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The FlightGear Wiki is not an encyclopaedia or a search paper. There is no requirement to have primary and secondary sources, unless you are citing something. In fact, much of what is needed does not exist anywhere else at all! | The FlightGear Wiki is not an encyclopaedia or a search paper. There is no requirement to have primary and secondary sources, unless you are citing something. In fact, much of what is needed does not exist anywhere else at all! | ||
Original research, opinions, and first hand accounts are the majority of the content here, but please do not plagiarize. If you are going to copy or cite something then provide a reference (like you might for a school paper). Other than that, the standards and specific goals of | Original research, opinions, and first hand accounts are the majority of the content here, but please do not plagiarize. If you are going to copy or cite something then provide a reference (like you might for a school paper). Other than that, the standards and specific goals of FlightGear are still in flux and being development. | ||
Articles tend to be about whatever someone sees as important, useful, or fun enough to write about! | Articles tend to be about whatever someone sees as important, useful, or fun enough to write about! | ||
== More about what to write about == | == More about what to write about == | ||
The FlightGear Wiki has a few main areas that continuously | The FlightGear Wiki has a few main areas that continuously need work: | ||
; Development related articles | ; Development related articles | ||
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; Usage related articles | ; Usage related articles | ||
: Documentation to get the users started, how to use various features, | : Documentation to get the users started, how to use various features, FAQs, etc. | ||
; Aircraft related articles | ; Aircraft related articles | ||
: Documentation about the official aircraft | : Documentation about the official aircraft | ||
If you do not yet feel fully ready to start | If you do not yet feel fully ready to start a new article there are also categories of various articles that could need some tender loving care such as: [[:Category:Stubs|very short articles (stubs)]], [[:Category:Articles considered for deletion|articles considered for deletion]] and [[:Category:Cleanup|articles needing cleanup]]. Helping out with those could be a good way to familiarize yourself with the wiki as well as the wiki markup. | ||
Other interesting pages include things like [[Real Life Experience]], [[Linux software audio mixing with FlightGear]], [[Current events]], or [[Presentation Recipe]]! | Other interesting pages include things like [[Real Life Experience]], [[Linux software audio mixing with FlightGear]], [[Current events]], or [[Presentation Recipe]]! | ||
== Creating a new article == | == Creating a new article == | ||
Here are some things to | Here are some things to consider before starting a new article. | ||
=== Choosing a good title === | === Choosing a good title === | ||
Give the template a meaningful name. Usually one would try to only have the initial character upper case. Do not use abbreviations for an article title. Your article title should be spelled out. If an abbreviation is commonly used, you may create a separate page consisting of the abbreviated title and a page redirect, which will refer the reader back to your main article. | |||
You can also create an article as a subpage to your user page if you know that you will be working on the article a bit now and then, but do not want to leave unfinished article in the article namespace. You can create a subpage to your user page by giving it the name '''User:''User name''/''Article name'''''. To make it easier to find you can make a link to it on your user page. When you are more or less done, you can then move this page to the article space. | You can also create an article as a subpage to your user page if you know that you will be working on the article a bit now and then, but do not want to leave an unfinished article in the article namespace. You can create a subpage to your user page by giving it the name '''User:''User name''/''Article name'''''. To make it easier to find you can make a link to it on your user page. When you are more or less done, you can then move this page to the article space. | ||
=== Search first, then create === | === Search first, then create === | ||
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=== Preview early, and preview often === | === Preview early, and preview often === | ||
This is important. First of all, and | This is important. First of all, and especially if you are new to editing a wiki, you will get a better feeling for what your article will look like. Sometimes you will find that some sections are way longer than you thought, or that an image needs to be larger to be intelligible. Some of the wiki markup is more fragile than other, in particular [[Help:Tables|tables]], and it is much easier to fix such markup early on knowing where in the markup things broke than later. In addition to that reading your own text will often help you find a better phrasing. | ||
Before saving the article, do have an extra preview, and a more thorough read through. | Before saving the article, do have an extra preview, and a more thorough read through. | ||
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=== Navboxes === | === Navboxes === | ||
Navboxes, or navigation templates, are boxes helping navigating a series of related articles. They come in two | Navboxes, or navigation templates, are boxes helping navigating a series of related articles. They come in two varieties, one kind that is found to the top right of the article, often linking together a series of articles on a certain topic, and a kind that is found at the bottom of the article linking together related articles, for example aircraft by the same manufacturer or different articles related to building FlightGear from source files. | ||
[[Category:Help]] | [[Category:Help]] | ||