Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Tutorial: Creating a New Article

In this tutorial, you’ll see a new article created from scratch. If you want to practice creating your own new article as you follow along with the tutorial, you can do one of two things:

• Find a real topic (for example, using the information in the box on Ideas for New Articles, concerning articles that are needed or requested).

• Write a pretend article, and don’t do the very last few steps, which involve moving the article into mainspace, where real Wikipedia articles exist.

  Before you start the tutorial, you might want to review Chapter 1 through Chapter 3, or take a look at Wikipedia:Your first article (shortcut: WP:YFA) to reinforce what you need to know about choosing new articles to write, and working in Wikipedia’s edit window.

Word to the Wise: A New Article Creator Gets It Very, Very Wrong

Zeo works at a public relations firm. One client, though quite young, is creating innovative international events. A Wikipedia article about her, Zeo thinks, would be ideal free publicity, and she would be appreciative. Creating the article is a breeze, using text from old press releases, with links to various Web sites about the client, her organization, and her events.

The next day, Zeo notices that his article is gone. Strange, but no problem—he’d saved a copy. He creates it again. Three hours later, the article is gone again, and there’s a warning on Zeo’s user talk page about blatant advertising.

But Zeo is persistent. He’s figured out this “reliable sources” ...