When writing or creating an article about a fictional thing, one may fall into writing it in an in-world tone. In the middle of the typing, one can fall into the fiction world, making it appear in the article like if it were something of the real world.Writing a plot synopsis like it were an historical fact, description of a fictional place like it were a real geographic location, and writing about a character like a normal biography are things that we should avoid.
The use of this symbol may give an ambiguous meaning when joining words, so instead, choose from "and", "or" or an en dash (this symbol is still used, but in its proper place, like numeral fractions). Also, don´t use a backslash instead of a slash.
First person pronouns such as we or I must be avoided when writing in article namespace. As mentioned before, it may address the reader in an inapropriate direct manner and/or may denote someone´s opinion. It is however acceptable to use we (not I) in historical articles to mean the modern world as a whole.
These characters indicate a sentence interruption like in "Exploding wale —a technique for whale corpse disposal— is often used when...". They must be used sparingly and with no space, they are visually striking, so two in a paragraph is often a good limit.
Wikipedia´s village pump is a place for general discussions about policies, proposals, technical issues and other stuff. In fact, this is a very simple tip. :-}
The best way to respond to a personal attack (and most recomended) is not doing anything at all. Responding to a personal attack is a vicious circle and sometimes stressful, that´s why you must always have in mind not to overreact and start an edit war or a battle. If you feel that a response is necessary, don´t forget to be polite and not to use another attack.
These three keep wikipedia running as an accurate and good quality resource of information. Without them, wikipedia wouldn´t be what it is, the sum of human knowledge.
If you´re about to create an article, there are some useful things you may consider to use or take a look: posting it in the drawing board (to grant feedback), posting it in the requested articles (if you don´t have references), using this wizard or using this other wizard.
Moe anthropomorphism is the 'character' representation or personification of some icon thing (in this case wikipedia), and as well as others, it has its own -tan (たん) and it's this. This may not be a very useful tip, but I felt like putting it here anyway.
English (as well as other languages) has word variations depending on the country, some examples are:
colour = color
theatre = theater
center = centre
And it´s not wrong to use any variation on an article (because wikipedia does not have a preferred one), but it´s wrong to use both types of the word in the same article (with exceptions of quotations, proper names or explicit comparisons).
The title of an article in wikipedia should follow some conventions; it shouldn´t be over-narrowed or too broad, it should avoid special characters (like: +, /, {}, etc...), words like "A, An" or "The" must be avoided (except in some cases), they are generally nouns, and in case of more than one word, it´s better to keep it with fewer than ten words.
Always, when creating something, it´s very important to categorize it, so other people could find it easily (could be a translation, an article, an image, a template, a page in another wiki, even a category must belong to a category (that´s called sub-categories)).
Images should be aligned right (probably always). Left-aligned images may disconect a heading from it´s paragraph.
When including an image, always think in placing a good caption, explaining something about it (which is often different from the image description inside the file)
Most pictures are fine with a range of 100 to 400 pixels wide
Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other (lolol)
The ampersand symbol (&) which represents the word "and" should be used sparingly (in titles of something, tables, infoboxes, etc...), in article prose, the word "and" should be used instead.
Since stubs are very small articles, users on wikipedia dedicate to expand them to finally create a good article of them. To do that, we must be able to find them, that´s why all the stubs must be categorized. For example: if I know a lot about trucks and I can expand a small article about a truck, I can easily find it in the Category:Truck stubs (where there´s a list of all the stubs about trucks). That´s why it is very important to categorize a stub after creation, this by simply adding (for example) {{botany-stub}} at the bottom of a recently created small article about botany. Here you can find a list of all possible stub types.
There are some important characteristics that a paragraph of an article must have: they should be long enough to fully display the whole idea, very long paragraphs are better if splitted, so they keep being comfortable to the sight; single-sentence paragraphs shoul be used moderately and finally, the first paragrap of an article called the lead section, must have the summary or overview of the subject, always making it to be brief, avoid specifying or going too deep.
Sometimes an article already exist in other language, and whether you´re translating it or not, placing the code at the bottom will automatically link the article to the other existent language in the left browse toolbox. (example: "[[es:Barco]]" placed at the article Ship will link it to the spanish version: Barco). The "es" is the ISO 639-1 code for spanish (or español). Each language has its own ISO code, and placing the code, a colon and the name of the article (in its respective language, not english) all in square brackets gaves the interwiki link.
When writing in an article's prose, don´t use text contractions just like the ones I´ve just used. Things like "mustn´t", "should've" and "it´s (not to be confused with "its")" are not suitable to be part of an article, so kep in mind to avoid them (i often use "show preview" even when i´m very sure that I wrote it right). This, just in article namespace, it´s OK in talks.
