Wikipedia:更优秀条目写作指南
维基百科，自由的百科全书
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本页被视为英文维基百科的一项格式指引。供中文维基百科参考。本指引以英文原文为准，所阐明的标准或行为，为许多维基编者原则接受。但本指导并非正式方针。本页的中文翻译尚未全部完成或未达成共识。除翻译外，请不要更改本指引。如果翻译完成，请在本页的讨论页讨论本指引是否可以成为中文维基百科的格式指引。 |
| 维基百科：格式指导 |
| 格式手册 |
| 增补格式手册 |
| 特殊頁面指導 |
| 其他指导 |
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如何编辑页面 |
本文不是一项规则，是为了让条目写的更好而收集的一系列建议。
- 本文与页面编辑常用代码无关。 参见Wikipedia:如何编辑页面
- 本文与格式的正式规则无关。 参见Wikipedia:格式手册
- 本文不对列表、消除岐义、图片提供建议。 参见Wikipedia:列表, Wikipedia:格式手册 (消歧义页)和Wikipedia:图片指南
- 如有兴趣请参考 Wikipedia:How to write a great article 和Wikipedia:完美條目
- 如果想看看维基百科上最好的文章并向他们学习，参见Wikipedia:特色條目。
所以請放輕鬆，這篇文章沒有包含什麼規則。記得：如果規則與導引令你緊張與沮喪，且不再渴望參與維基，那就忽略它們，去做你的事。如果你留下來了，我們將著眼於編排、寫作風格、如何創作對讀者有意義的與清楚、精確的文章。我們也在最後提供少數雜項文章的一些通用的指引。
目录
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[编辑] 文章布局
文章布局很重要。好的文章以一些介绍材料开始，然后使用一个清晰的结构承载信息。结尾是附录，譬如参考和相关的文章。The layout of an article is important. Good articles start with some introductory material and then present their information using a clear structure. They are then followed by standard appendices such as references and related articles.
[编辑] 文章结构
[编辑] 介绍
Good articles start with a brief lead section introducing the topic. We discuss lead sections in greater detail below. As the lead section comes above the first header, it is very rarely useful to put ==Introduction== . A common title for the first section of a longer article under the introductory paragraph is "Overview", although more specific section titles are generally to be preferred.
[编辑] 篇幅
Articles themselves should be kept relatively short. Say what needs saying, but do not overdo it. Articles, other than lists, should aim to be less than 32kb in size. When articles grow past this amount of readable text, they should be broken up to improve readability and ease of editing. The headed sub-section should be retained, with a concise version of what has been removed under an italicized header, such as Fuller treatment is at History of Ruritania. Otherwise context is lost and the general treatment suffers.
There are also technical issues with editing articles over 32kb. Few editors will read an entire 50 or 70kb often poorly structured article just to make sure a piece of info they want to put in is not already there. The result is that the information is misplaced, duplicated, or not put in at all.
[编辑] 段落
Similarly, paragraphs should be relatively short, as the eye gets tired of following solid text for too many lines, but not too short. Group similar items and sentences together to improve readability. A long paragraph can normally be split up into two or more separate paragraphs with similar themes, as long as the second paragraph gets an introductory sentence to keep the reader on-track, even one as brief as "Other examples abound." Conversely, a one-sentence paragraph is like a cannon-shot during the performance: it attracts so much attention that it had better be good. An entire article that consists of one-sentence paragraphs can normally be consolidated by theme into a few paragraphs.
[编辑] 标题
Headings help make an article clearer and determine the table of contents; see Wikipedia:Section. Since headers are hierarchical, and some people set their user preferences to number them, you should start with ==Header== and follow it with ===Subheader===, ====Subsubheader====, and so forth. Yes, the ==Header== is awfully big in some browsers, but that can be fixed in the future with a style sheet more easily than a nonhierarchical article structure can be fixed.
