Welcome, editor, to the Polcompball Wiki! Before getting started, you should read this quick guide on how to structure a page on the wiki. Refer to Anarcho-Communismball or the rest of our Featured Articles for pages that exemplify our guidelines.
A common misconception regarding the Political Compass and its ideology placements include fusing the cultural (progressive/conservative) and economic (left/right) axes, with the assumption that culturally progressive ideologies are economically left-wing while culturally conservative ideologies are economically right-wing. "Economic right" is to be defined by following characteristics: "Support or enforcement of Markets, property-owner sovereignty, low amounts of forceful allocation, etc." and "Economic left" is to be defined as "Support or enforcement wealth redistribution, worker or state control of the means of production, expansion of a welfare system, etc.".
For example, an ideology such as Neoliberalism, which is economically right-wing but culturally progressive, would be placed in the right wing of the compass, which disregards cultural placements due to the unavailability of a third axis on a two-dimensional diagram. Similarly, the culturally conservative but economically left-wing National Bolshevism finds itself on the left wing of the compass.
Notability
In order for an article to be created about an ideology, it must be recognised by the r/polcompball community, or the wider political community. Personal ideologies or ideologies that otherwise do not meet the criteria may only have their article created on the PolCompBall Anarchy Wiki.
For an ideology to be considered notable enough, it must fulfil at least one, although not all of these requirements:
- At least one active website with it's own domain on the world wide web that is dedicated to publishing theory about the ideology.
- An article on it the English version of Wikipedia.
- A piece of political theory that is available for purchase in an established online book store.
- At least one online community (preferably on Discord, or Reddit), with self-sustaining growth, centred around good faith discussions regarding the ideology.
- Alternatively, you can propose the ideology on the #wikia-community channel of the official PolCompBall Discord server.
Page structure
Infobox
The infobox contains a summary and an image of the ideologyball. The {{Ideology}}
template is used. All infoboxes should follow the structure of the sample infobox on the template's documentation page. Fields that do not apply to a given ideology may be left blank.
Introduction
A short beginning section, giving a quick breakdown of the ideology the ball represents (preferably with where it stands on the cultural, economic and statist axes) and a blurb about its personality and beliefs.
History
The history of the ideology and its founder, if applicable, should be summarized in an easy-to-read and objective manner.
Beliefs
This section should be used to describe the ideology's core values, principles and beliefs. This is especially recommended if an ideology defines itself by a limited set of core principles like Tridemism, Kemalism and Neo-Enlightenment.
Personality and Behaviour
A section detailing the ideology's personality and behaviour in comics. A subsection, titled Stylistic Notes, may be included to indicate common visual and behavioural differences from the ideology's canon design and personality, such as Anarcho-Communismball wearing cat ears and exhibiting childish behaviour.
How to Draw
This section offers a step-by-step guide on how to draw the ball. The hex code, RGB and CMYK values of the colours used should be tabulated using the Flag Color template. Refer to the link for a guide on obtaining the values for each colour and using the template.
Relationships
A section detailing the ideology's relationships with other ideologies, usually written in the first person perspective of the ideology the page is about. The three basic categories are friends, frenemies and enemies, which may be modified or renamed to fit the ideology. All ideologies mentioned should be listed in a bulleted list and have their icon displayed to their left of their name.
Further Information
A section offering readers further information on the ideology, with books, Wikipedia pages, YouTube videos and online communities dedicated to it. Resources should be categorized under the subsections Texts, Videos and Miscellaneous Articles (for Wikipedia articles, blogs and other short sources). Formally published and scientifically validated theory should be prioritized to short-form content.
Free content is heavily preferred owing to its ease of accessibility by the general reader. If no free and safe download of the resource is available, a link to its scientific publication or Amazon link to purchasing the text should be substituted. Free resources may be found on Library Genesis, The Internet Archive, Mises Institute (economic liberalism), The Anarchist Library (anarchism/progressivism) and Marxists.org (left wing economics).
Addition of fraudulent or malicious links to this section will result in an immediate ban from the wiki.
Gallery
Finally, this section showcases popular comics and art on r/polcompball and r/polcompballart. Art in this section should feature the page's ideology prominently, rather than as a background detail or supporting character. A detailed guide to adding galleries through wikitext is available on the Fandom Community Wiki.
Categories
Don't forget to categorize the page with the appropriate categories, namely Category:Characters, the ball's quadrant, and descriptors such as the ideology's cultural position or ideological supersets. A full list of categories is available at Special:Categories.
Additional Notes
Adding Icons
Visit the Icon List page to learn how to add flairs and to see what flairs you can add to pages.
Ideologies mentioned in an article, even outside of the Relationships section, should have their articles hyperlinked and have their icon displayed to the left of the link.
Infobox Details
An ideology's infobox must contain its name, icon, quadrant and ideological relationships. A clear image of the ideology must be included.
- To prevent an excessive family section, only first-degree relations (parent/child/sibling) with canon ideologies should be included. Second-degree relations (grandparent/grandchild) may be included if the relationship is significant and depicted often in comics. Unless the relative ideology has a fixed gender (such as Anarchismball always being female), relations should be labeled in gender-neutral terms.
- The "Gangs" section of the infobox refers to the non-quadrant ideological group the ideology is frequently associated with in comics or in real life.
Pictures
Before you add your own picture, check if someone has already added a picture of the ideology. If they have, check if yours is of better quality than the one currently on the page; if it is, then go ahead and replace it.
- Cover images of ideologies must abide by the quality guidelines indicated in this tutorial (Original Reddit post). Low-quality or rule-breaking images may result in the article's removal.
- Cover images should depict the ideologyball against a white or transparent background. Detailed backgrounds, such as this, make for good comic panels, but obscure the ball's appearance.
- The ideologyball may be given relevant accessories and placed in a pose, as long as the accessories and pose do not obscure the main motif of its flag. This image is a good example of an accessorized ball whose design remains clearly visible.
Redirects
If an ideology has an alternative name or acronym, a redirect page should be created to allow readers to search for the page more easily. Redirect names should follow the naming conventions of regular pages.
Visual Editor
- Create a page with the alternate name
- Click on the 3 bar icon on visual editor
- Choose "Options"
- Click the box next to the "Redirect page to" text
- Put the name of the page of the ideology there.
Source Editor
- Create a page with the alternate name
- Insert
#REDIRECT [[Name of target page]]
in the editing interface.
Writing
First and foremost, write along the lines of the page structure, even if it's barebones. Something is better than nothing. Articles lacking content will be given warnings or marked for deletion.
The writing style should vary based on the seriousness of the ideology. Satirical or eccentric ideologies, such as Stransserismball, may adopt the humorous writing style of TVTropes, while serious ideologies should mirror the style and conventions of Wikipedia. Articles should not be written in a condescending manner as observed in RationalWiki, or an exceedingly critical tone like that of Conservapedia.
When describing an ideology, you should be describing only its core ideals, and you shouldn't go too in-depth into what it believes (example: Don't write entire paragraphs on this ideology's opinion on how a migration should look). That's what the further reading section is for.