User:Timtrent/A good article

If you are to have an enjoyable time here adding articles and editing articles you need to understand how the place works. It doesn't matter about how it, perhaps, ought to work, nor about how you want it to work. What matters is how it works. Once you understand this then you will be able to add new articles to your heart's content, confident that they will survive.

I'm afraid this means a bit of reading for you. Look at Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not first. Look especially at Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Once you understand this then you have pretty much the entire trick to it.

It means that just adding a new article is insufficient. Wikipedia does require some work from its contributors. Creating an article with minimal information, providing no other citations, and doing no other work is doomed to failure.

To create a successful article there really should be:

• notability of the topic that is the subject matter of the article. This is non-negotiable. Read Wikipedia:Notability.
• citations to the topic from reliable sources. Check the definition of reliable sources, and learn how to use the CITE facilities in the edit window. You can add a parameter |quote= to the cite before you save it and use a relevant snippet of the item you are citing, too.
  • We require references from significant coverage about the entity, and independent of it, and in WP:RS please. See WP:42
  • For a living person we have a higher standard of referencing. Every substantive fact you assert, especially one that is susceptible to potential challenge, requires a citation with a reference that is about them, and is independent of them, and is in WP:RS
• Do not forget a section for References ==References== and put in it the text {{Reflist}} to receive the things you cite.
• wikilinks to other articles. An article that is a dead end is sometimes reasonable, but usually there are useful places to link to. Check that the destination is the article you expect, do not just create a wikilink and hope for the best.
• wikilinks to the article you have created from other articles. This means that the article is not "orphaned" and that others will find it.
• inclusion of the article in the most relevant category (or categories). Read Wikipedia:Categorization.
• If a short article, deploy {{Stub}} in the article, or, better, deploy the best possible stub tag. Read Wikipedia:Stub.

One very important thing is to "let go" once you have posted the article. The only time it is "yours" is when it's in your head. The moment you place it on Wikipedia it becomes "everyone's" Letting go of your baby is hard. Read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. On Wikipedia we don't mother articles, we father them. Or we do that if we want to stay sane. Don't wrap the article in warm towels, send it out to graze its knees! Edit it further, yes, of course, but you have released your child to go and play outside. Watch it from a distance and just correct things when absolutely essential.

Please never, not ever, confuse the truth that you know and are 100% certain about with verifiable facts. Even if you know{{OR}} the colour black to be{{cn}} black, unless there is a citation for it, the obvious{{cn}} truth that it really{{cn}} is black still has no place here. Indeed a statement that Black is White with a citation in a reliable source that this is so takes absolute precedence over the truth, Wikipedia is based upon citations and citable, verifiable facts, not upon truth, because it is an encyclopaedia, and, rightly or wrongly, that is what an encyclopaedia does.

Useful vs Notable

I know you will appreciate the distinction. Very many celebrities are notable, almost none are useful. The reverse is true of many tools.

The problem Wikipedia has with things which are useful is that it is not a compendium of useful things. Indeed many notable things (celebrities!) are wholly useless, but they have articles because they pass WP:GNG.

There is a trick to getting articles accepted in such a manner that they reman here. The trick is to demonstrate WP:N, never usefulness. Sometimes that means cutting a lot of genuinely useful material from an article to concentrate only on the items that make it notable. For genuinely useful things notability can be found, usually, given time.

We expect people to go to the source for things that are useful but not notable. That also means that an article about Foo has to concentrate on the notability of Foo, with the assumption that folk will be inspired to visit foo.com to discover the heady delights of rolling about in Foo.

How to plan

It's pretty formulaic, a process:

1. Find references, good ones. WP:42 ones
2. Select the facts from those references that you wish to use (you will cite the facts with those references WP:CITE is your friend here)
3. Create a storyboard from those facts
4. Using WP:AFC use the article wizard to start a new draft. It is not mandatory, but it guides you
5. Write very neutral, flat prose, citing the references for the facts
6. Double check your work and submit the draft when happy
7. While awaiting review, continue to enhance your work

Note that an inability to find references means the draft is unlikely to be accepted (0.9 probability). We want new articles here, and we try hard to maintain high standards.

In conclusion

Doing these things, even imperfectly, means that others are likely to be kindly disposed to the new article, and, if it is about a notable topic, likely to expand it. Even if they do not expand it the survival of the article is enhanced because it is likely to be suitable for inclusion in the encyclopaedia. This is because it is a useful article since it gives information. It is insufficient for an article simply to exist, it must have value.

Things "ought to have articles here." I hope you understand that every editor here thinks that things ought to have articles here, too, even those who propose articles for deletion. There must, though, be initial article quality. That initial article may be very short, but, even in extreme brevity, must meet the guidelines, and must have the building blocks from which it may be expanded alongside genuine and verifiable notability. Read Wikipedia:Verifiability.

If those building blocks are not present and the article is not about a notable thing, and has no verifiability from reliable sources then the article has no value to anyone, however well-written it is. Read Wikipedia:No original research.

I truly hope this helps you understand how to start to create good articles and enjoy being here. You may have had a baptism of fire and learnt that it is not a gentle place. Working within the rules can be rewarding. Trying to push the envelope always fails.

Apart from taking constructive comments on board and learning your trade here, realise that this is a complex place, and not always very kind. The only thing to take personally here is praise. Everything else is fluff and flummery and background noise.

These are my thoughts. You may disagree, so may others. That's fine, that is part of what Wikipedia creates - we work together. If you disagree, please let me know by using User talk:Timtrent/A good article and we can discuss it.