Help:Starting a new page

There are several Article description::ways to start a new page. These can vary based on the type of page started, as well as the namespace. Contributors who desire to draft new work can do so in their userspace and move new content to the main namespace when finished.

A new page should deal with a central topic. Pages can be about a specific piece of software, or hardware, a guide on how to perform a complex procedure, etc. Consider adding more succinct topics as sections to preexisting pages, or answers to specific questions as knowledge base articles.

Draft articles or experiments can be created as user pages.

Using Wikilinks
MediaWiki makes it very easy to link wiki pages using a standard syntax (see Help:Links). If creating a link to an article that doesn't exist yet, the link will be coloured red, like this.

Clicking a red link will go to the edit page for the new article. Simply type new 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 already 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 to in at least one other place on the wiki (and typically other related pages should be "meshed in" later). If creating a new page without any link to it, does this page really fit in with the topics already covered in the wiki, and how would visitors access the page? Normally there is no reason to create a page without first creating a red link to it.

From the search page
When searching for a page that doesn't exist (using the search box and “” button on the left of the page) there will be a link to create the new page.

Using the URL
Use the wiki's URL for creating a new page. The URL to an article of the wiki is like this:



Replace  with the name of the page to be created, and the wiki will show a blank page which indicates that no article of that name exists yet. Clicking the "" page tab at the top of the page will go to the edit page for that article, allowing the new page contents to be entered.

Page title
By default the page title is displayed with the first letter in upper-case. Putting Lowercase title in the first line will force the title to be displayed lower-case.

Working with article blueprints
For getting the basic elements of a page structure, it will be convenient to copy content from a suitable article blueprint. Once in the (still empty) editing canvas of the page to be created, put the string   in the first line. Preview mode will then display the content to be copied, and after saving, the   will have disappeared and be replaced by the pulled-in content.

E.g.   will copy the content of Help:Templates

Create redirects to a new page
Don't forget to set up redirects after creating a new page. If is likely another person may search for the new page by using a different name or spelling, please create the proper redirect(s). See Help:Redirects.

Protecting a new page
Normally a new wiki page can be edited by other people (that is one of the main ideas of a wiki!). However, a sysop could 'protect' the page, if desired, to prevent normal users from editing it.

Stub articles
For pages just starting out, or with little information, please use the stub template. This will warn readers that the page is incomplete, and signal to editors that it requires fleshing out. This will also list the page in the stub category, so that other editors can easily find pages that need adding to.