YourFirstArticle

Welcome to the Stock Investor Support wiki! This is a guide to some things you should know before creating your first support article. We will explain some of the DOs and DON'Ts of writing an article, then we'll tell you how to create your article.

You must be a current Stock Investor subscriber and registered with the Stock Investor Support Wiki to create a new article (or edit existing articles).

When creating a new article, you should bear in mind the following:

• The title that you choose is important, as this will be the title of your new article.
• Un-doing mistakes is rarely easier than avoiding them altogether, so it is always a good idea to do a little homework first (see General Principles below).
• Remember what the Stock Investor Support Wiki is and what it is not.
• Check to see if the article you want to create already exists at a similar title.
• If you just want to experiment, use the SandBox first.
• Remember the article you create will be deleted quickly if it is not acceptable. The AAII Technical Support Team checks new articles after you create them and reserves the right to move or delete pages as we see fit.

General principles

• Search to see whether someone has written a similar page before you start one yourself. Choose the title carefully.
• Review conventions of the project you are working in regarding, e.g.,:
  • naming conventions; see also PageName
  • whether a seperate page is justified; perhaps it is better to add the text to a related page (especially is the text is not very long); that page can always be split later, after it has grown.
  • how-to guidance for writing regarding style, content and formatting.
• While creating the page and before saving it, check the What links here link on the right-hand side of the edit page under Page Navigation. Align the new content with existing links or fix the other links.
• If nothing points to the new page, it is isolated. Links to it will need to be added on other pages.

Search for an existing article

Stock Investor Support Wiki already has a lot of articles. Before creating an article, try to make sure there is not already an article, perhaps under a slightly different name; you can search for it here. If an article on your topic is there, but you think people are likely to look for it under some different name or spelling, learn how to add a redirect with that name; adding needed redirects is a good way to help Stock Investor Support Wiki. Also, remember to check the article's deletion log in order to avoid creating an article that has already been deleted.

Starting a page from a link

To start a new page, you can click a link to the new page, which may take you to a non-existing blank page. Such pages have the heading {{NoContentYet}} underneath the page title. In order to add content to this blank page, click the "Edit this page" link on the right-hand side of the page under Page Navigation. This takes you to edit mode of the non-existing blank page, which allows creation. You might not be able to create a new page unless you are logged in.

Links to non-existing pages are common. They are typically created in preparation for creating the page, and/or to encourage other people to do so. Links are not only convenient for navigation, but also make people aware of the new page (those who read a related page and also those who watch the related page). New page links are not really broken, as long as the name correctly identifies the intended content. (A new page link with a "wrong" or misspelled name, or that duplicates content found under another name is "broken", but in a different sense.)

Links to non-existent pages are created with New page name from the wiki editor. (In this case, the empty page "New page name" would be created).

Starting a page through the URL

Using the browser address bar to enter a URL to a new page is an easy way to start the new page process. Easier still is editing the pagename part of a URL for an existing page. Using the URL for the new page displays the default {{NoContentYet}} header nelow the page title. The default page has the usual "Edit this page link", which can be used to begin adding content.

Things to avoid

• Advertising: Please do not try to promote your product or business. Also, please do not insert external links to your commercial Web site unless a neutral party would judge that the link truly belongs in the article.
• A single sentence or only a Web site link: Articles need to have real content of their own.

Advocacy and controversial material

• Please do not write articles that advocate one particular viewpoint on investing, politics, religion, or anything else. Understand what we mean by a neutral point of view before tackling this sort of topic.

Extremely short articles that are just definitions

• Try to write a good short paragraph that says something about the subject. We welcome good short articles, called "stubs", that can serve as launching pads from which others can take off. If you do not have enough material to write a good stub, you probably should not create the article. At the end of a stub, you should include a "stub template" like this: {{stub}}. See the list of stub types for a list of all specific stub templates. Stubs help track articles that need expansion.

Organization

• Make sure there are incoming links to the new article from other Wikipedia articles (click "What links here" in the toolbox) and that the new article is included in at least one appropriate category (see ). Otherwise it will be difficult for readers to find the article.