Japari Library:Getting Started

So you want to help Japari Library? Wonderful! This page exists as a guide for new or returning contributors who want to help add to our website, but aren't sure how.

Japari Library, in its mission to be the comprehensive resource for Kemono Friends information, features articles on a wide variety of topics with relevance to the series. Although the encyclopedic and professional tone of the Library is omnipresent on all articles, they are nevertheless written about different subject matters and demand different areas of expertise from the contributors who create them. This guide will cover the main types of articles, how they are written and how YOU can help.

In order to edit pages, you must create an account here on the website. Simply click on "request account" in the upper-righthand corner of the page, then fill out the short form on the next page. Our Librarians will answer your question at their soonest convenience, and afterwards, you'll be able to edit freely. If you contact us through Discord about it, the process will take a lot less time.

Basic Editing Guidelines
Before we get into the content that will be edited itself, here are a list of basic guidelines to follow for editing any article on our wiki:
 * 1) Japari Library is a resource for official Kemono Friends media only. Do not create articles for fanmade material.
 * 2) Please type in proper (American) English with correct punctuation and capitalization.
 * 3) Take your edits seriously. Do not insert jokes or otherwise unprofessional remarks. Envision the article that you are writing as one from any other encyclopedia: professional, accurate and to-the-point.
 * 4) When describing the backstory of the Kemono Friends universe, do not include headcanon or unconfirmed theories in your edits.
 * 5) Do not engage in "edit wars". If an admin reverts your edit on a page and you see fit to object, discuss it on its talk page (click "Discussion" at the top of the article in question) or on our | official Discord server.
 * 6) Do not edit translations unless you yourself are fluent in Japanese or have consulted someone who is.

Friend Articles
The most-used feature of Japari Library is its extensive, unrivaled encyclopedia of Friends. Due to the peculiar nature of Kemono Friends as a series, the decision was made early on to utilise subpages (complete with a Friend-specific page navigator) in presenting information about the animal girls themselves. Therefore, even the same species of Friend has a separate subpage depending on the media being discussed -- for example, Crested Ibis is an entirely different character between the game, the manga and the anime, which would make it a confusing and misleading mess to discuss all aspects of her on the same page. It is for this reason that separate subpages for the anime, manga, original game, Pavilion and stage play exist. Additionally, every given Friend has a "general" page and some have a gallery subpage as well to showcase official arts.

General Page
Perhaps the most significant set of pages on our wiki are the 425+ articles devoted to providing general information on each of the Friends who make up the gigantic cast of the Kemono Friends multimedia franchise. Without exception, all Friends have a general page, which serves as the "home base" of the rest of their media-exclusive information. The general pages are relatively short, mainly comprising of a description of the Friend's appearance, information on her equivalent animal (or mythological/fictitious creature upon which they were based) and a trivia section that usually complements the "Real Life" section.

Although articles for each and every Friend exist, along with quality art of their designs, many of them are still mere stubs that are waiting for a dedicated contributor to fill them out.

Appearance Writing
Appearance writing is a simple task, and one of the easier ways to get used to contributing to the Japari Park wiki. This involves looking at the artwork of the Friend in question and providing a detailed but brief description of their appearance. This involves everything from the color of their hair to the style of shoe they're wearing. If they had a redesign at some point, this should be acknowledged in the section in full.

If you are interested in writing descriptions for Friends, go here to find assignments: Category:Needs Appearance

Real Life Writing
The "Real Life" sections involve quite a bit of research to write, assuming that you are not already an expert in a given creature to begin with. The purpose of these sections is to provide readers with an overview of the animal, including but not limited to a description of the animal's characteristics, an explanation of their feeding and breeding habits, and an overview of the history associated with the animal (especially those who have gone extinct or faced extinction). The expectation in writing these articles is not that the reader will leave the page a full-fledged expert in a given Friend's original form, but rather that they understand and can explain it to others without significant confusion or difficulty. Any websites you use to derive information from should be cited in the "References" section of the article. Remember that copy-pasting content from other sites without quoting and citing is copyright infringement.

Every real life section should have a photograph of the real Friend embedded somewhere within the section. If you're writing about an UMA or an extinct animal, you may need to resort to using a drawing or CGI rendition of the animal. If you find a picture online, try to credit the place where you found it in the notes section when you upload it.

Sometimes during your research, you may find single snippets of interesting information that you can't really fit within the main article. Put these within the "Trivia" section of the article, with each piece of trivia separated with a bullet point. There's no minimum or maximum amount of trivia points a Friend article should have, but in general, try to aim for 1-3 curious and interesting tidbits of information.

As a small caveat, the content of these sections is significantly different when applied to articles about UMAs (Unidentified Mysterious Animals), which include both cryptids and Friends based on existing fictional characters. It should also be noted that generally, we encourage the use of citations when describing real animals or mythological creatures.

If you are interested in writing the "real life" sections for Friends, go here to find assignments: Category:Needs RL Info

Need An Example?
If you'd like to work on either of these parts and need an example article to work off of, see Kyushu Owl. This article is a great example of a Friend page that meets community standards, so try to match the style and tone of this article to the best of your ability.

Anime/Manga/Stage Play Subpage
Though significantly fewer in number than their general counterparts, these articles are nevertheless essential for our wiki. They are grouped together in this guide because the protocol associated with them is very similar.

These articles are comprised of three main sections -- Personality, Role in the Plot and Relationships. As with all other articles on the wiki, there is also an optional trivia section.

