Last modified on July 13, 2023, at 20:39

Conservapedia:Editing article and talk pages

The Conservapedia Manual of Style contains standardized information regarding how to edit article and talk pages on Conservapedia. This will help keep a consistent tone in most articles. See also Conservapedia:Quick reference.

Content Articles (Main Namespace)

Content articles are any and all pages which are not preceded by a colon and a prefix. For example, the article George W. Bush would be a content article (article in the main namespace), and the article Conservapedia:Commandments would not.

Layout

The layout of each content or encyclopedic article needs to be uniform across all of Conservapedia.

An exception to this rule is the placement of the references section (particular for longer articles) should the creator of an article desire to do so. The advantage of placing the references section at the end of the article is that it allows readers to examine Conservapedia's material first and places a higher prominence of key external articles which are often useful to the reader. Furthermore, longer articles which employ a large amount of footnotes often have a large section devoted to footnotes which would tend to very much obscure the useful "See also" and "External links" sections.

Introductory paragraph(s)

(body content)

==References==

==See also==

==External links==

Template Navbox "Liberalism" or "Conservatism", etc. would be placed at the bottom of the article, just before Category.

[[Category: ______]]

Layout questions:

Why is the ==Also See== section listed after the ==References== section?
The reasoning behind this is that the References have a greater and more immediate relevance to the article itself, while the Also See resources have a lesser relevance. Basically the more relevant the content is, the closer it should be to the person reading the article.

Links

  • Internal links are enclosed in double square brackets; e.g., [[United States of America]] links to our United States of America article. To avoid the overuse of redirects, place alternate link titles after a pipe character; [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics|USSR]] links to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as USSR. Please do not link every instance of a name, but only the first such occurrence in the article.
  • If you think an article's name is too long and should be renamed, propose a new name to any administrator.
  • Orphan pages are pages without incoming, internal links. When building a wiki, you want to integrate your new page creation with inbound internal links. First, check the "What links here" feature in the left-hand toolbox. If no pages link to your new page creation, it is an orphan page. To integrate your new page creation into the overall encyclopedia, insert the page title into the search box with the case-sensitive quotes ("Page title"). Then go to as many search results as you feel relevant and link your new page creation from those other pages. This creates a reverse link.
  • You can also use "Related changes" to find pages that you can create reverse links from to de-orphan your new page creation.

See also section

If needed, a "See also" section can be added to provide additional links to relevant Conservapedia articles that whose names do not otherwise appear in the text of the article. If an article name is already covered by an internal link, do not repeat that link on the see also section.

The See also section consists of a bullet list of article names without pipes. Only one article name should appear on each line. Only articles that are directly relevant to the topic of the article should be included on the See also list. Links that do not point to Conservapedia articles belong in the "External links" section.

External links section

If needed, an "External links" section can be added to provide links to websites outside of Conservapedia that are relevant to the article topic. Adding irrelevant spam links is grounds for blocking. Link to specific webpages of value rather than to preformed searches on google or other search engines.

The External links section consists of a bullet list of weblinks with a description of each link in the form: *[http://www.goodwebsitetoread.com Website description] Do not show the naked URL without adding a description.

Creation of a new article

At Conservapedia it is easy to create a new article as can be seen by our resource: How to create a new article.

When you create a new article, please do one or both of the following so people can find your article:

  • Create reverse links to your article from one or more other articles as appropriate ("de-orphaning").
  • Put one or more Category tags at the bottom of your article, preferably for a category that already exists.
  • New page creations without categories and/or reverse links, with fewer than 300 hundred words, risk deletion in routine clean-ups of the server.

Persons

To facilitate the the alphabetization of individuals, add {{DEFAULTSORT: Surname, Given Middle}} to an article. In this format, Surname, Given and Middle are placeholders. The placeholder Surname is the person's last name, and the placeholder Given is the person's given name or Christian name in the case of individuals baptized into the Christian faith. Middle is optional, and can either be the complete middle name or an initial. Names of individuals with multiple or concatenated last names should substitute whatever is appropriate to generate correct the alphabetical listing for surname. E.g., Hillary Rodham Clinton should be {{DEFAULTSORT: Clinton, Hillary Rodham}} and Vicente Fox Quesada should be {{DEFAULTSORT: Fox Quesada, Vicente}}.

Article Names

Article names should be written in lower case, except for proper nouns. This makes linking easier.

The first letter may be either lower case or upper case. In either case, the Wiki software will automatically display the first letter in upper case

For example, use Theory of evolution, not Theory of Evolution.

