SubSurfWiki:Training/Basic article

Follow these steps to write a basic stub article:


 * 1) Go to your user page.
 * 2) Edit the page and add a link to  /Basic article/ . The first slash says 'make a subpage'. The second slash says 'don't show the first slash'.
 * 3) Go to that article and pick a subject to write about
 * 4) Start with a short, dictionary-like definition:
 * Wikis are websites that anyone can edit. Wikipedia is an example of a wiki.
 * 1) Add some top-level headings with two equals signs:  
 * 2) Almost all articles have the following sections:
 * 3) * References — for the references you've used. You can also add others, but usually the only text here will be  
 * 4) * See also — for other articles in the wiki that a highly relevant to this one
 * 5) * External links — for links that are outside the wiki. Putting them here preserves the reader's expectation that wiki links point to other parts of the wiki.
 * 6) If the article is a stub, then make sure to tag it as such:
 * 7) Articles should always have a list of categories at the end:
 * 1) Articles should always have a list of categories at the end:

Hatnotes
Sometimes it is useful to prominently display a notice at the top of the article. For example:
 * If several articles could have the same name, you will need to disambiguate them. For example, Rock (geology), Rock (music). The article Rock then links to both, and each links back to the disambiguation page.
 * If there is a main article on the subject, but readers might have ben looking for something else, use About
 * If there is a very closely related article that readers would probably like to also read, use See also
 * If the topic is dense, it may be worth having an 'intro' article; use Intro.

There aren't too many other reasons to add a notice to the top of your pages, though there are exceptions. If you want to 'brand' a series of pages, for example becase they are all on a particular topic or project, it's probably better to use an Infobox or Navbox. Outside the main namespace, or for warnings or other notices, then an Mbox may be the best option.

Quantities and units
Semantic MediaWiki unit conversion, which must be defined in a special property:
 * Water boils at temperature::100&deg;C.
 * Top reservoir was encountered at depth::8900 ft.
 * The field is distance::40 miles southeast of Billings.
 * We estimate the field contains oip::360 million bbl in place.

All the semantic properties that are quantities: Temperature,

The val family of templates also afford some better handling of quantities.