CZ:Essentials
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Some hints, policies, and processes are more important than others. If we had to pick a dozen of the most important, what would they be?
- Be bold, but behave professionally.
- Lower-case article titles, unless it is typically written uppercase when used in a regular sentence. So: computational complexity theory; but American Chemical Society. Unless there is a compelling reason not to, articles about people should begin with the person's first name first, e.g., Albert Einstein.
- Check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box, just above "Save page", if you are copying something from Wikipedia. Wikipedians should know that we aren't Wikipedia. We have many different policies.
- The first use of the title word, phrase, or name should be bold. For example: "Biology is the science of life."
- Start the article with a definition, if it concerns a concept or general category, or else an explanation of what the person, place, event, etc., is best known for. For example: "Achillea is a genus of flowering plants, commonly referred to as yarrow, that are frequently used in garden borders and beds in ornamental horticulture."
- Link words and phrases (by surrounding the phrases with left and right double brackets: [[ ]]) where, and only where, the links are relevant to the point being made in a sentence, and where following a link will shed important light on the subject of the article.
- Remember that we employ a Neutrality Policy. The policy requires that we include all significant viewpoints on a subject, stated as fairly and sympathetically as possible. It does not mean that we take a mainstream, scientific, skeptical, or "intermediate/compromise" point of view; it means we write neutrally. So we "take a step back" if necessary, and describe any controversies fairly, rather than trying to settle them in any way at all.
- When you feel ready, start your article with subpages. Until then, copy and paste the following text onto the bottom of any new articles:
[[Category:CZ Live]]
. This adds the article to the "live articles" category (which you can view by clicking "Live articles" on the left). This helps mark articles we've actively worked on. - Subscribe to Citizendium-L (everyone), and Citizendium-Editors (editors). These are announcement lists.
- Project discussion happens on the Citizendium Forums.; article discussion on the article's talk page, and on the appropriate mailing list.
- Know some key policy and organization pages: The Statement of Fundamental Policies | Project Home (help and policies) | Workgroups | How to get started as an author | How to edit an article | How to convert Wikipedia articles to Citizendium articles | Mailing List Outreach | Article Mechanics | Neutrality Policy
- Monitor some important changing pages: recent changes | CZ:Home | your own "user talk" page (see "my talk" at the top of the page) | recent changes in your field (see your workgroup's page)
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