Fallout Wiki:The Vault Academy

The Vault Academy

Mentor/Mentee Guidelines
Hall of Graduation

F.A.Q. (WIP)

Welcome, fellow Vault Dwellers, to the Vault Academy, a re-branding of the now-retired New User Network. At the Academy, wiki users, both new and veteran, will have the opportunity to form bonds with each other and learn valuable skills at the same time. If interested, check out the available training programs below, which award certifications to those that pass, opening doors to additional tools.

Specialized training programs

Just like in Fallout with your Psycho-ingesting cowboys or your beer-swilling super sledge berserkers, our users are going to have different approaches to the wiki, and will prefer to help improve certain aspects over others. Some users are going to prefer editing, while others are going to want to focus on commenting and creating social content, while some will participate in every little thing that they can stick their radioactive thumbs into.

The Vault Academy recognizes all aspects of contributing and our training programs will cater to each facet of the wiki with mentors specializing in one or multiple different schools of training. No program is a prerequisite of another, but a general understanding of editing is beneficial before entering any program other than general editing. Users can join multiple programs at the same time, and there are no time requirements or deadlines.

General editing

General editing fundamentals are of the utmost importance from one's first edit onwards. Brand new to the wiki? General editing is a great place to start, and through the lessons will introduce mentees to the other parts of the community and other training opportunities that go along with those parts. Jumping into editing is intimidating at times, so the general editing program aims to provide a stress free environment in which new users can learn the basics, former users can brush up on current format norms, and overall providing a training regiment that will set editors up for future success by learning:

Formatting, navigation, page management
Article and image categorization
Basic templates and datamining
Policies and guidelines, user rights
User pages, talk pages, blogs, forums
Icons, links, signatures, preferences
Referencing, source texts, game data

Technical editing

Technical editing focuses on the behind the scenes know-how that allows the wiki to run as efficiently as possible while maintaining an approachable and easy to read format. The wiki team is consistently in dire need of more technical-minded users that can understand and efficiently create and/or modify existing templates and portals. Upon recognizing such a user, it is imperative to introduce them to an environment that allows them to freely experiment and suggest changes. Technical fundamentals include:

Creating and maintaining both a template and its respective /doc page
Successfully creating a new portal page
Proper template categorization
Creating a multi-faceted template that requires calling upon sub-templates
Learning how to modify the existing wiki CSS/JS, as well as learning how to create your own personal CSS/JS

Leadership

Leadership is about knowing the community that you wish to represent, and being able to foster a healthy and friendly environment while you lead it. Leadership fundamentals include:

Successfully defusing and resolving disputes
Participating as either a project lead or as a TVA mentor
Creating and successfully seeing through both a forum discussion and vote for a desired change around the wiki
Using edit summaries consistently to succinctly explain actions, and reliably using the minor edit option for maintenance/minimal edits
Constructively instructing users on how to improve upon their editorial or social contributions in a non-training environment

Social

Discussions: Also known as /d, a quickly-growing social medium found across the Fandom network, instilling a casual and fast-paced environment for those looking to meet fellow Fallout fans. Mentors in this program will teach /d users how to create high-quality posts, how to prepare for upcoming changes to the /d platform, and provide the knowledge they'll need should they ever wish to help moderate and lead their newly acquired friends as Discussions Moderators.
Discord: Another social medium for the Fallout wiki, our official Discord servers are where our users can gather around and talk freely, without the normal constraints of the mainspace wiki. Mentors are tasked with making chatters feel welcome, seeking feedback from the Discord community on how to improve upon the experience, and helping to learn the ropes in preparation to become Chat Moderators.

How to join

Interested in enrolling in one of the Academy-approved training programs? If you have a specific mentor in mind that you prefer, add your user name to the current team table below or, if you're a bit shy or don't have a preference, sign up via the mentee table and a mentor will contact you instead.

Welcome Wagon

Not sure if you want to jump headfirst into a program, but have questions? The Welcome Wagon can help! The wiki can be a confusing place at first, so to alleviate this issue with a more personal touch, part of the Vault Academy includes the Welcome Wagon, a team of knowledgeable users that seek out new users, provide themselves as a resource, and welcome them to the team.

Welcome Wagon Team	Specializations	Active
Old Man Leon	Editing, policies, guidelines, community content
Kdarrow	Technical, general, and advanced editing, templates

After a new user has made their first edit, they will receive a welcome message on their talk page from one of our welcome wagoners, providing various helpful links and bits of information to push them in the right direction. Feel free to contact any of these team members with questions you may have about the Vault Academy or the wiki in general. Any and all questions are encouraged.

Mentors and mentees

Current mentorship teams

Mentor	Mentee	Program specializations
Old Man Leon	Kdarrow (Social) New California Ahoy (General editing) LLxMystic (Discord, general editing) LovinglyGaslight (General editing) Findabair (Social) Eckserah (Social)	General editing Discord Leadership
Kdarrow	Isis The Masked Dragon (General editing) Gilpo1 (General editing) Mr. Handy wadwerth (General editing) NotAlex123 (General editing) Scribe-Howard (General editing) Ant2242 (Advanced editing) D-Class Personnel (General editing) Zeroyal11 (General editing) Dragonslayer1321 (General editing) NomadicNom (General editing) Arcaneous (General editing) Katy Webb (General editing) TheUnknownRaver (General editing)	General editing Technical editing Advanced editing
The Dyre Wolf	intrepid359 (General editing) WyattGK (MIA) SitOnA-Rick (General editing, Discord, Leadership) Katy Webb (Social)	Discussions General editing
Eckserah	ORDVAC	Technical editing

New mentees sign up here

User name	Which programs are you interested in?
User name
User name

Hall of Graduation

The following mentees have successfully completed their particular courses of study and have been awarded their program's respective Certificate of Completion. These graduates have been inducted into the Vault Academy Hall of Graduation as a symbol of their hard work and accomplishment. We are very proud and excited to present the following graduates in order of commencement date:

Mentee	Mentor	Program	Graduation date
Findabair	Kdarrow	General editing	09-29-2020
JCB2077	Kdarrow	General editing	09-29-2020
Todoedits	DankalorYT	General editing	11-07-2020
Eckserah	Kdarrow	General editing	01-02-2021
Hellotalos	Kdarrow	General editing	03-19-2021
ORDVAC	Kdarrow	General editing	04-14-2021
Kdarrow	FDekker	Technical editing	04-20-2021
Kdarrow	Old Man Leon	General editing	04-20-2021