While it may be preferable to use bullet points within a section instead of using sub-headings, bold fonts should not be used. Good HTML practice dictates that headers are marked up as headers. The degree to which subtopics should be kept on a single page or given their own pages is a matter of judgment.
Subheadings should generally be listed in alphabetical order especially if it is a list of countries.
[编辑] 图片
If the article can be illustrated with pictures, find an appropriate place to position these images, where they relate closely to text they illustrate. If there might be doubt, draw attention to the image in the text (illustration right). For more information, see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial.
[编辑] 标准附录
Certain optional sections go at the bottom of the article.
- Quotations
- Under this header, list any memorable quotations that are appropriate to the subject.
- Related topics or See also
Put here, in a bulleted list, other articles in the Wikipedia that are related to this one. Eg:
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style
- Wikipedia:How to edit a page
Or for a less formal feel you can simply use this:
See also: Main page, Recent changes
- References
Put under this header, again in a bulleted list, any books, articles, web pages, etcetera that you used in constructing the article and/or recommend as sources of further information to readers. For example:
- Pooh, W. T. & Robin, C. (1926). "How to catch a heffalump" in A. A. Milne (Ed.), The Karma of Kanga, pp. 23–47. Hundred Acre Wood: Wol Press.
The most important thing is to include the complete citation information, just as you would for any other bibliography. The precise formatting is still debatable and can be fixed later. See also: Wikipedia:Cite your sources.
- External links
Put here, in list form, any web sites that you have used or recommend for readers of the article. Describe it if possible.
Its code is: * [http://www.webstyleguide.com/ Yale Web Style Guide for web pages]
If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question. If you cite an online article, try to provide as much meaningful citation information as possible. Examples:
| Link with uninformative description | Link with informative description |
|---|---|
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If you are dealing with controversial issues, it is also useful to point out which sites take which stance, and maybe separate the links by proponents and critics. Funding information or relationships may also be interesting. When linking to commercial sites, you may also wish to provide information on registration requirements and other limits, especially unexpected ones.
Websites can take a long time to load and a long time to evaluate. Try making it easier for the reader to choose which sites to visit. If a particular website is known to take a long time to load, or requires special software to interpret (for example, a large PDF file) then add a note to the description indicating this fact.
Don't use external links where we'll want Wikipedia links. Don't put in links like this to external URLs linking text that we will want articles on Wikipedia about. Put external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article. For example, if you're writing an article about Descartes and you know of a great article about rationalism online, don't link the word "rationalism" to that article. Simply wikify the word rationalism, and add an "External links" section with an external link to the source (perhaps in both articles).
[编辑] 长文章的布局
Related articles: Wikipedia:Long article layout; Wikipedia:Article size
The length of a given Wikipedia entry tends to grow as people add information to it. This cannot go on forever: infinitely long entries would cause problems. So we must remove information from entries periodically. This information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new entries to hold the excised information.
[编辑] 子话题
Wikipedia entries tend to grow in a way which lends itself to the natural creation of new entries. The text of any entry consists of a sequence of related but distinct subtopics. When there is enough text in a given subtopic to merit its own entry, that text can be excised from the present entry and replaced by a link. Some characteristics:
- Longer articles are split into sections (each about several good-sized paragraphs long. Subsectioning can increase this amount)
- Ideally many of those sections will eventually provide summaries of separate articles on the sub-topic covered in that section (a Main article or similar link would be below the section title - see Template:Main)
- Each article on each subtopics has a lead section
- As a rule, they do not trigger a page size warning (in rare cases this rule must be broken since the point is to limit readable text, not markup and sometimes markup may push a page above 32kb).
Examples of entries that do this are:
- Cricket, where the page is divided into different subsections that give an overview of the sport, with each subsection leading off to one or more articles covering subtopics and with a large 'See also' section at the end
- History of the English penny, which is part of the 'History of the English penny series', as illustrated by a table on the right hand side of the article.
