Difference between revisions of "WikiUsage:Edit Guidelines & FAQ"

Latest revision as of 03:02, 21 January 2009

Two things need to be said before everything else:

• Don't get scared to contribute. If you think you have some valuable information to share, just do it.
• If you never edited/created an article before, please read WikiUsage:Adding content before this page. (A beginners tutorial/manual).

Here are some guidelines and frequently asked questions (which you never asked!) about editing an article on NewMars Wiki.

General guidelines

Article names

Always create article names from full title, not from abbreviations. Create a redirect from that abbreviation to the full name.
Example:

• Low Earth Orbit - correct
• LEO - redirect to Low Earth Orbit
• Low Earth Orbit (LEO) - incorrect, includes both full name and abbreviation

Templates

Main article:List of Templates

Note: Take care of upper/lower cases of characters in template names (with the exception of the first char). For example, {{InUse}} and {{iNuSe}} are not the same.

The InUse template

{{InUse}}: Add this template at the very beggining of the page when you are doing major edits. Save the page only with the tag, then continue edit. Don't forget to delete it before the final update of the page.

The MainArticle template

{{MainArticle}}: This is a useful template to point out at the end of a paragraph that there is a full article about that subject. For some examples, see Mars.
How to use it: {{MainArticle|[[Link_to_main_article_here]]}}.

The Research template

{{Research}}: Use this template when some of the information in the article (or all of it) contains research in progress or controversial conclusions of research.
It is meant to be placed at the end of the article, together with a note inside the body text, at the point where such research or matters in dispute appear. Usually to be used by the original editors themselves.

The Stub template

{{Stub}}: Articles in this category are not complete. A proper stub should contain enough text to at least describe it's title. Place this tag at the beginning of an stub.
Articles with this tag will get listed in the category Stubs.

The Unreferenced template

{{Unreferenced}}: Place this at the end of an article that doesn't have enough (or any at all) references or sources cited. It your reason to do so it's not obvious, describe it in the article's talk page.

The Untested template

{{Untested}}: The scope of this tag is to make a clear distinction between tested and proven technologies and methodology, and untested ones (or even purely fictional). Place it at the end of the article, and write in the talk page why you did so.

FAQ

How to make a redirect

If you want to redirect to another page, write: #REDIRECT articlename

How to sign with your name

Use four tildas to sign (but use this only on Talk pages).
~~~~ creates: maxie 30 January 2006 04:40 (EST)