Help:Starting a new page

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Naming an article[edit]

When choosing a title for a Wikiquote article, there are two aspects to consider: the actual title text, and how to capitalize it.

Actual text[edit]

Wikiquote articles fall into several groups: people, creative works, places, and themes. (There are other supporting groups, like categories, lists, etc., but they all follow the practices for theme articles). Each group has its own conventions. In general, though, Wikiquote usually follows Wikipedia's naming practices, so checking there first for an encyclopedia article on your quote subject will usually provide the correct title.

People names follow different practices, depending on their origin:

  • For most Western names, use "Firstname Lastname" (i.e., "Givenname Familyname") form (e.g., Dean Koontz). Do not include middle names unless the person is primarily known by the expanded name (e.g., Louisa May Alcott).
  • For most Eastern names, use the form in which the name is typically written (e.g., Ali ibn Abi Talib). Use the Latin-character transliterations for names originally written in non-Latin characters.
  • For royal names, use the form "Name RomanNumeral of Nation" (e.g., William I of England).

Creative works should follow their "official" name whenever possible.

  • For literary works, this is usually on the publication page just inside the cover.
  • For movies, Wikiquote typically uses the primary title presented by the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

Place names are rare as subjects of Wikiquote articles. In general, they should follow Wikipedia conventions.

Themes and all other non-proper articles are too general to have any formal practices, but some loose ones may be considered:

  • Try to make the article title general enough to encourage a reasonable quote collection (even if you only have a single quote to start). Example: don't create an article for quotes from a single speech, but place it into an article for the person giving the speech.
  • Try to use concise article titles. Example: "Quantum physics" is better than "Quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, and field theory".

For theme articles, it is especially important to first check for existing articles that might reasonably contain the quotes you wish to add. If a topic builds up enough quotes to merit its own article, it can always be "spun off" later.

How to capitalize[edit]

Wikiquote article titles follow Wikipedia's use of sentence case; that is, capitalizing the first word and all proper nouns, but not any other words. (Capitalizing here means making the first letter of a word uppercase, all others lowercase.) This applies mainly to themes and categories (as well as section headings in articles), which are not proper nouns. People and place names and the titles of artistic works (books, films, etc.) are considered proper nouns, so they follow the general English practice of capitalizing all words except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. Some illustrative examples:

A special note about creative works: Many works display titles in all-uppercase, some in all-lowercase, and some in many varieties of case. This is occasionally done for artistic effect, but usually it has more to do with the publisher's style practices. Wikiquote ignores these highly variable publishing practices and uses standard word capitalization (first letter uppercase, all others lowercase), except in rare circumstances.

When in doubt[edit]

If you're not sure how to name or capitalize an article title, you can ask on the Village pump, ask an administrator, or just go ahead and create the article using your best judgement. It is relatively easy to fix title problems after the fact.

How to start a new article[edit]

There are four basic ways of starting a new page:

  1. Using an "input box" to automatically include a formatted article template.
  2. Clicking on a "red link", which represents an article that does not yet exist.
  3. Using the Search box to get a link to edit a new article.
  4. Changing a Wikiquote URL to include parameters to create a new article. (Not recommended for wiki beginners.)

Each of these methods will open an edit window with the title you requested. The first one, a new feature in Wikiquote, is quite useful for both beginners and old-timers.

Using input box[edit]

The following text entry fields allow you to type the title of an article and jump immediately to an edit page. As an additional advantage, the page will be pre-filled with an appropriate template, which might save you work and will help you to comply with standard Wikiquote look and feel.

Add new article








Choose the template that most suits your needs. Be sure to replace all the generated sample text with specific text for your article, and delete any optional text that you don't use.

Following red links[edit]

New pages can be created by following a link to a nonexistent page (also called a "red link" because of how it looks in the default "skin", or page style). If there is already a red link, you can just follow it. If there is no red link, it is possible to create such an entry. For example, List of people by name is a useful place to add a link for a new person article. You can also create such a link from Wikiquote:Sandbox, as well as from your user page. A more advanced technique is to create it on any page, but not "Save" the page, but rather use the "Show preview" feature to jump to the red link. (This last method is not recommended for beginners because of the likelihood of accidental saves.)

If Wikipedia has an encyclopedia article for which you want to create a matching quote article on Wikiquote, you can add a {{wikiquote}} template or a [[q:Name]] link in the Wikipedia article to link to a non-existing page on wikiquote. Following that link will allow you to create the article. (Note that this kind of interwiki link is not red, but it will still jump to an edit page for the Wikiquote article.)

Using the Search box[edit]

Since it's a good idea to check to see if an article exists before you create it, you can enter the title you are looking for in the Search box (in the left margin, using the default skin) and click on "Go". If the article does not exist, the response will include the text:

"No page with this exact title exists…".

Clicking on the phrase "this exact title" will open an edit page for that title. NOTE: Be sure you review the naming conventions above before searching, because there may be an article with a slightly different name or spelling already in Wikiquote.

Editing URLs[edit]

It is possible to edit the URL in the "Address" box in most browsers. This technique is considered advanced, as some changes often need to be made, such as changing spaces to underscores ("_") and adding "&action=edit" to the end of the URL. As such, this technique is not recommended except for experienced wiki users.

See also[edit]