A smaller number of articles are split into a series of pages. An example of this style is Isaac Newton's early life and achievements. In this instance there is one contents page for the whole series of pages.
[编辑] 主題之間的平衡
當文章是長的和有許多相關的副主題，設法平衡主頁的各部份。不要把重點投入放在文章的一部份。而在短的文章中，如果一個副主題比其它副主題詳盡，考慮將重點放在主頁，內容則放在新一頁。
[编辑] 使用什么样式?
Two styles, closely related, tend to be used for Wikipedia articles.
[编辑] 新闻样式
Some Wikipedians advocate using a news style. News style is the prose style of short, front-page newspaper stories and the news bulletins that air on radio and television. It encompasses not only vocabulary and sentence structure, but the order in which stories present information, their tone and the readers or interests to which they cater.
Encyclopedia articles do not have to follow news style, but a familiarity with news style conventions may be a great help in planning the style and layout of an article.
[编辑] 摘要样式
'Summary style' is an organisational style that is similar to 'news style' that works in the basic spirit of news style except it applies to topics instead of articles and lead section instead of lead sentences.
The idea is to distribute information in such a way so that Wikipedia can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail. It is up to the reader to choose how much detail they are exposed to. This is done by not overwhelming the reader with too much text at once by using progressively longer and longer summaries. This is the style followed by Cricket and Peerage.
[编辑] 理由
Wikipedia is not divided into a macropaedia and a micropaedia like Encyclopaedia Britannica is. We must serve both user types in the same encyclopedia. Summary style is based on the premise that information about a topic should not all be contained in a single article since different readers have different needs:
- some readers need just a quick summary (lead section),
- more people need a moderate amount of info (a set of multi-paragraph sections)
- and yet others need a lot of detail (links to full-sized separate articles).
We must serve all groups.
For detail see: Wikipedia:Summary style
[编辑] 为读者着想
Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. The people who read it have different backgrounds, education and worldview from you. Try to make your article accessible to as many of them as possible. The reader is probably reading the article to learn. It's quite possible the reader knows nothing at all about the subject: the article needs to explain it to them.
Where possible, avoid using jargon. But again, consider the reader. An article entitled "Use of chromatic scales in early Baroque music" is likely to be read by musicians, and so technical details and metalanguage, linked to articles explaining the metalanguage, are appropriate.
But an article entitled "Rap music" is likely to be read by laymen who want a brief and plainly written overview, with links to more detailed information if available. If any jargon is used, a brief explanation should be given in the article itself.
[编辑] 陈述“常识”
State facts which may be obvious to you, but are not necessarily obvious to the reader. Usually, such a statement will be in the first sentence or two of the article. For example, consider this sentence:
- The Ford Thunderbird was conceived as a response to the Chevrolet Corvette and entered production for the 1955 model year.
Here no mention is made of the Ford Thunderbird's fundamental nature: it is an automobile. It assumes that the reader already knows this—an assumption that may not be correct, especially if the reader is not familiar with Ford or Chevrolet. Perhaps instead:
- The Ford Thunderbird is a car manufactured in the USA by the Ford Motor Company.
But there is no need to go overboard. There is no need to explain a common word like "car". Repetition is usually unnecessary, for example:
- Shoichi Yokoi was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941.
conveys enough information. Thus, the following is verbose.
- Shoichi Yokoi was a Japanese soldier in Japan who was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941. He speaks Japanese.
[编辑] 引言段落
The lead section is the section before the first headline. It is shown above the table of contents (for pages with more than three headlines). It should establish significances, large implications and why we should care.
[编辑] 首句
If the subject is amenable to definition, the first sentence should give a concise, conceptually sound definition in its opening sentence that puts the article in context. The title should be highlighted in bold the first time it appears in an article, but not thereafter. Nor should the title be linked: a reader will only get back to the same article.
For example, an article on Charles Darwin, should not begin with:
- Darwin created controversy with the publication of Origin of Species...