When placing a link of a non-article namespace avoiding the prefix (for example this: [[Wikipedia:Reference desk|Reference desk]]) you don´t have to put the whole thing but only this: [[Wikipedia:Reference desk|]] leaving the space after the pipe mark in blank, the wiki will complete it for you.
When creating a collapsible table, don´t forget to add headers (cells starting with ! instead of |). If you don´t put headers, the collapsible (hide / show) button won´t have a place to spawn, so the table will look like normal (non-collapsible).
In one of the cells (header cell) of a sortable table (class="sortable"), you can add the parameter: class="unsortable", this will exclude the sorting button from that column (because sometimes it´s unnecessary or inapropriate).
Doing this is very simple: you cut-paste all the past conversations that you like to archive into a page like: "User talk:A little insignificant/Archive 1" placing in that page a template like {{Talkarchive}} or any other, then you can (if you want) place an index template in your talk like {{archive box}} or other or even customize it like me. The page will automatically exclude the [edit] of all sections.
All other values work similar if placed right to the cell space ( | ) not the initial table code ( {| ). For example, width will only aply to that cell and not the whole table (affecting all cells below and above with the same width, so as height (accordingly)). The background will also aply only to that cell, but the align will affect the text in this case. There are two others which only work for cells and they are: rowspan and colspan which merge cells.
Surely tou know how to change the color of the text, but you can also use templates for easy access. For example, if you type: {{red|the big red fox}} you´ll obtain this: "the big red fox". This short access to change colors works for several colors, try out some.
Another article uses the same title, for which a disambiguation page is not needed, just the template {{otheruses}} which says "For other uses, see..." (in this case, linking to the other article).
There´s a main article which uses that title (most known, important or notable), then the same template {{otheruses}} links at the top of the page, but not to other article, but to a disambiguation page.
There are several uses for the title for which none is the most relevant, then typing that title in the search box links directly to the disambiguation page.
At first time, it looks like the only way to go to an image file in wikipedia is to click the thumb directly, but if you put a colon mark at the left of the image link, you can link text. Example: typing [[:Image:Qslogo.png]] gives this --► Image:Qslogo.png
Sometimes, when you´re editing (yet not finished) an article in some special way and you prefer something to be kept unaltered (or something similar), you can leave invisible comments inside the article´s main body to adress another editor. For example: "If you change this paragraph, please change section 2 accordingly". This by putting <!-- Comment --> just ensure that it doesn´t afect another thing.
Templates, like everything else, are categorized, but for this, you don´t place the category in the template page itself, but in the documentation (otherwise, all users who use the template will belong to the same category. Example: Category:Utility templates, and if I use one of the templates within that category, then, I will belong to Utility templates category also, which would be wrong). To add category, just place this:
In a template page, you often see a green table containing information of the template, which "magically" is not included when transcluding the template. Well, this is called the "Template´s documentation", and its purpose is to explain briefly to other users how to use the template. A template´s documentation must allways have the name of the template followed by: ".../doc" (in lower case) like in: "Template:Example/doc". Finally, you only add this:
Newbies are prospect contributors and therefore most valuable resource for wikipedia, so if any make something wrong: moderate your aproach, avoid wikipedia jargon, be gracious and remember, we all can make a misteke (specially as newcomers). Maybe an alert (even if not high) could be too much and a newcomer could scare away; this doesn´t mean that you can´t use them, but consider to substitute it for a friendly message or include both.
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Good article collaboration
I thought you should know. This one is a collaboration or wikiproject where nominations to improve an article to Good Article status are held. Working in this project can help in not letting it die, speed up an article's upgrade and, of course, upgrade wikipedia. Direct link --► WP:GACC.
Also known as SUL account (single user login), is a recently added procedure (which by the way I performed) which allows you to log in into all wikimedia wikis by only logging into one of them (wikibooks, commons, all wikipedias in all languages, etc...), merging all your existing accounts in wikimedia (if created) and reserving your username for all others in which you don´t have an account (automatically creating them). Direct link --► m:Special:MergeAccount.
This is a wikiproject which aims for the instruction, standarization, appendix and discussion on the user warning templates (which you have been using frequently). In this wikiproject you may discuss specific problems or issues related to your experience with the warnings, suggest a change or ask for help also. Related topics --► CAT:UWT.
