Help:Starting a new page

A new page is created whenever you click on a link to a page which does not exist (typically links colored red). When editing a page that does not exist, the MediaWiki:Newarticletext warning will show informing you of this.

For general editing matters, see Wowpedia:How to edit a page. For Wiki markup in particular, see Help:Editing.

General principles

 * Search to see whether someone has written a similar page before you start one yourself.
 * Review conventions of the project you are working in regarding e.g.:
 * Naming conventions; see also Wowpedia:Naming policy.
 * Whether a separate page is justified; perhaps it is better to add the text to a related page (especially if the text is not very long); that page can always be split later, after it has grown.

Starting a page from an existing link, after creating one, or after a search
To start a new page, you can start from a link to the title of the new page.

Internal links to non-existing pages are typically created in preparation for creating the page or to encourage other people to do so. Typically they look different from links to existing pages, depending on settings: a different color or with a question mark (sometimes they are called "red links" after one of the default settings).

Such a link is to the edit mode of the non-existing page, which allows creating it, just like editing a blank page.

Before following the edit link, decide whether you want to give the new page the suggested name. If not, first edit the link on the referring page.

Of course you can also create the link yourself in a related page or index page. If the link does not exist on the page, you can click Edit and put the link anywhere, but instead of pressing Save, press Preview and click on the link. This way, the oddly placed link is not saved to the article.

Note that links on related pages are not only convenient for navigation, but also make people aware of the new page (those who happen to read a related page, but also those who watch such a page).

Starting a page through the URL
URLs in MediaWiki correspond to the article title. Therefore, if you want to create a page that doesn't exist by URL, simply type the article title after http://www.wowpedia.org/. An easy way to do this is to remove the title from the page you're currently looking at and replace it with the title of the page you want to create.

Boilerplates
Many common article types can be created using the appropriate boilerplate. A boilerplate is an entire article template that can allow all articles of a specific type to have the same look and feel. They also allow someone creating a new article to have a base format for all the information that needs to be filled in. Popular article types that have boilerplates are quests, items, and mobs.

For a complete list see Category:Boilerplates.

To use a boilerplate on an empty page the first thing you should do is substitute the boilerplate onto that page. For example, if you wanted to use the item boilerplate you would put  at the top of the page and then save it. This will copy the content from the boilerplate onto that page. You can then edit the page and make all the changes that are needed. You can also simply copy and paste.

Article Guides
There are many types of articles that are created over and over again. Guides have been created for many of these specific article types. These guides should contain everything you need to know to create the article, i.e. summarizing applicable guidelines and policies, linking to boilerplates and explaining how to use them, and explaining the standard styles and information used on those types of pages.


 * Guild articles
 * Item articles
 * Fan fiction
 * Quest articles
 * NPC articles


 * API articles
 * Location articles

ru:Справка:Как создать статью