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Writing an article about a current merchant ship from scratch

Starting from scratch and want some guidance on creating an article about a current merchant ship? Follow these helpful tips! Some of them are also useful for work on articles that have already been started.

1. Create an account. This has several purposes: it provides you with more anonymity, it allows you to create and move pages, it allows you to develop articles in your userspace (as described below), and helps other users interact with you.

2. Find the ship at Equasis. This will give you the IMO number and at least a partial history. Classification societies and registries often provide a great deal of information about a ship. Note that the IMO number is permanently assigned to the ship, and may help you trace its history.

3. Create a proto-article in a subpage of your own user space.

4. Click the box for a "skeleton" article that is a suitable starting point for many articles.

5. Research the available literature to find reliable sources. Some frequently useful sources include:

As you begin to flesh out your article, some things to keep in mind:

  • Right from the start, cite your sources: it's much easier to do this as you go along than to attempt to do so later.
  • See "How to edit a page" to understand the basics of the wiki markup language. Reference the proto-article.
  • Check your sources again. Balance and neutrality are vital.
  • At this stage, don't add categories or images. (You'll be able to add them later.)
  • Save your work from time to time.

6. Work up the proto-article until it's coherent and at least slightly informative and has had its facts checked. (It does not yet need either to present a rounded picture of the ship or to be a good article in any normal sense; it merely has to be sound in what it does say.) The article, no matter how rough, should clearly state why the ship is notable enough to be included in this project, see the notability guidelines. It is a good idea to make reference to at least one of the notability determinants in the lead paragraph. Failing to clearly show notability may lead to your new article being quickly deleted.

7. Create a new article on your subject and paste the content of your proto-article there.

  • Read Wikipedia's ship article title conventions to decide what the page title should be. Also see m:Help:Starting a new page.
  • The history of your proto-article up to this point is unlikely to be of interest to anybody other than yourself, and moving it would force you to re-create your user sub-page. Thus copy/pasting makes sense. However, do note that copying and pasting existing articles is frowned upon in Wikipedia; moving makes the edit history easy to find.

8. Add images such as those obtained from Wikimedia Commons, image list, or by posting a request for an image from other editors. If you have taken a photo of the ship, by all means, upload it to Wikimedia Commons.

9. Add the appropriate categories at the end of the article. Here is an example of the categories used on an actual merchant ship article:

Category:1980 ships
Category:World War II merchant ships
Category:Merchant ships of the United States
Category:Ships of TransAtlantic Lines
Category:Ships built in the United States
  • You may also be able to find suitable categories by looking at related articles, particularly articles about similar ships. Failing that, you can start browsing at Category:Ships.

10. Linking: check that the internal and external links and footnotes in the article go where you want them to go.

11. Make sure that some other, relevant articles link to a new article, so that the new one isn't "orphaned".

12. Keep working on the article. Chances are that other editors will notice its existence and join you in working on it. If nobody seems to notice it and you'd like one or two to do so, mention the article in the talk page of a relevant "WikiProject" (e.g. Music), or this one, or both.

  • You may find that the newcomers will be interested in aspects of the ship that don't much interest you, or will relish aspects of editing that you find a bit tiresome. Thus their work will complement rather than compete with your own.

13. Add your new article to the ships wikiproject and the maritime trades wikiproject. Go to the article's talk page (by clicking the red "Discussion" link) and paste the following: 

 {{WikiProject Maritime Trades|class=|importance=mid}}
 {{WikiProject Ships|class=|B-Class-1=|B-Class-2=|B-Class-3=|B-Class-4=|B-Class-5=|class=}}

Then click "save page."

13. When you're happy with the article or have done about as much with it as you think you can, consider requesting a peer review by following these instructions.

14. Relax! and take a break if you reached this point. You deserve it!


Notes:

  • DYK
  • Request assessment
  • Watchlist the page

Note: this essay is based on one at WP:WPBIO. If you would like to see the use of this template, see Third mate.

All the fields below are available and all are optional, they can be supplied in any order without changing the result.

Example

[edit]

{{Infobox shipping job
| name = Third mate
| othernames = Third officer
| photo = Life vest.jpg
| photo legend = The 3rd mate is often the ship's safety officer.
| department = [[Deck department]]
| licensed = Yes
| epoch =
| location =
| watchstander =
| watch-at-sea = [[Mate on watch]]
| watch-at-sea-time = 8-12, 20-24
| watch-in-port = [[Mate on watch]]
| watch-in-port-time = Midnight-8am
| reports-to =
| duties = Safety officer
| requirements = 3rd Mate's License
}}

Code to copy and paste

[edit]
{{Infobox shipping job
| name = 
| othernames = 
| photo = 
| photo legend = 
| department = 
| licensed = 
| epoch =
| location =
| watchstander =
| watch-at-sea = 
| watch-at-sea-time = 
| watch-in-port = 
| watch-in-port-time = 
| reports-to =
| duties = 
| requirements = 
}}
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