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How to: Create an Article

From Liquipedia StarCraft Brood War Wiki

First things first[edit]

Search thoroughly before creating a page!

Before creating a page on Liquipedia, be it a tournament, player, team, or any other kind of page, the very first step to do is to check that it does not already exist. To achieve that, you can use the Search function to check that the page is not already there on the wiki. Even if you don’t find it immediately, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the page doesn’t exist, as it may have a different name than what you were looking for. Try with acronyms, synonyms, with full names, etc. Search thoroughly. There is no need to do the work twice, plus obviously every entry on Liquipedia must be unique, it will often, if not always, be referenced by other pages. It also should be updated only in one place.

Notability Guidelines[edit]

Not everything nor everyone can have its own page on Liquipedia. The Notability Guidelines define what may or may not have an article on Liquipedia. Before creating an entry, you should make sure what you want to create actually satisfies the notability criteria. These are often different depending on the wiki you are on, so make sure your new entry matches the corresponding wiki guidelines. When the notability criteria are not met, the page you created will not be deleted, however it will be moved to your userspace, and visitors to the page will see that the page is not a page curated by Liquipedia.

Forms & Page templates[edit]

The preview is available at the bottom of the edit page

The wiki is not new, and there are a lot of things that has already been defined so that a specific information is always presented the same way to the wiki’s visitors. If the information is always at the same place in a page, it makes it easier for people to find information across all pages of the wiki. The templates help with that regard, and also make it easier to format information instead of doing the layout by hand. When creating a page, be sure to use predefined template.

These exist for the most common entities on the wiki, like the Infobox template, that comes in three flavours: player, team, league. This template is used all over the wikis and contribute to establish a consistent information layout. So remember to use them. If you have doubts or do not know which templates already exist, a good approach is to inspect the wiki code of a very well known team, tournament or player, as it will most likely contain every possible template you could use for your new page, and always the basic ones. These pages tend to be the most up-to-date and are heavily edited, so what is on it is usually good practice and state of the art in terms of wiki features. Copy/pasting templates is encouraged. And the templates documentation usually provide "copy/paste ready" code to include in your page.

Be wary that the different wikis might not all have exactly the same ways of doing something. If you contribute to different wikis, be sure to do as each wiki does. Templates for example belong to a specific wikis, and even though they are most of the times duplicated between wikis, it might still exist a few differences.

And keep in mind the Preview feature of the editing tools that lets you see your page as it will appear before actually inserting it in the wiki.

<references />[edit]

The concept behind a wiki is that anyone can edit and/or create pages on it. Sources are what makes it reliable and trustworthy. So be sure to actually provide a link that readers can consult if they want to check that the information is actually true. Though not everything can be sourced, the basic requirement is that you provide, for anything that can have one, a link to a trustworthy source, like the studio that develops the game, a very well established news website, the teams’ websites, etc. Just like in real life, when you say something, people are more likely to believe you if you have a good source to back your statement.

Don’t Hesitate[edit]

This is a wiki. You can always edit to correct a mistake. So do not hesitate to actually push your modification on the wiki. You should not be worried about committing a modification. Of course, it is better to get it right the first time, as correcting mistakes is additional work, but you should not feel nervous and bad because a mistake may end up on the wiki. There will always be the possibility to correct it afterwards, be it you, or someone else that spots the mistake. We prefer that people contribute and let mistakes slip in, rather than sit out because they are anxious about that. We would like to correct the mistake in that page instead of not having it on the wiki.

Looking for help[edit]

The wiki is not only an encyclopedia, it is also a community of active contributors. If you don’t know how to do something, or if what you do is right, ask these people, either on the Liquipedia Discord or in the feedback thread. There will always be someone who already encountered your problem, who can decide if what you do is correct, or who can try to solve with you that problem no one had before. Do not hesitate to share your ideas as well, it is not because you don’t have thousands of edits that you can’t have nice ideas that would improve the wiki!

There are several ways to start a new page. These can vary based on the type of page started, as well as the wiki and namespace.

How to create a new page?[edit]

Using Wikilinks[edit]

MediaWiki makes it very easy to link wiki pages using a standard syntax (see Links). If you (or anyone else) creates a link to an article that doesn't exist yet, the link will be coloured red, like this.

Clicking a red link will take you to the edit page for the new article. Simply type your text, click save and the new page will be created.

Once the page has been created, the link will change from red to blue (purple for pages you've visited) indicating that the article now exists.

Usually this is the best way to create a new page, because it means that right from the start, the page will be linked from at least one other place on the wiki (and typically you will want to mesh it into other related pages later). If you are creating a new page without creating any link to it, you may need to ask yourself: Does this page really fit in with the topics already covered in the wiki? Also, how are you expecting visitors to find this page? Normally there is no reason to create a page without first creating a red link to it.

Using the URL[edit]

You can use the wiki's URL for creating a new page. The URL to an article of the wiki is usually something like this:

  • https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/ARTICLE    or
  • https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/index.php/ARTICLE

If you replace ARTICLE with the name of the page you wish to create, you will be taken to a blank page which indicates that no article of that name exists yet. Clicking the "Edit" page tab at the top of the page will take you to the edit page for that article, where you can create the new page by typing your text, and clicking submit.

From the search page[edit]

If you search for a page that doesn't exist (using the search box and “Go” button on the left of the page) then you will be provided with a link to create the new page. (Note that this technique doesn't work if you use the “Search” button).

Create redirects to your new page[edit]

Don't forget to setup redirects when you create a page, if they are needed. If you think another person may search for the page you've created by using a different name or spelling, please create the proper redirect(s). See Help:Redirects