Uncyclopedia:Beginner's Guide/Formatting

Here are some tips for making your articles look very sexy.

Parsing is important

You need to add only ONE line between each separate paragraphs to create a break, like so:

I am a long passage of clever prose.

I am a witty line to garner a laugh before another passage of witty prose.

I am another long passage of witty prose.

Making it appear like this:

I am a long passage of clever prose.
I am a witty line to garner a laugh before another passage of witty prose.
I am another long passage of witty prose.

Using sexy subdivisions

Subdivisions using "=" (the equal sign) are used to separate different sections. Make use of them appropriately. You may use tertiary subdivisions such as "==Title==", "===Title===", and so-forth.

Link to it, link from it

Links are like the veins and arteries of a wiki. If you don't have enough links to and from your article, it dies from lack of oxygen. If your article has too many links, it dies from youcan'tbeallveinsitis. Be sensible. You only need a link or two per paragraph. Don't overdo it.

Link text

There are two primary ways to change link text such that it will lead to the article you want it to get to without having to generate a redirect page.

• Simple Changes: These are done when you want to add letters to the beginning or end of a link, including pluralizations and tense changes.

• Example: A link to the South Korea article for the words "South Koreans" can be obtained as follows:

[[South Korea]]ns

• Example: A link to the Kitten article for the word "Kittens" can be obtained as follows:

[[Kitten]]s

• Complex changes Manual changes of link text to articles must be done as follows:

[[Article name|Link text here]]

• Example: So making a link to The Fonz appear as "Fonzes" is achieved by typing:

[[The Fonz|Fonzes]]

Simply put, be practical when redirecting pages. If you can make a link manually, it's often better than making an unnecessary redirect page.

Redirects

Redirects are good ways to disambiguate the existence of pages, and prevent multiple entries for the same entity from being created. However, please redirect with great discretion. Certain iterations are adequate for this purpose. Consider the following:

Original Article: Flying Spaghetti Monster

Suitable Redirects: These Redirects are useful for quick access to long titles, and to prevent ambiguities and the creation of pages with minor difference between titles (i.e. Caps, etc.) This serves to keep people from making errors and causing conflicts between pages.

Examples: "FSM," "flying spaghetti monster"

Unnecessary Redirects: These redirects, while potentially useful, are better formatted in another way, as the addition of another page clutters up the Uncyc. If an article is already properly capitalized (First word caps, others lowercase, e.g. "Left-handed monkey") there is no need to generate a fully captialized version, nor is there a need to generate every iteration of a capitalization.

Examples: "His Noodlyness," "The Flying Spaghetti Monster," "Flying Spaghetti monster," "Flying spaghetti Monster, Any Frivolous Pluralization (i.e., "Clintons"), or prefix/suffix addition (i.e., "Cloned").

Stupid Redirects: These redirects are typically sad attempts at humor, and often do nothing but clutter the Uncyc and add little or no significant humor value.

Examples: "Floating Fusilli Beast," "Alexander Hamilton," Jimmy (i.e. The kid next door)

Use good grammor and speeling

Complete nonsense, or horrendous grammar and spelling, is not funny for most entries. Make sure it makes sense and is in the grammar and language proper for the article. Grammar and spelling are as important as the content you're adding. If you have trouble with your spelling or grammar, you can always leave a note on an administrator's talk page asking them to proof read your article, and they'll probably laugh at you be happy to check it for you, or will pass it on to someone who will. Alternately, you can take advantage of Uncyclopedia's proud and vaunted Proofreading Service by adding {{Proofread}} to your poorly spelled, grammatically suspect page. And remember: spellcheckers are no substitute for manual proofreading.

See also

• Help:HowTo