View source for Help:Starting a new page

{{Template:Help-pages/2}}
<div style="float:right; margin-left: .5em">__TOC__</div>

New pages in the wiki may be started in several ways. Starting a new page also raises some page naming considerations.

== Starting a new page ==
=== Follow a red link ===
Easiest and most intuitive way to start a new page is to follow a red link. Blue links mean existent pages, while red links mean nonexistent ones. Click on a red link and you will open it in [[Help:Edit mode|edit mode]]. 

If you haven't seen the red link of your liking, but you prefer this way of starting new pages, you may use the [[Help:Sandbox|Sandbox]], open it in edit mode, type the page title, enclose it in <code><nowiki> [[ ]]</nowiki></code>, show preview or save the edit, and follow the link you just created.

Actually, red links may also indicate typos in the links, which otherwise would have been blue. If you are have detected such a mistake, please correct it in situ.

Following a red link in certain cases is the only way to start a new page: for instance, when diacritical characters or other non-keyboard symbols are to appear in the page title.

=== Use the search box ===
Before you start a new page you'd better [[Help:Search|use the search tool]] to check if it has been already created. Type the correct (or most plausible) keyphrase. If it doesn't yield the expected results, you may consider another search or start the new page from the red link it will return you:

:: There is no page titled "example". You can [[example|create this page]].

=== Type in the browser address bar ===
Another easy way to start a new page is to type its title in the address bar of your browser
:: <nowiki>http://www.ifigenia.org/w/index.php/Your title goes here</nowiki>

Or, if you prefer, though it's all the same
:: <nowiki>http://www.ifigenia.org/w/index.php/Your_title_goes_here</nowiki>

A new blank page, titled "Your title goes here" will be opened in read mode, telling you

:: There is currently no text in this page, you can search for this page title in other pages or edit this page.

Just click the '''create''' button and you'll open it in edit mode. That's it.

== Page naming ==
The naming conventions presented here may be changed upon community discussion and decision, but initially they are the following:

; Diacritics and special characters
* If needed, page names may contain diacritical characters, especially valid for articles about people whose names contain special symbols. In this case an adequate redirect page should be also provided. For instance, [[Dogan Coker]] redirecting to [[Doğan Çoker]].
* Special characters and sub/superscript indices are also okay as long as a redirect is provided with a meaningful keyboard-only title.

; Capital letters
* Pages should generally be titled in small case, their first letter also being automatically capitalized. For instance, the definition article on IFS should be [[intuitionistic fuzzy set]], while [[Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set]] may be only a redirect.
* If the title represents or contains the name of an institution or a journal, all relevant letters are to be capitalized.
* The publications in the <code>Issue:</code> namespace should generally be titled in small case.

; Technical restrictions
* There are several Unicode symbols which may not technically appear in a page title, as they take part in various text formatting commands from the wiki markup: <code># < > [ ] | { } </code>. 
* Symbol <code>/</code> is allowed in page names, but it adds a different sense: it separates pages from their [[Help:Subpages|subpages]]. 

; Moving pages
* Don't worry if you make a mistake in the page title, once you have saved the page. Registered users can [[Help:Moving pages|move pages]] and thus correct typos, capitalization and diacritical problems.

== See also ==
* [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page Help:Starting a new page] from Meta-Wikipedia
* [[Help:Contents]] with links to other help pages

[[Category:Help pages]]