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New Article Guidelines

From The RadioReference Wiki

Drafting the New Article

What Topics can an article cover?

This is an area that's open to broad interpretation; almost anything related to monitoring, from MW up to satellites is a possible topic. As a general rule, if it fits into one (or more) topics that are on the main article (the article that sent you here), it's a candidate. There are a few topics that should not be covered in this wiki;

  • Anything to do with modifying scanners for cellular coverage;
  • Software links for decoding modes not permitted under US law, such as POCSAG,FLEX,MDTs and KDTs;
  • Hacks and/or illegal sale of commercial software or shareware;
  • Hacks and/or illegal sale of software used for programming professional radios, such as Motorola handhelds;
  • Trunking and other information that has been officially requested to be removed under the Data Removal Policy. This includes spam and other malicious content.


Coding Hints

The Quick guide to editing pages has a very good summary of many of the more important commands and directives. While you can use the Sandbox to write and test your code, be aware that this is a non protected public area; your code could be wiped out at any time, without warning. Your User Area (click on your user name in the upper right hand corner) can be used to store your code for as long (or as brief) a time as you wish. Sometimes it's better to use a text editor or simple word processor offline to construct your article, particularly if you are new to coding in the Wiki markup language. That's an individual choice for the user to make.

At the end of the article, the use of the Category directive is strongly encouraged. This insures that the article will be indexed by MediaWiki automatically when it is stored, and will therefore make it easier for other users to find it. At this writing we have just over 40 such categories and around 500 articles. See the provided link for the syntax. The list of all categories we have on the RR wiki can be found here. It's entirely acceptable that one article may belong to more than one category. If this is the case, MediaWiki will resolve each category, seperated by a vertical bar.

Saving Your Work

When your coding is complete, it's time to establish where the article will reside.

One very quick way to go is to enter the URL of the wiki, then follow that with the title. If you wanted to create a stand alone article on the Eton E1 receiver, for example, the URL becomes:

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Eton_E1_Review

If you are going to make this a member of another article, that article comes first. The correct format is:

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/article_name/article_name

So for example, let's say the article on the Eton E1 receiver should be a member of our SWL Broadcast article. The URL would read:

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/SWL_Broadcast/Eton_E1_Review <==== New Article

Either way, you will have created a blank article with a title. Click on the 'edit' tab to get into the editor. Copy/Paste your code into here.

Another way to approach this is to edit the appropriate section, insert the title you want, and save it away. When the article is stored, if the Wiki cannot find something with that title, it shows up in RED Click on it, and you will be taken to the editor where you can copy/paste your code.

You should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your new article, as described in the legend. When you have finished, press preview to see how your article will look. If you're happy with what you see, then press "Save" and your article will be stored. Don't "sign" your new article (the software keeps track of who enters a new article and makes any changes).