Alleypedia:Your first article

From Alleypedia

Welcome to Alleypedia! the free publishing encyclopedia where you can find information on book publishers, music publishers and producers, literary agents and anyone working in the english-language music and publishing industry, which you can edit and update. This simple guide takes you through some things you should know before creating your first Allepedic article. We will explain some of the DOs and DON'Ts of writing an article, then we'll tell you how to create your article:

You don't have to be a registered user to create a new article.
Search Alleypedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject, perhaps under a different title. If the article already exists, feel free to make any constructive edits you feel are necessary.
Gather references both to use as source(s) of your information and also to demonstrate bone fide credentials for your article's subject matter.
Consider requesting feedback. You can request feedback on articles you would like to create in a number of places, including the talk page of a related Alleypedic entry.
Consider creating the article first in your user space. As a registered user, you have your own user space. You can start your new article there, on a subpage where you can get it in shape, take your time, ask other editors to help work on it, and only move it into the "live" Alleypedia once it is ready to go. When your new article is ready for "prime time", you can move it into the main area.
Be fair and balanced in whatever your write, so it reads like a reliable encyclopedia entry. Anything which doesn't read like a typical encyclopedia entry will be deleted.

Search for an existing article

Alleypedia already has 26 articles. Before creating an article, try to make sure there is not already an article, perhaps under a slightly different name. If an article on your topic is there, but you think people are likely to look for it under some different name or spelling, you can insert a redirect; which is a good way to help the Alleypedia community. Also, remember to check the article's deletion log in order to avoid creating an article that has already been deleted.

If a search does not find your article, consider broadening your search to find existing articles that might include the subject of your article. For example, if you want to write an article about a publishing imprint, you might search for the company and then add information to that broader article.

Things to be careful about...

Copying things. Do not violate copyrights: To be safe, do not quote more than a couple of sentences of text from anywhere, and document any references you do use. You can copy material that you are sure is in the public domain, but even for public domain material you should still document your source. Also note that most Web pages are not in the public domain and most song lyrics are not either. In fact, most things written since January 1, 1978 are automatically under copyright even if they have no copyright notice or © symbol. If you think what you are contributing is in the public domain, say where you got it, either in the article or on the discussion page, and on the discussion page give the reason why you think it is in the public domain (e.g. "It was published in 1895...") If you think you are making "fair use" of copyrighted material, please put a note on the discussion page saying why you think so.

Good research and citing your sources: Articles written out of thin air are better than nothing, but they are hard to verify, which is an important part of building a trusted reference work. Please research with the best sources available and cite them properly. Doing this, along with not copying large amounts of the text, will help avoid any possibility of plagiarism.

Advocacy and controversial material: Please do not write articles that advocate one particular viewpoint on politics, religion, or anything else. No defamatory or discriminatory material whatsoever.
Organization: Make sure there are incoming links to the new article from other Alleypedia articles (click "What links here" in the toolbox) and that the new article is included in at least one appropriate category. Otherwise it will be difficult for readers to find the article.

Editing on the wrong page: If you're trying to create a new page, then you'll start with a completely empty edit box. If you see text in the editing box that is filled with words you didn't write (for example, the contents of this page), then you're accidentally editing a pre-existing page. Don't save your changes. Just start over.

How to create a page

Please log in or create an account before you create an article.

In the search box below, type the title of your article, then click Go. If the Search page reports "You may create the page" followed by the article name in red, then you can click the red article name to start editing your article.

The very first thing you should write in your article is a list of the source(s) for your information. For now, just enter them like this (and they will automatically turn into links):

(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html

(2) http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/space/space_shuttle.html

After you have entered your article, click Show preview to check for errors, then click Save page.

Avoid orphans

An orphaned article is an article that has few or no other articles linking to it. The main problem with an orphan is that it'll be unknown to others, and may get little if any readers if it is not de-orphaned.

Most new articles are orphans from the moment they are created. But you can work to change that. This will involve editing one or more other articles. Try searching Alleypedia for other pages referring to the subject of your article, then turn those references into links by adding double brackets to either side: "[[" and "]]".

One of the first things you want to do after creating a new article is to provide links to it so it will not be an orphan. You can do that right away, or if you find that exhausting, you can wait a while, provided that you have in mind to get it done.

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