The article name should be used at or very close to the start of the article, and this use of it should be in bold. See the first line of this page for an example.

If an article name should include a lower-case first letter, including the {{lowercase}} template will cause the title to show correctly.

What Not To Include In Articles

The inclusion of sexual orientation in a biography is generally prohibited due to the Commandment against gossip. In the rare instance where the subject has publicly self-identified that their sexuality is important, then the subject's own quotes should be used as a source.

Date style

  • Do not wikilink dates!
  • The style "July 4, 1776" is preferred.
  • If the day of the week is involved, e.g., "Sunday, December 7, 1941", the comma after the day of the week is optional ("Sunday December 7, 1941" is allowed).
  • US Military style is tolerated in context: "4 July 1776".
  • If it is necessary for clarity to show the era of the year, Always use BC and AD (as opposed to BCE and CE). See Anno Domini for a full discussion.

Spelling, Grammar, Style

  • American English spellings are preferred but Commonwealth spellings, for de novo or otherwise well-maintained articles are completely acceptable, and edit wars over the subject are strongly discouraged. The context of the article should help resolve conflict; an article about Britain could use Commonwealth spelling, while an article about the United States or any other, non-Commonwealth specific articles would use American English.
  • Remember that Conservapedia is an American, conservative and Christian encyclopedia, above all else. It is only logical the usage, political and moral conventions of same be applied, generally, throughout.
  • Changing Conservapedia articles, (their tone, style and content) from an American, conservative and/or Christian orientation/focus, is not welcome. This does not preclude including other ideas or facts, but does, generally, state where the editorial focus of CP is.
  • Avoid the serial comma, except where it helps with clarity. For example, Great Conservative Sports Stars include Tim Tebow, Curt Schilling and Tim Thomas.
  • Always use the 'Show Preview' button before saving changes. This prevents the Recent Changes page from getting overwhelmed.

Diacritics

See also: Diacritics

A diacritic is a mark near or through a character that changes its phonetic value or significance. For example, diacritics appear above the letter "e" in the word "résumé," distinguishing the noun from the verb "resume." Diacritics are more common in various European languages than they are in English.

The spelling of diacritics should follow that given in an American reference work. Several are available online: Merriam-Webster, Webster's New World College Dictionary, American Heritage, Random House, Encyclopedia Britannica and Columbia Encyclopedia.

Check Spelling

Always use correct spelling. All recent browsers, as with Google, can be equipped with spelling checkers that integrate directly into the browser. If you have one of the following browsers, please download the spelling checker at the link provided:

  • Internet Explorer - download at iespell
  • Opera - download at GNU Aspell
  • Mozilla Firefox - download at Spellbound or update to the latest version of Firefox, which has a built-in spelling checker.

Bad spelling doesn't inspire confidence in your article.

Helpful Spelling, Grammar, and Writing Style Software

There are a number of software programs that assists writers when it comes to spelling, grammar, and writing style. A free grammar checking software that will catch many, but not all grammar mistakes is Ginger. Two of the more notable for pay grammar and style software packages are the WhiteSmoke Writing Software and the StyleWriter English usage editor software packages.

Country Names

When countries are first mentioned in articles, abbreviations are not to be used, but may be used for subsequent references. For example, use "United States" or "United States of America" and "United Kingdom", not simply "US", "U.S.", "UK", etc. After the first occurrence, it is acceptable to use "U.S." or "U.K." for example, but do not link such uses.

Good writing

See also: How to create and maintain high-quality articles

Pages should show a level of writing skill—grammar, lucidity, and general organization—at the high-school level. If you believe you may need help in this regard, here are some books you might want to read.

Two classic books on writing well

If you wish to improve the quality of your writing, two classic books on writing well are Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White and the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser .

Other books

Other books which may be helpful include Writer's Ink and A Writer's Reference.

Article length

Please endeavor to make your articles informative. The quality of external links and citations will aid search engines finding your contributions. Create articles that provide value to our readers and which will prompt them to refer those articles to others. At a bare minimum, the majority of articles should be at least 300-500 words long - otherwise it is generally thin content (A rule of thumb: Paragraphs are usually about 100 to 200 words long, which is approximately 6-8 sentences).[1] According to Search Engine Journal, "Thin content can negatively impact your search rankings and on-site user experience, leaving searchers hungry for more."[2]

Avoid creating article stubs. Make sure your new page creation is categorized with reverse links from other pages so it is not deleted during a routine clean-up.

Conservapedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a dictionary.

In 2020, 11.8 million Google search results were analyzed by search engine optimization experts. The average Google first page search result contained 1,447 words (source: Here’s What We Learned About SEO).

