Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Creating an Article

Current answers. Practical procedures. Reliable reference.
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How to start a new reference/encyclopedia article on EDFM.

Before you start

Check whether the subject already has a page (search first) and whether it fits an existing topic hub — see the hub list on Main Page. If it's a procedure rather than a "what is this" subject, you want Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Creating a Guide instead.

Title

Plain, flat, human-readable page name — no namespace prefix, no subpage slash (e.g. Broo Tarquin, not Engineer:Broo Tarquin). This is a deliberate, consistent site-wide convention; see Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Engineering Architecture for the reasoning behind it.

Starting from a skeleton

Several entity types have a subst-only skeleton template — check the Category:Templates list for one matching your subject (e.g. {{New engineer page}}, {{New blueprint page}}, {{New engineering module page}}, {{New experimental effect page}}). As your very first edit on the new page, enter {{subst:Template name}} (with the actual template's name in place of "Template name"), save, then fill in the placeholders. If no skeleton exists yet for your subject type, build the page manually using {{Article header}}, {{Article status}}, and an appropriate infobox (see Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Adding Structured Data if the subject's data should be reusable elsewhere) as the minimum shape.

Don't invent facts

Leave a field or section as "to be added" / "not yet confirmed" rather than filling it with a plausible-sounding guess — see Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Source Quality Guide and Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Editorial Policy.

Categorise it

Every article needs at least one subject category and, if gameplay-facing, {{Article status}} (which auto-categorises by status/mode). Browse Special:Categories or start from Category:Gameplay to find the right existing category rather than creating a new, overly-specific one.