Writing Miriadic Articles

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Rules

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Writing Articles

MPOV

Categorization

Templates

This is the page that outlines the Miriadic Style. This is the general style that you should usually follow when you are writing an article in the Miriadic Wiki.

See Also Line

The first line of any article should be used to disambiguate the article, if the article has the same name as another article. It should be used to point to a disambiguation page, or to another article with the same name. (btw: we need a template for see also's!)

Opening Paragraph

The opening paragraph is the initial paragraph that sums up the entire entry. You generally shouldn't make your opening paragraph too large. Save exposition for the actual article.

Opening Paragraphs About People

If you are talking about a person, it is usually good to put the following information in an opening paragraph (not all of these are absolutely necessary, but it makes the Miriadic Wiki more encyclopedic):

• Name (this should normally be the first word of the article), in Bold text
• Birth Name or other alias (these can also be in bold, too)
• Date of birth, if known
• Date of death, including cause, if known
• Birthplace or Nationality
• Career or livelihood (i.e. painter, musician, magickian, etc.)
• Any possible sect affiliation
• Other affiliations
• Notable accomplishments.

example:

Jesus Christ (also known as Joshua or Jesus of Nazareth) was born in 0 B.C. and died 33 A.D. (crucifixion?) He was born in Jerusalem, in a manger. For most of his life, he was a carpenter, healer, and a messiah. He is well known for walking on water, raising the dead, and healing lepers...

It is always a good idea to put a picture of your subject up near the top of the article, although, you can put relevant pictures in the article in any section.

Opening Paragraphs About Other Things

If you're writing an article about something else, say, a philosophy or an idea, you should probably write about where the idea originated from.

Normally you should follow the following points.

• Whatever you're writing about (the topic) should be in Bold
• Feel free to include wiki links to other topics in your opening paragraph. Especially if it is part of a category. If you are writing about an alchemical term, you should include a link to the article on alchemy.

Sections

After breaking down the initial paragraph, it would be best to go into more detail about your subject. Most of what you write should be in your own words. Someone may come along and change what you write, since the pages are editable by anyone, but hopefully, when they edit, they should bring new information. Thus, you should leave your writing open for other people to be able to add more information.

Some good ideas for sections can be the following:

• The History of x
• The First Mention of x
• x in Modern Times
• The Future of x
• Possible Meanings of x
• The Philosophy of x

Other Sections

Other sections that you could add to make a good article:

• Quotes Quotes, which can have its own section, should be either put into BLOCKQUOTE tags, if they are explained afterwards, or given their own bullet points, if they are not given an explanation.
• Notes It is quite possible, using REF and REFERENCE tags to create footnotes within any article. While writing the article, you place the footnote after the text within REF tags, and then under the header of Notes, you place the REFERENCE/ tag at the bottom. In the order of things, this section can be found after the See Also section, and can be called Notes or Footnotes, both of which are acceptable.

Ending Sections

Good Ending sections for any article are ones that refer to other articles, websites, and books.

• See Also sections usually refer to other articles in the Miriad Wiki. Not to be confused with the see also or disambiguation line at the start of the article.
• Notes or Footnotes (how to create it is explained above) should go here. However, it is also interchangeable with the Reference Material section below. If the notes of a page comprise completely of books, then you must call the section Reference Material, if it is both books and notes about the article, you can call it simply Notes or Footnotes.
• Reference Material refers to the source material or book that the pages information is based off of. You can also put the ISBN of a book in this section by placing it in between parenthesis, like this (ISBN 0671770063) and the Wiki will create a link automatically, and provide a page where you can look up books. You may also choose to call this section Bibliography
• Related Material usually refers to books, or other material. You could also call this section Further Reading This is material that you may not have found useful in creating the article, but which provides additional information...
• External Links, the last section of the ending sections of an article, usually refers to other, external pages on the internet. (Remember to make a list by using asterisks before each link). You could get away with calling it External Sites or Internet References.

Templates

Templates add functionality and customization to a page. The most common template at this point is the Stub which says that an article is incomplete or needs more information to be official. You can find a list of needed templates or request one at Request Templates, or you can find a list of templates that already exist at Existing Templates.

Categorization

If you want to add something to a category, you must add this at the bottom of the page, using the proper tag for adding a category.

• You can find a list of existing categories at Special:Categories
• You can also find a list of Categories that need articles under Needed Categories.
• It is also possible to categorize categories, so that you have subcategories. By editing a category page, placing the category tag on that page will create that category as a subcategory of the other category. (got that?)

See Also

• Miriadic POV