Citing Sources and Using Footnotes

  • When writing articles it is necessary to use primary and secondary source material as references. All source material should be properly cited as to work, author, publisher, and date published. The Harbrace Manual, used in many colleges and universities as a standard of style, is recommended as a guide; this website [1] is also recommended.
  • Conservapedia prefers Internet links to sources, when available. Editors should endeavor to find links for articles sourced only with printed material, as secondary sources.

Primary Sources

Original, primary-source documents consist of: diaries; autobiographies; memoirs; interviews with journalists; minutes of meetings; private and public letters; speeches; official records; photographs and film. When citing these sources, write in this manner:

Author. Name of work in italics; Publishing company; Location where published. Page number(s), (Date published in parenthesis)

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources consist of interpretation and analysis of published material, history, and other primary source data. These sources consist of: biographies; encyclopedias; newspapers, news magazines, and news-related websites; journalistic and political commentaries or opinions (this includes web-blogs); literary criticisms of film, books, or poetry (such as Cliff's Notes); scientific journals and papers; textbooks. When using these sources, the same citation rule as above applies.

Newspaper reports should be considered only as fleeting moments of history as given by a reporter; they can be notoriously one-sided with a perspective that leaves out pertinent facts. They should be used only if the article requires it. When citing a newspaper source, write in this manner:

Author. "Title of the article in quote marks"; Newspaper name in italics; Complete day-month-year article published. You must still write this complete reference line regardless of whether or not the newspaper source was retrieved online; online links to most newspapers go dead after a short period of time.

For scientific journals and papers, do not rely upon a newspaper or journalistic report on them; find and cite the scientific article directly

Partisanship of Sources

It's typical of partisans to strengthen their criticisms of a target by claiming a source who is supposedly loyal to the target. That's why Conservapedia gets dozens of pranksters every week claiming to be Christian or conservative.

The party affiliation of a news source should be irrelevant. All that matters is whether the source has a record of telling the truth. A new source with no track record is useless, especially if it's anonymous.

Conservapedia is more trustworthy than Wikipedia, because most of the senior staff are real people (not anonymous hacks hiding behind their clever pseudonyms).

Uncited Material at Conservapedia

Completely Uncited Article or Completely Uncited Section of an Article

If you see an article or section of an article that is completely uncited please feel free to put a uncited tag on that particular article or section of an article. Also, when placing a uncited tag on a article or section, please feel free to send the person or persons who wrote that section a friendly and gentle reminder regarding the uncited material plus a friendly thank you for contributing to Conservapedia. Having cited material helps insure that Conservapedia material is true and verifiable plus it provides a resource so readers can found more information on a subject.

Here is the tag you use to indicate a article or section of an article in uncited and please place it at the top of the article that is completely uncited or at the top of the section of the article that is completely uncited:

{{uncited}}
Uncited Sentence

If a sentence needs to be cited please use the "fact" template at the end of the sentence.

Here is the fact template and please place it at the end of the uncited sentence:

{{fact}}

Bibliography

A bibliography is a listing of the most valuable sources on a topic, including articles and books. Conservapedia bibliographies, to be maximally useful, should also be annotated, and if possible include links to Web pages with copies of the articles and books.

Links to external websites, with original (otherwise unpublished) content, belong under "External links")

Purpose

The bibliography is most useful in pointing to serious sources that readers can use for further in-depth reading on a topic, for exploring major alternative interpretations, and for preparing a a term paper. Usefulness increases with the quality of the source, how recent it is, how available it is (online or through inter-library loan), and whether it guides users through the literature. Popular sources are usually not included unless they are influential in their own right, or better sources are lacking.

The article bibliographies do not necessarily reflect the sources authors actually use in preparing the article.

Subheadings

What headings are appropriate depends on the field and the topic. In History, for example, bibliographies can be divided into "Primary Sources" and "Secondary Sources."

Citation schemes and listing notes

Authors should use the bibliographic citation scheme common to the leading publishers in the field.) The Chicago Manual of Style has comprehensive coverage of the alternatives.

Always include the author and title, and a date of publication. For most books, it is optional but not necessary to include place of publication or publisher, or name of translator.

Books and articles can be combined in listing. Alphabetize by last name of the primary author (if no author, then use the title of the book, ignoring "The", "An", etc.)

Date of publication is tricky in the case of multiple editions and translations. Give the most useful version and ignore the others. Amazon.com and books.google.com are useful for dating. A major library online catalog is Melvyl from the University of California.