The Counter Vandalism Unit (CVU) is a centralized effort project to fight back vandals in wikipedia and build up better strategies. It offers a variety of tools and resources which help in battling vandalism, some of them that you already use (like the rollback or the twinkle). Besides the rollback scripts, there are also monitoring tools, task forces and IRC communications. Recomended links:
Sometimes a job here in wikipedia is somewhat large to only one user (like creating each one of the missing typeface articles from the list of fonts), to that end, you can request collaboration from other users. For this, you only create a wikipedia-type page like: Wikipedia:Collaboration for the X articles sumarizing in that place all the tasks and info needed, then you link the proper articles and advertise yourself in a wikiproject relating to those articles, the village pump, or the talk page of users who contributed to those articles before. Read more --► WP:TEAMWORK.
Pictures won´t ugrade themselves to featured status, when you see an image that deserves to be a featured picture (just like the articles), you can nominate it in the proper place, nominate another for delisting or vote for the current nominees. Smetimes we need more people to vote and give feedback. There´s also a place for valued pictures. The difference between this and the featured is that a valued picture has a high encyclopedic value (EV) and the aesthetics doesn´t matter much, and a featured picture is the same, but also, it has to meet some quality criteria. For aesthetic value only, the nominations are made in commons. Read more --► WP:FP?, WP:VP?.
Among the types of protection, there are:
- Semi protection: Prevents edits from anonymous and not-autoconfirmed users
- Move protection: Prevents pages for renaming (only administrators can)
- Creation protection: Prevents creation of recently deleted pages
- Full protection: Only administrators can edit
- Permanent protection: Protection of software and site interface (admins can´t remove it)
- Supreme protection: Protected by Wikimedia Foundation itself (not even admins can edit)
A featured article is: well written, comprehensive, well researched, stable, witha neutral point of view, with a concise lead section, an appropriate structure, consistent citations, images that follow all the guidelines and a fair lenght focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. Read more --► WP:FA?.
Several associations of editors were created across time to focus in the improvement and discussion about an specific subject or category of articles. They discuss, organize and develop the articles within the project's scope (use of infoboxes, templates, tasks, etc...). Whether you decide to become a member of certain project or not, you can always ask something in the project´s page related to an article within their scope (the talk page of an article often displays which project is scoping it).
About what you said about automated templates, well, it´s always a good idea to meke some of your own (customizing strings, changing colors, etc...). Here´s a sample of a good modified welcome template (the las one I used before getting busy in other things); I took it from the original automated one, but I modified it adding new entries, figures and colors. I hope this gives you some idea I wasn´t expecting to add a level. 3 entry here yet, but you climb fast!
Displaying this is not something very compicated. First, you copy the below text to the bottom of your monobook.js page
importScript('User:TheDJ/qui.js');
Then save it and bypass your cache (refresh). After that, you should see it working, for what may be needed to place {{statustop}} on your userpage to make it visible to others.
Using the same keycode to make an unlaut punctuation (double dot) you can apply it to other letters or even make a different punctuation. Here´s the code structure: ë (ë). The purple sections are the code's fixed characters, the red part is the code that gives the punctuation, and by changing the blue "e" by another vocal (even mayus), you place the punctuation mark into other letter. Here´s the list of common diacritics:
As you saw in the previous tip (and the first one here), I input the ë code without displaying the ë. For example, if you type: ë it will appear an ë instead of the code, so, to make it visual, just place it between code strings with an & before the key code and removing the ampersand of the character code. Just like this: <code>&euml;</code>. This will allow you to print the code in the screen with a grey marking behind. Placing only the </code> strings will only display the grey highlight.
My username (as complained so far by 2 users) has an special character; an e with an umlaut diacritic punctuation (ë). Although I can perfectly type it in my keyboard (in this country), I guess north-american keyboards are not used to it and require configuration. To place this (in the search bar, editing or anywhere here within wikimedia) only type: "ë" in the place of the e. For example: Damërung.
In the markup code for the borders, you can customize them by putting separate strings (i.e. {| border="6" ...) or in the same string of "style" (i.e. {| style="border: 2px solid Red" ..., in which you may also add more values). You can also include both; with the first one, you´ll be editing the external border.
A hard space is like a normal space, but it also prevents the end-of-line displacement. It´s 'summoned' by typing " " and it will work no matter how many there are.
One of the most important thing in the articles is to cite references. References which lead to a dead link doesn´t allow the article to be verified. Also, the notability must not be temporal (like news) a topic needs to have had sufficient coverage
For a topic to deserve its own article within wikipedia, the sources must adress it directly in detail, these sources need also editorial integrity so the article can be verifiable and must not be an original research.
