Help:Creating an article

Creating an article for your flag, crew, and business.

So you've come to the wiki and you want to create an article about a subject near and dear to your heart. Maybe it's your flag. Perhaps your crew is sorely lacking an article of its own. Or maybe an individual article for your shoppe will help draw in the customers.

Here you can find instruction on how to make your article look as polished as some of the more established crews (like the The Yo-Ho Yo-Yos), flags (Silver Dawn) and businesses (Quid Pro Clothes).

Before you begin you may wish to familiarize yourself with the Style guide and the policies and guidelines. If you need help with general wiki editing, please look at Wikipedia's guide to editing.

= Crew Articles = Creating a professional looking page about your crew is simple. First, do a search from the search box for your crew's name. Make sure you capitalize the first letter. Click on the red link that says "this exact title." This will take you to a blank edit field for your crew's article. Second, in another window or browser tab, head to the instructions page for the crew template. Copy and paste the blank template text into the blank field for your article.

Now you're ready to start filling in your crew's particular details. Follow the instructions on the template instruction page, making sure to leave the ocean name as plain text.

After the closing }} at the end of the template, you're free to put in any additional information about your crew. Perhaps a bit of history, or maybe your crew statement or contact information. If your article is especially short, type   at the end, and it will be tagged as a stub article. This marks the article as short and in need of additional information. It also lets other contributors find your article quickly and help flesh it out.

If your crew has external forums, be sure to go to the appropriate Yellow Pages for your ocean and add an alphabetical link both to your crew's article and to your forums.

= Flag Articles = Creating a professional looking page about your flag is simple. First, do a search from the search box for your flag's name. Make sure you capitalize the first letter. Click on the red link that says "this exact title." This will take you to a blank edit field for your flag's article. Second, in another window or browser tab, head to the instructions page for the flag template. Copy and paste the blank template text into the blank field for your article.

Now you're ready to start filling in your flag's particular details. Follow the instructions on the template instruction page, making sure to leave the ocean name as plain text.

After the closing }} at the end of the template, you're free to put in any additional information about your flag. Perhaps a bit of history, or maybe your public statement or contact information. If your article is especially short, type   at the end, and it will be tagged as a stub article. This marks the article as short and in need of additional information. It also lets other contributors find your article quickly and help flesh it out.

If your flag has external forums, be sure to go to the appropriate Yellow Pages for your ocean and add an alphabetical link both to your flag's article and to your forums.

Defunct flags
If you wish to add an article about a flag that no longer exists, please follow the above instructions, but instead follow the instructions page for the defunct flag template.

= Shoppe and Building Articles =
 * Note: Articles should only be created about government buildings, full shoppes, and housing "bazaars," not stalls or individual houses.

Creating a professional looking page about your building is simple. First, do a search from the search box for your shoppe's name. Make sure you capitalize the first letter. Click on the red link that says "this exact title." This will take you to a blank edit field for your flag's article. Second, in another window or browser tab, head to the instructions page for the business template if your article is about a building that has managers, such as a shoppe. If your article is about a building that doesn't have managers, such as an inn, palace, or house, please read instructions page for the business 2 template Copy and past the blank template text into the blank field for your article.

After the closing }} at the end of the template, you're free to put in any additional information about your business. Perhaps a bit of history, or maybe contact information. If your article is especially short, type   at the end, and it will be tagged as a stub article. This marks the article as short and in need of additional information. It also lets other contributors find your article quickly and help flesh it out.

If your business has an external website, be sure to go to the appropriate Yellow Pages for your ocean and add an alphabetical link both to your business's article and to your website.

= Pirate Articles =
 * Note: Before you begin, please read the policy on pirate articles on our Policies and Guidelines page. As noted on that page, any pirate may have a page about him or her; these pages must follow the same policies as other pages.
 * Please feel free to use your User page. You can go there by clicking on your login name in the upper-right corner of any YPPedia page.

Creating an article about your or any other pirate is easy: simpler, in fact, than creating a page about a crew or flag. First, do a search from the search box for the pirate's name. Make sure you capitalize the first letter as the name shows up in game. Click on the red link that says "create this page". This will take you to a blank edit field for the pirate's article.

Fill in any factual information about this pirate that you feel is pertinent. Remember that this is an encyclopedic work, so likes, dislikes, and favorite puzzles don't count. A pirate's part in the history of an ocean or oceans, flag or crew positions held, and notable achievements are examples of what to include. Because they may fluctuate a lot, it's best to leave puzzling stats to the in game pirate info pages rather than adding them to pirate articles.

At the top of the page you should add an infobox for the pirate. It will provide a link to the pirate info page as well as the pirates trophies and portraits. You can copy the code for the infobox from the sample pirate page and adjust the values according to the pirate. If you want the infobox to show a portrait, take a look at Howto upload a portrait.

=Other Links=