CZ:Article structure

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Revision as of 04:44, 24 December 2010 by imported>Gareth Leng
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An article (or cluster, to give it its technical name on Citizendium) consists of a set of MediaWiki pages. Almost all of these pages are in the main 'article' namespace.

There is one main page, where the main text of article is to be found, and a number of MediaWiki subpages which are associated with the article, and logically are parts of it. These subpages contain ancillary material such as bibliographies, advanced material of use to specialists, etc. A header on every page which is part of a article allows easy navigation among all the (sub)pages.

Subpages

In Citizendium, to make our current subpage mechanisms work, we have to make such page names into redirects; for example, GNU/Linux. (See CZ:Articles with a slash character in their names for more on this topic.)

For more about subpages, including a list of the currently defined standard subpages, see CZ:Subpages.

Metadata

See also CZ:Using the Subpages template

There is one subpage which is not like the others; it's called the metadata, and it contains material which is used internally to Citizendium, to contain information about the article (hence its name). It also tracks things like the article's quality etc. Information which it contains is also used to add the article to a number of categories.

Metadata contents

Here is a list of the fields in the metadata:

{{#switch: {{{info}}}

<!--general article properties-->
|       pagename = 
|        variant = 

<!--Required for checklist-->

|            abc =  
|      cat_check = 
|         status = currently no status
|    underlinked = 
|        cleanup = 
|             by = 
|           cat1 = 
|           cat2 = 
|           cat3 = 
|           sub1 = 
|           sub2 = 
|           sub3 = 
|           tab1 = 
|           tab2 = 
|           tab3 = 

<!--required for ToApprove template-->
|    article url = 
|    subpage url = 
|        cluster = 
|            now = 
|     ToA editor = 
|    ToA editor2 = 
|    ToA editor3 = 
|           date = 

<!--required for Approved template-->
|       A editor = 
|      A editor2 = 
|      A editor3 = 

}}<noinclude>{{subpages}}</noinclude>

In brief:

  • pagename: must contain the correct name of the article.
  • variant: records the dialect of English which the article is written in.


  • abc: means the form of the title for alphabetization, e.g. "Doherty, John" or "Orient, The". Please think this one through.
  • cat_check: put "yes" if you want someone to check over the categories.
  • status: 0 for approved articles; 1 developed, 2 developing, 3 stub, 4 external
  • underlinked: put "yes" if not enough other articles link to it (click "What links here" at left)
  • cleanup: put "yes" if basic cleanup has been done.
  • by: obsolete; leave blank.
  • cat1, cat2 and cat3: workgroups; fill in numerical order.
  • sub1, sub2 and sub3: sub-workgroups; fill in numerical order.
  • tab1, tab2 and tab3: per-article subpages; fill in numerical order.


  • article url: a URL link to the version to approve.
  • subpage url: a URL link to the version of a subpage to approve.
  • cluster: blank unless the whole cluster needs to be approved.
  • now: the date and time when the nomination was made.
  • ToA editor, ToA editor2, ToA editor3: name of the editor(s) who nominated the article for approval; fill in numerical order.
  • date: deadline for comments (format yyyymmdd).


  • A editor, A editor2, A editor3: copied from ToA editor etc when Approval is completed.

A detailed explanation for each of the field is available here.

Metadata implementation

The metdata is a MediaWiki template (i.e. a piece of MediaWiki markup which is transcluded (i.e. copied over) into every page which uses the template). Any page which needs access to any information which is kept in the metadata transcludes the template which holds the metadata. The metadata is kept in the Template: namespace ; specifically, for article "Foo", the metadata is at "Template:Foo/Metadata".

Subpages implementation

Every (sub)page which is part of an article contains at the top a call to the {{subpages}} template. That template generates the navigation header at the top of the page, etc. See CZ:Using the Subpages template for more information.

See also


Citizendium Technical Help
How to edit an article | Searching | Start article with subpages
The Article Checklist | Subpage template
See also: Getting Started
How to Edit
Getting Started Organization Technical Help
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Welcome Page