FlightGear wiki:Style guide – Article disposition

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This article disposition style guide is a strong recommendation on the general disposition of the articles on this wiki.

Article disposition

{{Some messagebox}}
{{Some other messagebox}}

{{Some infobox or navbox}}

[[File:Some image.jpg|thumb|Some caption.]]
[[File:Some other image.jpg|thumb|Some other caption]]

The lead section of a '''generic article disposition''' would look something like this.

== Heading ==
Some text...

=== Subheading ===
Some text...

== References ==
<references />

== Related content ==
=== Wiki articles ===
* [[Some wiki link]] – Some description

=== Forum topics ===
* {{forum link|t=Some topic number|title=Some forum topic title}} - Some description

=== Mailing list threads ===
* [Some_link_to_a_mailing_list_thread Subject line] - Some description

=== Source code ===
* {{Some repository template}} - Some description

== External links ==
* [Some external link] – Some description

{{Some navbox}}

[[en:Some language link]]

[[Category:Some category link]]
Messageboxes
One or more messageboxes could sometimes begin typical article page. The messageboxes would tell a reader or editor something about the article, like for example that it is outdated due to new developments.
Infobox or navbox
Often an infobox or navbox will follow. An infobox will contain more detailed information about a piece of software, an aircraft, an airport etc. that is the topic of the article and a navbox could help the reader find his way around a series of or similar articles. See also Category:Infobox templates and Category:Navigation templates
Images
Many articles would be helped by additional images. While it is often a good idea to have at least one of them on top of the article, as this will help a reader to figure out if he landed on the right article and what it is about. While they can all be in the beginning of the article text, they can just as well be spread out within the article. Most of the time having just thumbnail images will be preferable.
Lead section
The lead section or introduction should be a short summary of the article. Preferably the page title in bold should be within the first sentence of the lead section.
Note: This short summary of the article should help a reader to quickly figure out if he found the page he was looking for, as well as help him grasp the main concepts of the article.
Article text
The article text that follows is preferably broken up in not too long, but not too short sections. Often it would help the reader if there are images and tables to help understand the article text. Sometimes it is a good thing to mark more some important words differently.
References
If you have references to sources in your article, consider using using <ref> tags and a References section.
If you have several references to different pages or sections in your sources you can split up the references section into a Footnotes and a Sources subsection, listing the footnotes with <references /> and the sources with links, {{cite web}}, {{forum link}} etc.
Links to related content
Links to related FlightGear resources, like other articles, forum topics, source files etc. can be put in the end, though in general it is preferable to have internal wikilinks within the article text the first time a concept or term is mentioned.
For links to forum topics, please use {{forum link}}.
For links to source code files, please use some of the repository link templates as these more easily can be updated if FlightGear move the source from one host to another.
Links to external resources
Links to external resources should be put at the very end of the article, for example using {{cite web}}.
Navbox
Many pages end with a navbox with for example other aircraft by the same manufacturer. See also Category:Navigation templates
Language links and categories
All articles should end with one or more categories. They are preceded by language links, if there is any translations of that page.

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