Help:Starting a new page

From Wikipaddle

The "Create page" link takes you to an edit page where you can enter the content for a the new page. The edit page also has a link for Editing help, in case you need it. Below you can find links to guides for how to set out pages, and what information is needed. You do not have to always return to this page to create a new article. New pages can also be started by following a "broken link" (by default formatted as red) to a non-existent page, which likewise leads to an edit page, or you can create pages using a URL (see #Starting a page through the URL below).

1 Basic Steps
2 Starting a page from a red link
3 Starting a page through the URL

Here are some important things you should know before creating your first article:

Be bold. Don't be afraid to jump in and add something new.
Sign in with your account name. If you do not have an account, you can Create one. (Unregistered users can still write and edit articles, but users who register and sign in can do this much more easily, and can also keep track of their work).
Please don't create pages about yourself, your friends, pages that advertise, or personal essays. Although we do have company profiles, these are intended to be written in a neutral point of view and are only there as a reference, not an endorsement. Book reviews are welcome too, but again the style should be neutral and formal.
Be careful about:

Copying things. Copyrights do cover the Internet too, even for non-profit Wiki's.
Redundant articles or extremely short articles (short articles should be marked as Stubs using a {{Stub}} tag so they can be identified and expanded easily.

When creating a new article, bear in mind that:

The title that you choose is important.
Un-doing mistakes is rarely easier than avoiding them, so it's always a good idea to do a little homework first.
Use a spell checker (Firefox has an in-line spell checker as standard!).
If you just want to experiment, use the sandbox first.

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Basic Steps

1. Search First:

Do a Search first to see whether someone has already started a similar page before you start a new one yourself. If nothing relevant comes from the search, you can find a link to create a page at the top of the search results.

If there is already a page about the river, but not the specific section you want to write about, then please DO NOT create a new page. Read our Page Guides to see how we deal with new sections for a river.

2. Naming the Page:

For a NEW River: name the page after the river, but negate any titles such as "River" or "Afon" (e.g.: Tryweryn, Severn, Wye, etc.)
For an Equipment manufacturer, use the full company name, excluding appendages like "Ltd.", "Co.", "Corp." etc.
For generic descriptions of a type of equipment, name the page after the most common name for that item (e.g.: Throw Line, Buoyancy Aid etc.

Note:Many pages will already have links created to them in preparation for their creation. It is best to start a page from a "broken link" that is already expected, if you can find one, than to create a page out of the blue.

3. What To Write on the Page:

This depends on what the page is about. We have written a number of Page Guides as a rough guide to what needs to be on different types of pages.

While creating the page and before saving it, check the What links here link on the creation page. Align the new content with existing links, change the new title, or fix the other links. If nothing points to your new page then it is isolated and links to it will need to be added on other pages.

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Starting a page from a red link

Links to non-existing pages are common. They are typically created in preparation for creating the page, and/or to encourage other people to do so.

Links are not only convenient for navigation, but also make people aware of the new page (those who read a related page and also those who watch the related page). New page links are not really broken, as long as the name correctly identifies the intended content. (A new page link with a "wrong" or misspelled name, or that duplicates content found under another name is "broken", but in a different sense.)

New page links typically look different from links to existing pages. Depending on the user settings, a different colour or a question mark is used. (Sometimes links to new pages are called "red links", the default display option in the settings). Links to non-existent pages are created with [[New page name]] from the Wiki editor. (In this case, the empty page "New page name" would be created).

Of course, you can also create the link yourself, in a related page, index page or your user page. However, it may be better to wait with creating links until after creating the new page, especially if the new link replaces one to an existing page. In this case, create the link but press Preview, instead of Save. From the preview area, clicking the new link will create the new page (without updating the referring page).

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Starting a page through the URL

Using the browser address bar to enter a URL to a new page is an easy way to start the new page from scratch. Easier still is editing the pagename part of a URL for an existing page. Using the URL for the new page displays the default 'no article' message (see MediaWiki:Noarticletext). The default page has the usual Edit this page link, which can be used to begin adding content.

To get access to a MediaWiki project page, with the links at the edges but without the superfluous loading of a page, use a bookmark to a non-existing page. The default 'no article' page will display the edge links.