Help:Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia (also spelled encyclopædia, see spelling differences) is a type of reference work or compendium holding a comprehensive summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries, which are usually accessed alphabetically by article name. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject for which the article is named.

BoyWiki encyclopedia articles are meant to be factual articles (for editorals and opinion based entries see Category:life) written with the goal of preserving knowledge and elucidating ideas pertaining to boylove and contain information about history and historical events, notable individuals, legal cases, the history of the online boylove community, and definitions of some of the terms that boylovers and boys use today. BoyWiki is not an encyclopedia in the same way as Wikipedia. It is not a repository of all information. BoyWiki is the internet museum/archive of boylove history, culture, and heritage and this needs to be reflected in BoyWiki encyclopedia articles (see BoyWiki:Relevance policy).

How to write an Encyclopedia article/Style guidelines

Encyclopedia writing is formula writing. BoyWiki Category:Encyclopedia articles follows a prescribed outline. All BoyWiki Category:Encyclopedia articles should follow this format.

1. An article should begin with an introductory lead section, which should not contain section headings.
2. The remainder of the article may be divided into sections, each with a section heading (see below) that can be nested in a hierarchy.
   1. References: also refered to as footnotes or citations are important to verify content and inform the reader of its source.
   2. See also: A bulleted list of internal links to related BoyWiki articles.
   3. External links: A bulleted list of external links pointing to further information outside BoyWiki as distinct from citing sources.

The lead

The lead should be a concise summary; newly added information does not automatically always qualify as important enough for the lead. Information newly added to the article should preferably be placed in the most appropriate section or sections. The lead should summarize the content of the article. It should prepare the reader for whatever is in the body of the article, get them interested in the content, and inspire them to read the whole article.

A well-written lead (and article) should answer most or all of the following:

• Who is it about?
• What happened (what's the story)?
• When did it take place?
• Where did it take place?
• Why did it happen?
• How did it happen?

Section organization

A page can and should be divided into sections, using the section heading syntax. For each page with more than three section headings, a table of contents (TOC) is automatically generated.

== Section ==
=== Subsection ===
==== Sub-subsection ====

Referencing

A citation or reference in an article usually has two parts. In the first part, each section of text that is either based on, or quoted from, an outside source is marked as such with an inline citation. The inline citation may be a superscript footnote number, or an abbreviated version of the citation called a short citation. The second necessary part of the citation or reference is the list of full references, which provides complete, formatted detail about the source, so that anyone reading the article can find it and verify it. Referencing can be one of the more difficult aspects of working on Encyclopedia articles but it is absolutely necessary. The basic format is <ref>citation</ref>

The more advanced citation templates can be found in Category:Citation templates (See: Help:references)

The basic format for the reference section is:

==Reference test==
This is the text that you are going to verify with a reference.<ref>Reference details go here</ref>

==References==, ==Notes==, or ==Footnotes==
{{Reflist}}

Related topics

A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links to related BoyWiki articles. The links in the "See also" section might be closely related or only indirectly related to the topic of the article because one purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics as well as connect to related topics of interest.

Further reading

External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Instead, articles can include an External links section at the end, pointing to further information outside BoyWiki as distinct from citing sources. The standard format is a primary heading, ==External links==, followed by a bulleted list of links. Identify the link and briefly indicate its relevance to the article

Categorization

Categories and subcategories are the only means of enabling users to browse sets of related pages Categories are intended to group together pages on similar subjects. The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to all BoyWiki pages in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential—defining—characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics.

After you have determined an appropriate category name and know its parent category, you are ready to create the new category. To create a category, first add an article to that category. Do this by editing the article page. At the bottom, but before the interwiki links (if any are present), add the name of the new category, (e.g.: [[Category:New category name]] ), and save your edit. The as-yet-undefined category name will now appear as a red link in the article's category list at the bottom of the page.

Next, to create the category, click on that red link, which brings you back into the editor. Adding this new category into the appropriate parent category is much the same as with an article: at the bottom, simply add the parent category (e.g.: [[Category:Parent category name]] ).

Sometimes, a common-sense guess based on the title of the category isn't enough to figure out whether a page should be listed in the category. So, rather than leave the text of a category page empty (containing only parent category declarations), it is helpful – to both readers and editors – to include a description of the category, indicating what pages it should contain, how they should be subcategorized, and so on.

Page layout

The lead: ''' First word''' (which is generally the page title is made bold) ==References== {{reflist}} ==See also== [[link]] [[link]] Example: *[[Help:Editing BoyWiki 101]] gives: Help:Editing BoyWiki 101 ==External links== [link(one space)page name] [link(one space)page name] Example: *[https://www.boychat.org/ BoyChat] gives: BoyChat [[Category:Category name]]

Helpful hints

• Expect to spend a minimum of several hours researching and developing your article. This can be accomplished over a number of days or months.
• When choosing an article's title, the title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with the titles of related articles.
• When creating a new BoyWiki entry it is important to first ask yourself: "What does this have to do with boylove or boys?" and "Is this of any historical, cultural, or significance to the heritage of boylove?"
• Don't try to take on too much. Finish one thing before starting another.
• Don't add articles that you don't intent to work on or finish. Few articles are ever picked up and finished by others. Abandoned entries, articles, or drafts left incomplete having structural issues that make them unreadable will be deleted.

See also

• BoyWiki:Policies category encyclopedia

External links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style