Major articles

Major articles will have long bibliographies that appear in the Bibliography section. A short selection called "Further reading" points the user to 5 to 20 most useful items. Items listed in the Further Reading section should be duplicated in the Bibliography. Major topics have thousands of books and articles, and Conservapedia does not try to be comprehensive but only includes the most useful resources.


The bibliography should emphasize English-language sources as much as possible (including translations of course).

It should include both primary and secondary sources. It should if possible indicate that items are available online, and if possible link to them (through JSTOR, books.google, Questia, Ebsco, Project Muse, Gutenberg, Swetswise. etc.) Links to Amazon.com are welcome if they provide new information, such as graphics (e.g. the cover or illustrations), a table of contents, an excerpt, a search-the-book routine, or useful reviews.

Outdated or discredited sources should be avoided--although if they are online and better sources are not online, we should include both. If a source is poor quality or heavily biased that should be noted in the annotation.

Effort should be made to balance biased sources with sources on the other side(s). Annotate them to explain where each one stands.

The bibliography should include short annotations (or sometimes abstracts) making clear the value of the source.

In every case enough information should be given so that a reference librarian can obtain the item through inter-library loans or online sources.

Items that are listed in the footnotes should also be included in the bibliography if they are generally important to the topic (but not if they are incidental).

Categories

A diagram showing the hierarchical usage of categories (click the diagram above to enlarge the picture).

Unlike articles, categories are to be in title case (e.g. Australian Cities and Towns, not Australian cities and towns), and are to be plural where applicable (e.g. Planets, not Planet, but Rail Transport). Conservapedia categories form a tree or heirarchy with Category:Everything at its root. Category become subcategories of broader topics by including [[Category:Main Category]] on the category page of [[Category:Subcategory]]. Categories should not be subcategories of themselves or any of their subcategories.

Assign articles to one or more categories by placing [[Category:name]] at the very bottom of the article page. If an article is placed in a subcategory, do not also place it into the main category. (By definition, every article could be relevant to every category on the tree between the subcategory and Category:Everything, so do not list any of the broader categories.)

A category page may include text clarifying the scope of the category. You can identify the main article covering a category by including {{Main article|article name}}. Place extended descriptions of the category subject matter in a separate article rather than on the category page.

Please refrain from trying to score cheap rhetorical points via category tags. The purpose of category tags is to help people find related material.

Redirects & Name Changes

Consult with an Administrator about re-directing articles or article name changes (page moves). It is preferable to do page moves that keep their article and talk page history intact. Only Administrators can do page moves.

The only content on a redirect page should be the redirect command on the first line #REDIRECT[[target article name]] Do not add categories on redirect pages.

Talk pages and Archiving

See also: Conservapedia: Discussion page - technical help

Article talk pages, also known as Discussion pages, are an opportunity to build a cooperative and collaborative community of editoras with common interests and values. They are designed to improve articles. When discussing changes to an article, have the discussion on the article's talk page where other editors can see, and not on a user talk page where it is unlikely to be seen by others.

Discussions will also be useful for later editors looking to see why something is in the article the way it is. Be polite, courteous, and stick to the main points of the discussion. Interact with other users civilly. Do not spam pages with reams and reams of copy paste material. Answer question or inquiries succinctly, to the point. If you don't know the answer off hand, tell them you will have to research the matter and get back in a timely fashion. If you feel the answer is too large for simple question, don't try to overwhelm the questioner with lengthy response. be civil, and not disrespectful at all times.

Sometimes discussions lead off to other matters. You can create new subheadings. If the discussion is no longer about the article, move the discussion elsewhere. In discussion remember to always be civil. Do not put User names in subheadings to invite other editors to gang up on an editor or hold up to ridicule. Personal attacks should be replaced with the {{personal remark removed}} template.

Archiving talk pages is a regular maintenence chore editors are invited to help with. However, a discussion should not be Archived until at least seven days have elapsed since the last, or most recent posting in a discussion thread, allowing others to read and comment.

Debate topics

If you have feelings you wish to express, but recognize it would inappropriate to do so on article talk pages, then you may wish to look at Conservapedia's Debate Topics. We have a large section devoted to the project itself, among other issues.

If you have questions about the way an article is written or would like to propose changes, then it is fine to use the talk page for that article. However, if the discussion is turning into a general debate without article improvement taking place, then the article talk page becomes an inappropriate forum and it should be moved to a {{debate}} page. You can help by entering a link in the Debate Topics article so others can join if they wish.

Helpful videos

See also

  1. Word Count List – How Many Words Your Text Should Have, Wordcounter.net
  2. Is Thin Content? (And How Do You Fix It?), Search Engine Journal, 2021