct control over the live wiki.

GitHub’s guide to editing files explains the buttons and fork process.

What belongs in an edit?

• Facts supported by the books covered by this wiki. The current coverage is book 1, Children of Time. Do not add later-book events yet.
• Plain English, short sentences and headings in sentence case. Separate established facts from interpretation or uncertainty.
• A separate page for a different individual who shares a name, rather than mixing generations together.
• Chapter references for factual changes. Do not invent descriptions, population figures, motivations or events.
• Original wording. Do not paste another wiki’s article or publish extracted book text.

For pictures, explain who built the subject, where and when it appears, how large it is and whether it is intact, damaged or destroyed. A recognisable object in the wrong scene still needs correction. Check every inset and label too.

Images, AI tools and permissions

Do not upload an image just because it was easy to find online. Identify its creator, source, permissions and any restrictions. Book covers, screenshots and other people’s fan art are not automatically free to reuse.

If AI tools helped with a submission, disclose that in the issue or pull request. Identify the tool, what it produced and how you checked it. A generated answer is not a source. Verify factual text against the chapters and inspect images yourself. Keep prompts, source books and private research out of the repository.

Contribution licences

By deliberately submitting original article text for inclusion, you offer the rights you hold in that contribution under CC BY-SA 4.0 International. By submitting original project software or its software documentation, you offer it under the MIT License described in the repository’s LICENSE file. Images are separate: agree their permissions explicitly and update IMAGE-RIGHTS.md before publication. Neither text nor code licensing automatically covers an image.

You keep any copyright you hold. This is a licence, not an ownership transfer. Submit only material you can license, preserve existing attribution and identify any material with different terms. For a text contribution, name the public credit you want in the pull request and retain it in the article’s contributors list. The default project credit identifies the existing project material; it must not replace a named contributor’s credit.

CC BY-SA 4.0 allows commercial reuse, including by other sites, with attribution and the required licence for adaptations. The site may later carry advertising or voluntary support links, but that does not make community text exclusive to the operator. A valid grant cannot be withdrawn from users who keep following its terms. Do not submit original article text under this licence if you do not agree to those conditions.

In the page settings block, keep credits as a YAML list. For example, append your chosen name without deleting earlier names:

contributors:
  - Children of Time Fan Wiki contributors
  - Your public credit name

The grant covers only rights you actually hold. It does not license the novels, quoted passages, protected underlying fictional material, trademarks or someone else’s work. It does not create copyright where none exists, including in purely generated elements where applicable law gives no copyright. Permission to display an illustration on the wiki would not, by itself, give permission to sell merchandise featuring it.

Your identity and the review process

In a public repository, issues, pull requests, usernames and commit history are public. Commit email addresses can also be exposed. Before contributing, check GitHub’s commit email privacy settings. Removing a contribution later may not remove copies in forks or history.

Be respectful. No harassment, spam, personal information or bulk unchecked submissions. Maintainers may ask for evidence, decline a change or remove unsuitable content. Do not change unrelated pages to get a proposal accepted.

Maintainers check sources, wording, image context and permissions, then run the build and relevant tests. Changes go through a branch and review, not directly into main. Trusted contributors may receive more responsibility later; there is no automatic right to publish or moderate.

Related pages: Content use and rules, Privacy and Legal notice.