But instead should begin with something like:
- Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was a naturalist and geologist who proposed the modern theory of evolution....
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) has more on the specific format for biography articles.
A common context problem is writers linking a work from an author's page, say, and then starting an article with "A is his third novel..." without stating whose novel it is.
If the article is about a fictional character or place, say so. Readers might not know, for instance, that Homer Simpson is not a real person. Start with, for example:
- Homer Simpson is a fictional character in the television series...
[编辑] 引言段落的其他内容
Then proceed with a description. The definition should be as clear to the nonspecialist as the subject matter allows. If the article is long (more than one page), the remainder of the opening paragraph should summarize it. Remember, the basic significance of a topic may not be obvious to nonspecialist readers, even if they understand the basic definition. Tell them! For instance:
- Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of money for research. Publishers and agencies use peer review to select and to screen submissions. At the same time, the process assists authors in meeting the standards of their discipline. Publications and awards that have not undergone peer review are liable be regarded with suspicion by scholars and professionals in many fields.
If the article is long enough to contain several paragraphs, then the first paragraph should be short and to the point, with a clear explanation of what the subject of the page is.
To avoid the table of contents being positioned too low, say lower than this position in a page, put __TOC__ at the top of the desired position.
The appropriate length of the lead section depends on the total length of the article. As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than two or three paragraphs. The following specific rules have been proposed:
| < 15,000 characters | 15,000 characters - 30,000 characters | > 30,000 characters |
|---|---|---|
| one or two paragraphs | two or three paragraphs | three paragraphs (consider splitting up the article) |
[编辑] 如何评判
Here are some thought experiments to help you test whether you are setting enough context:
- Does the article make sense if the reader gets to it as a random page? (Special:Randompage)
- Imagine yourself as a layman in another English-speaking country. Can you figure out what the article is about?
- Can people tell what the article is about if the first page is printed out and passed around?
- Would a reader want to follow some of the links?
[编辑] 少用其他语言Use other languages sparingly
It is fine to include foreign terms as extra information, but avoid writing articles that can only be understood if the reader understands the foreign terms. In the English-language Wikipedia, the English form does not always have to come first, sometimes the non-English word is better as the main text with the English in parentheses or set off by commas after it, and sometimes not. For example, see perestroika
Non-English words in the English-language Wikipedia should be given emphasis, usually italic. Non-English words should be used as titles for entries only as a last resort. Again, see perestroika.
English title terms with foreign origin can encode the native spelling and put it in parentheses. See, for example, I Ching (易經 pinyin yì jīng) or Sophocles (Σοφοκλης). The native text is useful for researchers to precisely identify ambiguous spelling, especially for tonal languages that do not transliterate well into the Roman alphabet. Foreign terms within the article body do not need native text if they can be specified as title terms in separate articles.
See also naming conventions,
[编辑] 少用颜色
少用顏色。 每台電腦的設定與使用的瀏覽器不盡相同: 你永遠不知道有多少顏色可以被使用者的電腦顯示出來。維基百科是國際性的: 不同的文化對與每個顏色的解讀不同。含有過量顏色的頁面看起來又亂又不像百科全書。僅僅在警告與需要讀者關注的地方使用顏色。
[编辑] 使用简洁明确词语Use clear, precise and accurate terms
[编辑] 使用短句和列表Use short sentences and lists
Use short sentences does not mean use fewer words. It means don't use unnecessary words and sometimes using full stops/periods rather than commas. Consider the view of William Strunk, Jr. in his 1918 Elements of Style:
- Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words [and] a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
When you have written your draft, read it over and boil it down to the essentials. Wordiness has no place in Wikipedia. Avoiding wordiness, however, is not a valid excuse for deleting information from an article.
[编辑] 避免惊奇的原则Principle of least astonishment
Using the principle of least astonishment, you should plan your pages and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense. If a link takes readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would, it should at least take them someplace that makes sense.