Personality
Describing a Friend's personality is usually a straightforward business, and typically the length of the section is proportional to the Friend in question's screentime in a given piece of media. Remember to describe them ONLY in the frame of their appearance in the media in question (e.g. No talking about screaming Tsuchinoko and Japari Coins when describing the personality of her manga counterpart). Give an overview of the character's personality without resorting to speculation or alluding to unconfirmed headcanons.

Role
Writing about a Friend's role in the plot is as simple as rewatching/rereading the media in question and giving a synopsis, episode by episode (or chapter by chapter) of their actions. Keep the section as focused on the character as possible, rather than directing too much attention to the broader context outside of clarity's sake (other pages, like episode synopses or simply other Friends' media-specific articles, will be responsible for doing that). Like Personality, length largely depends on plot relevance and "screentime".

Personality
The Relationships section exists to highlight any particularly interesting character dynamics between Friends when they exist. It is an optional section that doesn't need to be filled out if the Friend doesn't appear to share any particular connection with other characters, and if a stronger relationship is alluded to but never elaborated upon, merely a couple sentences should suffice. Outside of major characters whose relationships are developed over the course of the work, a paragraph is usually sufficient to provide an overview for readers.

Finding Assignments
Unless you have a specific Friend in mind, if you are interested in writing content for these articles, check the following links:
 * Category:Missing Content
 * Category:Needs Editing

You may also check the Maintenance Report for more advanced assignments.

Nexon Game
The Nexon Game pages are largely reserved for contributors who are very well-versed with the lore or are capable of reading and understanding Japanese, due to the very limited nature of information on the original Kemono Friends game itself. In lieu of writing a full explanation for the protocol on these articles, I would rather implore you to join our Discord server and contact the Librarians in #japari-wiki if you want to work on them. To the majority of contributors, these articles are probably not a good starting place.

Pavilion
As Kemono Friends Pavilion is a newly-released product, we would request that you only make edits to the page if you join our Discord server and discuss in the #japari-wiki or #pavilion-kashikoi channels. Protocol on building the Pavilion section of our website is still being discussed, as we mine the game and learn more about it.

Gallery
The Gallery sections of each Friend's article (if they exist) are reserved for official artwork (usually by Mine Yoshizaki or TATSUKI) of the character. There are a few basic guidelines to follow when constructing these pages:

There is a high likelihood that you will need to create the article itself, as they are made on a necessity basis rather than produced with forms like the other six types of subpage. To do so, paste the following code into the newly-created page, which you will name "[Friend Name]/Gallery" (e.g. Gentoo Penguin/Gallery) and edit it according to the following instructions:


 * 1) Upload an image (or images) of the Friend by dragging and dropping the file into the edit box (at the top in blue). Be sure to confirm the upload.
 * 2) Replace File:EXAMPLE.png with the name of your newly-uploaded file.
 * 3) Replace the dimensions to your liking, depending on what looks best for the page. This is decided on a Friend-by-Friend basis. If you're unsure about what looks good, you can ask for feedback in our Discord channel.
 * 4) Replace EXAMPLETEXT with whatever you want the image's description to say.
 * 5) To add additional images, simply repeat (or copy/paste and then edit) the syntax used for the first file.

As a general set of Gallery guidelines, you should only upload an image of a Friend if:
 * It is official, i.e. not fanart.
 * It is not a mere screenshot from official material (e.g. no anime screenshots or regular manga panels)
 * The Friend in question is either the focus of the image or one of three or less characters appearing prominently in it.

Deep Lore
The other aspect of the Library that could really use contributors is that of Kemono Friends' impressive and expansive backstory, both for articles focused on major in-universe concepts that require explanation and peer review as well as simply providing synopses of the plots that lack summaries thus far.

At the moment, we need assistance with the following specific tasks:
 * Cross-reviewing the existing Deep Lore articles for inaccuracies or vagueness, which should ideally be done via dialogue between myself and whomever takes the job (be it through Discord or Talk pages).
 * Adding images and touching up existing synopses for all the episodes of the anime. Proofreading and general improvements to the presentation are highly appreciated!
 * Writing a full synopsis of both volumes of the manga, chapter by chapter. [make ChapterBuilder first Bird]
 * Expanding the Glossary page to include more minor terms, and possibly rework the organisation of the page as well.

Any and all help to the DEEP LORE is highly appreciated, because I'm doing that almost entirely by myself at the moment.

Quality Assurance
Are you a Friend who's good at picking nits? Look no further than this section! We always have jobs for you, wherever your skills lie. In the name of generally improving the wiki's content, we need volunteers to make the following contributions:


 * Assigning various tags to articles that need improvements.
 * Using the aforementioned tags as a guide, edit articles that need improvements and REMOVE THE TAG when your mission is complete.
 * Browse the wiki regularly and look for things that just don't look or sound good to you. Don't be afraid to be honest; we're all building this resource together. Post your suggestions on the Japari Library:Feedback page and we can review it -- or just tell us on Discord, which is probably a much faster way to guarantee a response. No matter what, we will address it.

Miscellaneous
With the Library's ambitious scope, there are naturally plenty of other jobs that need doing, many of which are one-time tasks involving coding or special requests for the site. If you're very interested in participating, we recommend joining the Japari Park Discord server and chatting with us in the #japari-wiki channel (accessible via inputting .iam kyushu owl into #boss-commands). We're a relatively small but dedicated, active team that is always looking for new Friends to join the cause!

This concludes the tutorial. Hopefully this page was of some utility in determining how to contribute to Japari Library, the Kemono Friends wiki!