User:Centrist16/sandbox2

The first of a series of guides and tips from a fellow user.

Introduction
Creator of my conworld project, the Kingdom of Sierra, I always want to give my articles a realistic approach and feeling. This includes a professional layout with meaningful use and balance of templates, tables, and pictures. At the time of this wiki blog (my first I should add), I am in the process of creating a fictitious list of citations and references on my main article that you would be familiar seeing on any standard Wikipedia article. This alone demonstrates how close I want to imitate the style of Wikipedia. So what then am I trying to come across at? Am I saying that you should copy everything from Wikipedia down to the bone until they look like clones?

No, not at all.

Instead, what really matters is if the article you're creating looks and is of professional quality, could pass as an encyclopedic entry, and is visually appealing. Getting deeper, the article you create should not only make sense, but be consistent, be concise, and be within reason (this last one being especially more relevant if you're creating an article based on the real world). In this series, I will offer you my take on articles and what you could do to improve not only your articles, but your own experience and others' in this community. I will show you what you could do with your main article and what to do afterwards. All in all, it is my goal to uplift this wiki into a state of vibrancy and creativity–too long am I seeing a mudslide of one-time edited stub-articles, half-committed projects (which are abandoned in less than a week of conception), messy and ugly-looking blocks of text, and an endless slew of hideous JPEG flags.

For this first post, if you made it this far into the blog (and therefore genuinely would like to have some tips on creating a better article), I would like you to open a new tab with your main article of it. Unfortunately, my main scope (here for now at least) will be on constructed countries, so if your main article is on something like a solar system or species of animal, some of the things I will say may not even apply to your case. I apologize in advance and I will be creating a guide on those subjects in a future date.

Summary
For those who don't feel like reading too much and just want to get straight to the point, here's a summary of what I have to say on this first blog post:


 * 1) Don't settle for that "Visual" wiki editor. Get accustomed to traditional wikitext and try switching over to the Monobook* skin to really get the feel of a Wikipedia-like page.
 * 2) Stay consistent, concise, and be committed. If you're creating a project, make the premise of it interesting yet not overwhelming so that you won't abandon ship in 3 days of its creation.
 * 3) Use sleek templates like Template:Infobox ccountry and Template:Navbar whenever possible over tables.
 * 4) Don't overextend your reach by creating a bunch of red links and then filling them all up with stubs. Red links look annoying but work on the articles you already have before you create new articles.
 * 5) Have a logical succession of headings on your article. For a country, it could look like this: Introduction (no header) → Etymology → History → Geography and climate → Demographics → Government and politics → Economy → Culture → Religion → Education → Health → Sports → Symbols → See also → References/Further reading (optional).
 * 6) Sprinkle your articles with images and vary their positions by thumbnailing. Keep it no larger than 250px and try to incorporate at least one per heading or every 5-10 long paragraphs.
 * 7) Use PNG or SVG images for flags, coat of arms, maps, and other images over JPEG, GIFs, and others.
 * 8) Conversely, use JPEG over others when using "real life photographs" (i.e., a picture of a park).
 * 9) Use links liberally but don't link excessively or redundantly. Don't link to the Kingdom of Sierra twice in a row if you already linked it within 5 paragraphs of each other. Linking the first mention at the top of the page and the second mention somewhere down in the middle of the page is fine however. Don't link everything you see though. Link within reason.
 * 10) Don't plan to keep one huge paragraph in your article. Break it up into chunks. The longest a paragraph ought to be is 6 sentences. On average, any given "paragraph" (where there is a space between lines on the wikitext). That doesn't mean every single line you make has to be a new paragraph. Break it up, again, within reason and your best judgment.
 * 11) Always dedicate time to look back at your article and fix any grammatical/spelling errors and inconsistencies. You don't want to contradict yourself!

Creating an article
If you do not already have a project up or you're feeling that your current one no longer interests you, obviously the first thing you have to do is creating a new page. The first thing you have to do is naming it. So what should you name it? Well Wikipedia has a great set of guidelines for that but basically, the name should be what names are. To identify your article. So if you're creating a country, the best logical idea to naming your article is using its official name right? And assuming you have it down already in your head, the name you picked is beautifully crafted and has a nice ring to it–right? So what happens if your official name is something like The Great Empire of the Incredibly Long-Named State of Example. Okay, even if it's your country's official name, it's far too long for a title and imagine the billions of times you'd have to spell the entire thing out when linking it from another article of yours. Not only that, it's aesthetically unpleasing and a massive eyesore so what should you do? Well, it all comes down to keeping it short but keeping it formal. Wikipedia's article on the is not titled the "United States of America" (the long, official name), the "USA" (an abbreviation), "the "U.S.A." (another abbreviation), or "America" (a common but informal name that could also refer to the North or South American continents). It's titled simply as the "United States" because that is indeed an official name yet short with no redundant titles or abbreviations. So goes for their article on the, not the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" or "Britain". Name your article to the best of your judgment but if you think after typing the same thing just twice already makes your fingers sore or is so short you couldn't even tell it was a name, you should obviously reconsider naming your article. For me, I named my country, the "Kingdom of Sierra" but it's generally referred as "Sierra" within the article or the "Kingdom".