[编辑] 举例
A user wants to know about the nuclear power plant that exploded in Chernobyl. The page on "Chernobyl" redirects to "Chornobyl", an alternative spelling for that town. However, the user sees that a link to the desired page, Chernobyl accident, is placed prominently near the top of the Chornobyl page, and happily clicks on that.
[编辑] “是指”的使用 Use of 'refers to'
The phrase refers to is often found near the beginning of Wikipedia articles. For example, the article Computer architecture once began by saying "Computer architecture refers to the theory behind the design of a computer." But that is not literally true; it would be better to say, "Computer architecture is the theory behind the design of a computer", as the article now does. Note that it is the words computer architecture that refer to a certain theory; computer architecture itself does not refer to any theory, it is a theory.
Sometimes it may be appropriate to say, for example, "The term Great Schism refers to either one of two schisms in the history of Christianity", but most often the simpler locution is better. If you mention the phrase Great Schism, rather than using that phrase to refer to one of the Great Schisms, then write the word in italics to indicate that.
See also: Use-mention distinction
[编辑] 核对事实
撰寫事實: 檢查你寫的事實，不要虛構。你可能需要檢查這些可疑的事實。
This is a basic part of citing good sources...even if you think you know something, you have to cite references anyway to prove to the reader that the fact is true. In searching for good references to cite, you might even learn something new.
刪除可能為事實的內容時請特別小心。編輯者經常在沒有提供參考資料的情況下納入大量內容。在您想要由條目刪除某些內容時，請先檢查其真實性。如果某個事實含有大量內容而且有提供來源, 請在刪除時更加小心。百科全書是許多事實的容納庫。If another editor provided a fact, there was probably a reason for it that should not be overlooked. So consider each fact provided as potentially precious. Is the context or overall presentation the issue? If the fact does not belong in one particular article, maybe it belongs in another.
Examine entries you have worked on subsequent to revision by others. Have facts been omitted or deleted? It may be the case that you failed to provide sufficient substantiation for the facts, or that the facts you incorporated may need a clearer relationship to the entry. Protect your facts, but also be sure that they are presented meaningfully.
See also: Wikipedia:Verifiability
[编辑] 避免笼统的语言Avoid blanket terms
Avoid blanket terms unless you have verified them. For example, the Montgomery County article states that of the 18 Montgomery Counties in the United States, most are named after Richard Montgomery. This is a blanket statement. It may very well be true, but is it reliable? In this instance the editor had done the research to verify this. Without the research, the statement should not be made. It would have been a good idea to describe the research done and sign it on the article's talk page.
[编辑] 虚构的内容也需核对Check your fiction
The advice about factual articles also applies to articles on fiction subjects. Further considerations need to be made when writing about fictional topics: they are inherently not real. It is important to keep these articles verifiable and encyclopedic.
If you add fictional information, clearly distinguish fact and fiction. As with normal articles, establish context so that a reader unfamiliar with the subject can get an idea about the article's meaning without having to check several links. Instead of
- "Trillian was taken away from Earth by Zaphod when he visited a party."
write
- "Trillian is a fictional character from Douglas Adams's radio, book and now film series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is taken away from Earth in a spaceship when Zaphod Beeblebrox visits a party. Together with Zaphod, Adams chooses to have her explore the universe in the starship." And so on.
Works of fiction are generally considered to exist in a kind of perpetual present tense, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to "now". Write about fiction using the present tense, not the past tense.
- "Homer presents, Achilles rages, Andromache laments, Priam pleads." [2]
- "Darth Vader is a fictional character from Star Wars."
- "Holden Caulfield has a certain disdain for what he sees as 'phony'."
- "Heathcliff, who is taken in by the wealthy Earnshaw family as a child, falls in love with their daughter, Catherine."
