Help:Creating pages
Revision as of 12:47, 12 September 2011 by Joel Hedlund (NSC) (talk | contribs)
This page lists general guidelines for creating new pages on the snicdocs wiki, but for most of the specifics you should refer to the example pages.
Guidelines for creating new pages
- Ensure that you have set up your watch preferences and notifications correctly
- Watch all pages that you create. Unwatched pages rot and we do not want that.
- Look at the example pages
- These are in the proper layout and use all the nifty templates for getting all the required information right. Chances are that much of the tedious work has already been done for you.
- Put pages in the correct namespace
- Regular pages (almost all pages) go in the standard namespace (no namespace). Pages that really only are helpful for editors, like this one, all go in the Help: namespace. This prevents them from turning up in search results.
- Put some deep thought into the choice of page title
- This is a wiki, so it matters a lot. See the relevant example pages for more details. Read the naming policies for titles, headings and names so you get it right.
- Create the page
- You can for example search for the page title you had in mind, using the search box at the top of the page. If it is not found, you will be offered to "Create the page Your excellent title on this wiki". You will notice that there is nothing special about that link; it is just a dead wikilink. So another way is to add a link somewhere to the content you want, click it, go there, and click the Create tab at the top of the page to create it!
- Create the talk page
- Also called the Discussion page. The Help:Talk example page is a good start. As this wiki is not open for unauthenticated editing other than through the talk pages, these are our primary form of input from the general public.
Example pages, designs and templates
The catchall term for all that is "Example pages", and they are all available here:
along with motivation on why you should not call them templates (because mediawiki has called dibs on that term).
The example pages are an attempt at standardisation in the fluent world of wikis. If you feel there is a need to create more, please do so, and make sure to follow the guidelines here and on the example page category page when doing so.