# NetHackWiki:Next version
Following the release of NetHack 3.6.0, there was much rejoicing — and much work to be done on NetHackWiki. Much of the information on NetHackWiki was made out of date and needed to be updated. At the time, NetHackWiki editors had no experience of such an event: nearly every word on the wiki was written in the NetHack 3.4.3 era. Thus, this wiki needed to develop a system of tracking articles that were updated versus articles that had not yet been updated, especially after further versions of 3.6 were subsequently released and it became possible for a page to be updated to a 3.6 version and still out of date. Toward that end, this project proposes a way to identify articles that need to be updated.
The present de facto standard for articles about vanilla NetHack (subject to revision given input from NetHackWiki editors) is the following:

If you are editing a page and know that the entire page is up-to-date with the current version of NetHack, apply the template for the current version to the bottom of the page. For example, if the current version is NetHack 3.6.6, use the {{nethack-366}} template, which puts the page into Category:Nethack-366 articles.
Pages that are only known to be updated through some non-current version of NetHack should have the template for that non-current version.
Pages typically fall into this category by a new version being released, rather than through actively being edited that way.
Examples of templates like this are {{nethack-343}} or {{nethack-361}}, which place the page into Category:Nethack-343 articles and Category:Nethack-361 articles respectively.
Articles in categories for previous versions should be reviewed for anything that is outdated, updated to describe the current version if necessary, and have their tag changed to the current version's tag.
Articles containing information about the next version of NetHack should not be tagged as that unreleased version, because we don't want the page to look as if it's fully up-to-date with that version when the game may have changed between the last edit to the article and the actual release. The information should be placed in a {{upcoming}} template and the page should use the template for the current released version.
Currently there is no established standard for tagging pages that are entirely about something introduced to an upcoming version, e.g. Themed room for NetHack 3.7.0. Generally, it would be expected that any such page would be in Category:Upcoming and would get tagged with the new version when an editor removes the upcoming template after the version is released.
Articles that do not need to be revised when the next version is released should be given {{noversion}}. This tag is for historical articles such as the version writeups, or articles on defunct variants, defunct features, people, external programs, and the like.
Articles that are new and not tagged by their author may have {{unknownversion}} applied to them by bots (ChasonBot will eventually be one) that tag new articles pending review. This is meant to be manually replaced by one of the other tags.
There are also a couple existing standards for articles about variants:

Articles pertaining to SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7 should be tagged with {{slashem-7E7}}. SLASH'EM gets its own tag because of the large number of articles relating to it, though it may become unnecessary in the future to track its version because development on it has ceased.
Articles pertaining to an actively developed variant of NetHack 3.4.3 other than SLASH'EM may use {{variant-343}}. This is ostensibly for tracking articles that need to be updated when that variant incorporates NetHack 3.6; however, no 3.4.3-based variant has done this so far.
The tag templates display a small icon at the top of the page.
If multiple tags appear on a single article, they can be separated using an "offset" parameter like this:
{{nethack-360|offset=2}}{{slashem-7E7|offset=1}}{{variant-343}}.  {{noversion}} should never need to be used with another of these tags, but supports offset anyway, so it can be used together with the featured article tag.

When the next version is released
Once the next version is released, editors should take these steps:

Ensure that the page for the new version contains the complete set of features, as documented in the changelog.
Change the redirect target of current version to point at the new version's page.
Create an icon for the new version (a 32x32 image containing the version number in black on a white background).
Create a template for tagging pages with the new version, which places the new icon at the top of the page. Make sure it adds the page to the appropriate "Category:Nethack-XYZ articles" category.
Edit the old version's icon (e.g. File:Nh360-icon.png) to include the red&nbsp;! mark indicating that pages tagged with it may need updating.
Edit the old version's template to include Template:Todo informing readers and editors that the page needs review for the current version. (The text for this can be more or less copied from Template:Nethack-343.)
A note on the tile images
Tile images have been revised in the past and the next version may do so again. If this happens, the old tiles ought not be overwritten, as they are still needed for the version writeups; rather, they ought be moved to the historic tiles page and the new tiles uploaded with new names. The What links here link for the old images can identify articles that need to point to the new tile. Alternatively, the old images can be renamed, the version writeups revised, and the new tiles uploaded using the original name.

See also
NetHackWiki:Next version pool — Try to guess when the next version is published