Articles about fictional topics should not be simple book-reports, rather the topic should be explained through its significance on the work. The reader should be able to feel like they understand why a character, place, or event was included in the fictional work after reading an article about one. A reader should be able to understand why this person/place/thing/event is relevant to the story.
It is generally discouraged to add fictional information from sources that cannot be verified or are limited to a very small number of readers, such as fan fiction and online role playing games. In the latter case, if you absolutely have to write about the subject, please be especially careful to cite your sources.
If the subject, a character in a TV show, say, is too limited to be given a full article, then integrate information about that character into a larger article. It is better to write a larger article about the TV show or a fictional universe itself than to create all sorts of stubs about its characters that nobody can find. And if you find a lot of related fiction stubs? Merge them! Make yourself a characters of X page, and go cut-and-paste crazy, leaving a solid characters article, and a trail of redirects in your wake.
See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional Series
[编辑] 避免離題
一篇最高可讀性的條目包含最少的無關(或是僅僅有點相關的)資訊。你可能在撰寫文章時開始離題。如果發覺你自己的寫作離題, 請考慮將這些額外資訊放在其他更適當的條目裡。 提供連至其他條目的連結方便想知道更多資料的讀者鑽研,也同時不會讓其他對此條目不感興趣之讀者分心。
[编辑] 注意错字Pay attention to spelling
注意錯字, 尤其是剛創建的條目名稱。正確的用字與文法鼓勵他人貢獻更多好內容。一篇正確用字的條目讓其他作者更容易地連結到你的條目。 Sloppiness in one aspect of writing can lead to sloppiness in others. Always do your best. It's not that big a deal, but why not get it right?
- Use free Internet dictionaries like Ask Oxford, Dictionary.com, Google Define and a spell checker such as SpellOnline.com or SpellCheck.net. See Wikipedia:Typo for tips on how to use these resources.
- Articles may also be spell-checked in a word processor before being saved. A free word processor may be obtained from OpenOffice.org.
- Some browsers, such as Konqueror on Unix-like systems or Safari on Mac OS X, have the ability to highlight misspelt words in text boxes.
For more information, refer to the Manual of Style.
[编辑] 避免華而不實與模稜兩可的用語(尚未達成共識)
不要華而不實:意指不含有任何實質資訊的浮誇用語。不要模稜兩可意指提供沒有任何證據支持, 不中立的意見。
| 華而不實的例子 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 一個重要的... | one of the most prestigious... | 其中一個最好的... |
| 最具影響力的... | a significant... | 最偉大的... |
| Examples of 模稜兩可 | ||
| 某些人說... | ...被認定是... | ..is widely considered... |
| ...has been called... | It is believed that... | It has been suggested/noticed/decided... |
| Some people believe... | It has been said that... | Some would say... |
| Legend has it that... | 評論說... | 許多人/一些人聲稱... |
相信你的題材，讓事實解釋一切。
[编辑] 範例一
以實質證據取代華而不實的用語。
- 「張三是最偉大的人物之一。」
- 「張三下鄉行醫三十年，出錢資助超過600多戶窮困人家的小孩上學。」
以實質的事實取代意見。
[编辑] 範例二
請仔細閱讀以下兩個不同的例句。那句引起你的興趣而繼續閱讀下去?
- 劉五是最偉大的人。
- 劉五曾經是聯合國兒童基金會的創始人之一，至今已造訪了衣索匹亞,南非,盧干達等數十餘個國家，協助當地建立安全可靠的用水。
[编辑] 範例三
如果你想引用某個意見，首要之務是確定那個人的意見對這個話題有舉足輕重的影響力，然後指出是哪個人的名言。如果能夠舉出名言的來源就更好了
- 某些人批評張三的作法是自命清高。
- 李四在TNN電視台的節目"56分鐘"說過，張三本身財產雄厚，有能力在大量資助他人的同時過著優裕的生活。
[编辑] 例外Exceptions
What we have described is not a rule. When repeating established views, it may be easier to just state "Before Nicholas Copernicus', most people thought the Sun revolved round the Earth" rather than go into details and sources for it. Particularly if the statement forms only a small part of your article. But do not be surprised if people later question the source or reword your phrase.
