Forgotten Realms Wiki:Help-Creating articles

Because of the ever-expanding nature of this wiki, there will always be articles on obscure or limited topics that do not exist. However, if the topic is well known, you should anticipate that it already exists. It is worth making sure that the article does not already exist before creating it, otherwise you will be duplicating information and possibly confusing a reader.

Checking for an Article's Existence
You can find an article by:
 * Going directly to its address. For example,
 * Using the search box at the top right of the page. When searching, try to use as few search terms as possible. If you are unsure of the spelling, this can further complicate things, so try several alternatives. Even if you are sure of the spelling, there is a slight chance that the previous editor got it wrong, so the page might be under the wrong title.
 * Looking in an appropriate category. For example, if you are trying to find an article about a dwarf you know to be a shield dwarf, look in Category:Shield dwarves to see if you can find the article there.
 * Looking for links from a similar subject. For example, you would expect the Cormyr article to provide a link to the Suzail article, since one is the capital of the other. It should therefore stand to reason that other cities within Cormyr might also be linked on the Cormyr article, although this is no guarantee.

Improving Access
If you were looking to create an article on a particular topic, but found the article in an unexpected place, you should consider whether it is in the appropriate place.

Incorrect Names
Sometimes the creator of the article made a mistake and just typed in its name wrong. In this case, you should move the article to the correct name, citing a source for the correct name if possible.

Unexpected Names
Is the article under a name that, although correct, is not widely used, where a more widely-used name is available? If this is the case, then you should consider moving the article to the more widely-used name. Be sure to check convention where possible, because an article might be named in a specific way for a reason that you are unaware of, and moving it would worsen the situation. In all but the most clear of cases, it is worth starting a discussion on the article's talk page and trying to reach a consensus about moving the article. Provide specific examples if possible.

If the article is under the most widely-used name, but there are other names that are commonly used to refer only to that subject, it may be worth creating a redirect from the alternate name to the primary article, as explained below.

Wrong Category
Did you have trouble finding the article because it is in the wrong category, or a category that is not specific enough? Sometimes editors can change information that would effectively recategorize an article, and then forget to implement this change. For example, if a person has been listed as an elf, but is actually a moon elf, the text in the article should be changed, and the category should also be changed. Although it is not "wrong" to put the article in Category:Elves, it would be better in Category:Moon elves, since this is more specific.

Improving Redirects
There are often cases where the article you are looking for cannot be found because the expected or natural spelling is not the actual spelling of the article. For example, the Faerûn article is often typed as "Faerun" on a US- or UK-English keyboard, because the 'û' character is not present. Also, a user might attempt to access the Drizzt Do'Urden article using the word "Drizzt", which seems to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do. In this case, consider creating a redirect or two. There is no need to create redirects for every possible spelling or misspelling, but cover the obvious ones.

Articles vs Sections
Consider whether your topic merits its own article or whether it can be incorporated into an existing article as a new section. You should consider:
 * Whether you can write more than three sentences about the topic.
 * Whether the topic is distinct from every other topic with its own article.
 * Whether the topic is within the scope of the wiki.

If you can wholeheartedly answer "yes" to all of the above points, it is probably, but not definitely, worth its own article. Similarly, some topics for which the above points all answer "yes" still don't need to be created as articles. It is quite often a judgement call.

One deciding factor might be whether you want the subject of the article to appear in its own category. For example, if you are writing an article about an adventuring company, you might decide to dedicate a section to listing each of its members. However, the shield dwarf member you wrote about would not appear in Category:Shield dwarves because she does not have her own article. If it is desirable to have her appear in this category, a separate article is needed, but consider the amount of information needed in order to make an article practical (see above).

Creating the Article
If you are satisfied that the topic needs its own article, go ahead and create it. You might want to refer to:
 * Help:Writing an article about a person
 * Help:Writing an article about a place
 * Help:Writing an article about a year
 * Help:Writing an article about a book

Opening
The article should begin with the subject in bold. If the subject is usually italicized, it should appear in bold italics. For example, you would write:
 * Fireball is a wizard spell... (name of article is subject)

Not:
 * There is a wizard spell called fireball... (name of article is not subject)

First Paragraph
The first paragraph should summarise the subject in question, so that if a reader stops reading at the end of the first paragraph, he or she has a good idea about the topic in general.

It should not be too long, however. If it is too long, it will become difficult to read and will probably include too much detail.

An article should have just a single paragraph before it starts splitting other information into sections. This is because the table of contents is automatically inserted just before the first section heading, and by writing lots of paragraphs before any section headings, the table of contents gets pushed a long way down the article.

You should cite sources for all information in the first paragraph even if it is repeated further down. It should not be down to the reader to scour the rest of the article to find sources for information in the first paragraph.

Other Sections
The bulk of your article should be split into logical sections depending on the article's topic. There are a number of guides on writing articles on specific topics that can help you choose appropriate headings based on the subject matter. Towards the end of the article, most sections will be the same, regardless of what the article is about. Generally, these include (in this order, taken from Wikipedia:WP:ORDER):

Categories
As many categories are required, one per line. See Help:Categories for guidance on their use.

Stub template
If the article is a stub, use a relevant stub template such as stub-person. If there is not a relevant one, use the basic stub instead.

Interlanguage links
Place links to the article in other languages at the very bottom of the article.