Help:Starting New Pages

There are three methods of starting a new page, detailed below. But first, make sure the article is needed. One of the most common mistakes made by new editors is to create unnecessary new pages. The primary reason for a wiki-format web site is allow editors to work together to create high-quality articles, where everyone's knowledge is combined into a single unified source of information. Therefore, it is generally better to improve existing articles rather than creating new redundant ones, especially when you are new to the site and unfamiliar with the site's editing standards. Unnecessary new articles will immediately be proposed for deletion.

Before starting a new page make sure that all of the following conditions are met:

• There are no pages which already provide the same information. If there is any type of similar article, add the information there instead of creating a new article.
• You are ready to create the page, and you are planning to add more than just one or two sentences. We would rather have red links (for non-existent articles) that clearly identify the article as an empty article, rather than create an article containing nothing but "This is a stub."
• The article will be useful to people browsing the wiki. In other words, the article should be related to Starfield.
• The article is in the proper namespace.
• The article uses proper wiki conventions. No attribution, no first person, etc. The title of the page should be relevant and no attribution should be found in the article.
• The information in the article is accurate and verifiable.
• The page does not repeat information in other articles. Instead of repeating, it should link to many other wiki pages.
• You want to have other editors modify the article. If you want to have your own personal article, you should not be contributing to a wiki. After you create the article, it will inevitably be edited (potentially extensively) by other contributors to the site. The final version is unlikely to resemble your initial contribution; at no point in the process will other editors consider it to be "your" article.

Go

The easiest way to create a page is to use the Go feature of the search box. Type the page name into the search box, hit GO, and click on the red link stating "You can create this page". This will take you to an edit page where you can add your new information.

If "Go" takes you to an existing page, then the information you want to add probably belongs on that page. Also, before clicking on "create this page" it is generally best to look through the page matches found by the search engine to see whether any of those pages is a better place to add your information.

After creating the article this way, be sure to remember to add links to the article from other appropriate wiki articles, otherwise other readers will not be able to find your article.

Linking

Another easy way to create a page is to start by creating a link to the page. First, click edit on an appropriate page, i.e., an existing wiki article that mentions your chosen topic. The simplest format for creating a link is:

[[My New Page]]

Save the page (or just preview the page) and the link should now appear in red. This means that the page does not exist, and clicking the link will bring you to an edit page. Copy or type your page here.

Note: If the link appears in blue, the page name you have chosen already exists. If it is about the same topic as your new page, edit the existing page instead of creating a new page. If the topics are different, then you will need to come up with a different name.

URL

A more difficult way to create a new page is to type the new page's name into your browser's address bar, after the / in http://www.starfieldwiki.net/wiki/, for example:

http://www.starfieldwiki.net/wiki/Lore:My_New_Page

To use this method you need to be sure to provide the correct namespace (e.g., "Lore:" in the example) as part of your page's name. After hitting enter, a page will come up with a link "Start the ... page." Click on the link to start editing your new page.