[编辑] 指出缺失的内容Make omissions explicit
Make omissions explicit when creating or editing an article. When writing an article, always aim for completeness. If for some reason you can't cover a point that should be covered, make that omission explicit. You can do this either by leaving a note on the discussion page or by leaving HTML comments within the text and adding a notice to the bottom about the omissions. This has two purposes: it entices others to contribute, and it alerts non-experts that the article they're reading doesn't yet give the full story.
That's why Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia—we work together to achieve what we could not achieve individually. Every aspect that you cover means less work for someone else, plus you may cover something that someone else may not think of, but is nevertheless important to the subject. Add {{todo}} to the top of the talk page of articles for which you can establish some goals, priorities or things to do.
[编辑] 其他问题Other issues
- 不適當的題材
- 維基百科不是用來宣傳你的網站,樂隊,產品,或是其他相關的事物。Wikipedia:維基百科不是用來打廣告的媒體或是網頁空間服務.不論你強調這樣的文章有多重要, 聰明的維基人很快就會知道哪篇條目是純粹的廣告或是personal gratification。
目錄邊Categorisation : Because Wikipedia is not a long, ordered sequence of carefully categorised articles like a paper encyclopedia, but a collection of randomly accessible, highly interlinked ones, each article should contain links to more general subjects that serve to categorise the article.
- Avoid making your articles orphans
- Avoid making your articles orphans. Link and link. When you write a new article page make sure at least one other page links to it (preferably more to increase your chances that your article does not become an orphan through someone else's refactoring). Otherwise, when it falls off the bottom of the Recent Changes page it disappears into the Mists of Avalon. There should always be an unbroken chain of links leading from the Main Page to every article in the Wikipedia; following the path you would expect to use to find your article may give you some hints as to which articles should link to your article.
- Links
- When you do create links, link only one or a few instances of the same term; don't link all instances of it. See also: Wikipedia:Links
- Pronouns
- See m:Quest for gender-neutral pronouns and the discussion on this for ideas relating to the use of pronouns, particularly gender-neutral ones, in Wikipedia.
- Integrate changes
- When you make a change to some text, rather than appending the new text you'd like to see included at the bottom of the page, if you feel so motivated, please place and edit your comments so that they flow seamlessly with the present text. Wikipedia articles should not end up being a series of disjointed comments about a subject, but unified, seamless, and ever-expanding expositions of the subject.
- Unimportant things are important, too
- Remember the pleasure of reading about relatively unimportant subjects: the vice presidents, the discredited scientists, the character actors, the backwater cities, the extinct species, the trivial detail. Not everything is the best, the most important, or the most influential. If you can add interesting links to fringe subjects, do.
- Avoiding common mistakes
- It is easy to commit a Wikipedia faux pas. That's OK—everybody does it! But, here are a few you might try to avoid.
- Make a personal copy
- Suppose you get into an edit war. Or worse, a revert war. So you try to stay cool. This is good. Congratulations! However, what would be great is if you could carry on working on the article, even though there is an edit war going on, and even though the version on the top is the evil one favoured by the other side in the dispute.
- So make a personal copy as a subpage of your user page. Just Start a new page at user:MY NAME/ARTICLE NAME, and copy and paste the wiki-source in there. Then you can carry on improving the article at your own pace! If you like, drop a note on the appropriate talk page to let people know what you're doing.
- Some time later, at your leisure, once the fuss has died down, merge your improvements back in to the article proper. Maybe the other person has left Wikipedia, finding it not to their taste. Maybe they have gone on to other projects. Maybe they have changed their mind. Maybe someone else has made similar edits anyway (but of course, not as good as yours, as you have had more time to consider the matter). Try it. You might like it.
