User talk:Eddsfriend

Welcome!

Hello, Eddsfriend, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask for help on your talk page, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Ian.thomson (talk) 17:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How to create articles

First, gather as many professionally-published mainstream academic or journalistic sources about the subject as possible. These should be things like articles in scholarly journals or in newspapers. Do not include press releases, because those are just advertisements that aren't honest enough to admit they're advertisements. These sources should be independent of the subject but still specifically about it. These sources should not be from pay-to-publish or self-published sources. Google books is a good resource for finding such sources. If you can't find at least three such sources, the subject is not notable at the moment and an attempted article about it will be deleted. If you happen to see another article that doesn't have this kind of sourcing, please point it out so we can delete it.

Open up Microsoft Notepad, or some similar text editor that removes formatting. If you want to use Word or something that has formatting, just be aware that any formatting will be lost when you transfer it to Wikipedia.

Then, in Notepad, summarize those sources in as short a manner as possible. Write like Hemingway. Put citations for each source at the end of each source summary. Take your time with this, saving the file to an easy-to-find location on your computer. If you have a deadline, you should read our policies and guidelines about editing with a conflict of interest (which we discourage), paid editing (which we don't like), and promotionalism (which we proudly persecute). If those policies and guidelines are problematic for you, you should find another site to advertise on because we will, we will, block you. But, assuming that's not the case...

Combine overlapping summaries into a paraphrased paragraph, copying and moving the citations to the appropriate place. Again, take your time.

Then, go to Wikipedia:Article wizard and follow the directions there. Once you get to an edit box, copy the paraphrased summary of cited sources from Notepad into the Wikipedia edit window. Type something in the "edit summary" bar explaining that this is the first draft to establish notability (or something to that effect), and hit "save page," bearing in mind that it's now out of your hands, you no longer have any copyright claims, and anyone can edit the article. You can still expand this draft using sources that are affiliated with the subject (but try to keep that to less than, say, 25% of all citations), or only discuss the subject in passing.

If you properly followed all of these directions, someone should come along to the draft at some point, give it a thumbs up, and move it to article space. This may take a couple of days, but that's not a problem for people who don't have a deadline.

Ian.thomson (talk) 17:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

I am trying to create content on Wikipedia about a product. Have can I go about it? Eddsfriend (talk) 18:09, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Read the instructions above, in the section titled "How to create articles." That explains everything in detail. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:01, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

When writing about a product, please read carefully Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). In particular, as much as possible information must be taken from independent non-promotional sources. Press-releases, interviews, etc. do not help in establishing notability. And especially please understand our guideline about Wikipedia:Conflict of interest . If you are affiliated with the product or the company in some, you are strongly advised against creation articles about them. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:34, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]