LucidWiki:Article creation

This article runs through the process of creating a new article, and discusses the guidelines for articles and the prefered etiquette. Please refer to LucidWiki:Style guide whilst reading this; you will need to refer to this.

Before creating an article

Before going ahead an article, ask yourself:

• Does an article on the subject already exist? Try searching for the title, searching for titles to the same effect, or looking in the article map.

• Is the subject of the article so minor that it can be encompassed as a sub-section in an existing article? Note, however, that since the subject of LucidWiki is pretty narrow, small articles relating to subjects related to a topic covered in a larger articles are prefered to monster articles encompassing a broad range of subjects.

• Whereabouts will the article fit into the article map?

Creating the article

Articles can be created by searching for its title. The course won't exist; but you can follow the red link and create it then. Use the Editing Help if you are new to wikis.

Note that certain article types have special prefixes in their titles:

• Where X is an info page, the title should be "LucidWiki:X"
• Where Y is a research project, the title should be "Research:Y"
• Where Z is a tutorial about Subject, the title should be "Subject/Tutorial"

See Conducting research for more on creating research projects, and see Writing tutorials for more on writing tutorials.

Do not capitalise every letter such as "Dream Sign" - instead, put the article at "Dream sign" and make redirects at "DS", "Dream Sign" and "Dreamsign".

When dream journals are introduced, these will have special rules too. For now, though, let's continue.

Writing the article

Presuming you are writing an article, and not a research project or tutorial, all that follows is to write the body the article. Split the article up into sections - un-broken articles seem long-winded and un-wieldy. The MediaWiki software automatically inserts a table of contents at the beginning of the page if the article has five or more sections. Remember the LucidWiki philosophy, though - you should refrain from creating large articles covering a broad (or even not so broad) range of concepts - it is much better to comprehensively cover just the one subject and create (or allow other users to create) seperate articles on the sub-topics your article might allow for. Don't fear if you feel you can't offer all the knowledge on the subject of your article - this is wiki after all, and other users will fill in the gaps. One thing you must never use is guesswork.

Linking the article

Lonely articles - one which link to nothing and are in no categories - are strongly discouraged and should never really have to be so. Whenever the reader stumbles upon a concept - be it something relatively obsure such as The telephone technique or something common like reality checks, you should make these words links so they can refer to these subjects, either just by encompassing the word in square brackets, such as the link dream journal or changing the name of the link (see the Editing Help) where it is possible to maintain the flow of the article. For instance refering to an info page should use this type of link; the LucidWiki:News is messy whereas news does the same but is more fluid. Liks should not exist, however, for subjects that have been previously linked in the article, or for such obvious concepts such as dream or sleep.

It is very important that you include the article in a category (or categories) of some sort. This will make your article appear in the article map. See article classification for a summary of the Article Map and categories.

Definition by example

A concept can often be much easier explained in context. Don't be afraid to give your own dream experience, in its own paragraph. There may later be a style guide on this.

Etiquette: do's and don'ts

Do:

• Link to other articles
• Add the article to a category or a number of categories.
• Quote example dreams if these are helpful
• Add links to non-existant articles if these are subjects closely related to, or are sub-topics of, your article. This will encourage other users to create them.

Don't:

• Create articles that already exist (well, duh).
• Create monster articles that encompass a broad range of subjects.
• Quote yourself or claim authorship.

Watch it grow

Keep an eye on your article by adding it to your watchlist, or by viewing your own contributions. Edits may take place and a few comments may prop up on the articles Discussion page. Love your article as if it were your own child.

Write some more, edit some more

In these early times we really need some good contributors. Think you have what it takes? Then forget what you were waiting for and make us happy!