The paragraph of an article should be long enough to display the whole idea, but short enough to still be nice and good-looked, if you´re making a huge writing, is better to split it in two or more paragraphs. The first paragraph in an article is called the lead section, which doesn´t need a heading; it must be also short and sharp, as it displays the overview idea of the whole article. Single-sentenced paragraps should be used sparingly.
Everything (as far as I know) in wikimedia belong to one or more categories, and I said wikimedia, because it´s not only for articles in wikipedia, but also for anything else like pictures at commons, books at wikisource, etc... The categories are one of the best search methods, with them, for example, you click on an image, then see which category does it belong to (at the bottom always), and in that category, you´ll find all the items that fall into that category. Another example: If you´re looking specificly for a blue arrow pointing diagonal-right-up, you click on any image of any arrow, then click on the category arrows and you search through all arrow-type icons.
In an article, bold typeface is used when writing synonyms and acronyms of the title; for example, in the article 5 Fingers also known as Five Fingers is put in bold, to make emphasis through the article, you´ll use italics. Read more: here or here.
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Stubs templates
Templates like {{cleanup}} and others are meant to be placed in the top af the article, however, in the case of the stubs, the template must be placed in the bottom instead. Also, some articles may fall into several categories of stubs (example: this mine, which falls into these categories: 1, 2, 3, 4), so instead of placing a lot of stubs, we should use the {{asbox}} template, which helps in making just one stub note with all the categories within. With the {{asbox}} you can choose the image of display, the subject and all the categories of the article (amog other things). The important thing is the categories, so other editors who expand the stubs will reach them more easily. You can message me if you have doubts of how to use the {{asbox}} template.
In 'My preferences', in the signature section, you can see an input box and a check box. Sometimes is confusing, but if you mark it, the contents introduced in the input box will be treted as wikicode (for example: if you put "[[Wikipedia]]", then a link to wikipedia's article will be shown after you type 4 or 3 tildes), if unchecked, all you have to do is type your nick (or whatever) and the system will convert it into a standard signature.
To sign something, you may have been told to use the well-known four tildes ~~~~ (also placed by using this button: ), but have you asked your self what happens if you use five tildes? Or three? Well, with three tildes '~~~' you put your signature, but without the time stamp; and with five, you put the time stamp without the signature.
It´s called a sock puppeteer a user who has more than just one account in wikipedia, and sock puppet his altenate account (or accounts) that could be used for fraudulent or disruptive purposes. This is against wikipedia's policy and must be discouraged. I myself have more than one account, but this case is for special circumstances, and as well as other editors, follow the special guidelines in doing this (like inter-linking the pages, special notification, etc...).
When writing in non-talk pages (articles, wikipedia pages, etc...), keep in mind to avoid using such phrases as "remember that..." and "note that...", which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone.
You can shrink text by adding these brackets: <small> - your text - </small> between the text that you want to make small (also works with <big>). It also works if you place more than one (shrinking or expanding the text more and more). Or you can simply alter the text size by using this:
<font size="9pt"> - your text - </span>
Changing the '9' for any number. ('pt' means points, also, use 'px' for pixels or even percentages '%').
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Link set
Placing this: [[Wikipedia|ROTFL]] will make a link to wikipedia´s article with the word ROTFL. The left part (of the pipe) is where to link, and the right one is the displayed text. On the left part, you can even specify more where to lead (an article´s section) by using this: #section. For example: Wikipedia#Operation will lead to the same article but in a certain section (and you can still place something right-sided of the pipe mark).
If you´ve thinked and you´re not sure that you should create an article, consider requesting feedback at the drawing board, edit an existing article or use an article creation wizard: ۩ - ۩.
When creating an article, avoid the copy-paste or copying the exact information. This may sometimes can even cause problems of copyright violations (I have experienced this). Again, don´t worry for mistakes, just don´t copy. Also, avoid making the article in an informal tone wich adress the reader directly (like posting your view point or usig words like "...is cool", "...you should have...", etc), keeping neutrality. And finally, avoid advertising or promoting anything.
Well, first of all, I´m glad you came into wikipedia and I hope you enjoy helping to develop it. Here you can find a simplified set of most important rules on wikipedia and here is an overview of wikipedia´s five pillars. There's a place where you can also ask any question (you can also go there by just typing WP:? in the search box), but if you find something a little complicated or just prefer to get an easier and more personalized answer, you can always ask me anything (since you´re my adoptee) and I´ll help you. You can also use the sandbox or your own page to test things or build an article (or part of an article) before adding it to main space.
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