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This article describes one of A Fifth Dimension's guidelines and policies. Please read and familiarize yourself with our common practices and rules. If you have any questions, suggestions, or complaints, please post them on the talk page. |
One of the best features of a wiki is the accessibility of information thanks to linking to connected articles.
When creating articles, always remember to "wikify" them. This helps a reader of one article find other articles with related subject matter. Sometimes this even leads a reader to articles the reader never would have considered important in relation to the subject, but may be essential to understanding the original article in its proper context.
Articles in an encyclopedia are nodes in a hypertext system. Just as with the World Wide Web, it may be helpful to think of this as being analagous to the highway system. In this way, the wiki's main page serves as a central hub from which there are several "highways" extending outward. These tend to be the more commonly read and referenced articles from the wiki, such as The Twilight Zone. Just like the highway system, there are numerous "side roads" that branch off from these main lines—and in turn from each other, and the system continues to expand with each article that is added.
This is why it is important, when you create or edit an article, to consider its place within this system and add links to other articles everywhere that the context makes sense.
For example:
- Jerry Goldsmith was a composer for the original series and Twilight Zone: The Movie.
- Douglas Winter was the editor of The Courier, a small town newspaper, who made a pact with the Devil.
- The Busy Bee Cafe was a diner in Ridgeview, Ohio.
It doesn't always matter if the link has a written article yet, but creating a link to a subject that you think might be useful to this wiki might bring it to someone's attention that is able to create such an article. Creating the link is almost like making a request for the article to be written and will list the article on the Wanted Pages list. However, use common sense. Not every word in a sentence—or even paragraph—will need an article on this wiki. Keep in mind that this is a wiki that is concerned only with The Twilight Zone and all articles should have a substantial relationship to it.
You can also use see also or related topic sections to add lists of links that are associated with the article's topic.
Do's and Don'ts[]
Don't delete links just because you don't think they fit! The better option would be to rephrase the article so that the links remain, but make better sense in context to the article.
If you feel a link to an as-yet-unwritten article is necessary, you have three options: 1. leave it alone and hope another editor will assist in its creation, 2. create the article as a stub and flag it with the appropriate article stub, or 3. write that article!
In consideration to the two previous guidelines, try to avoid creating orphan articles. This means not creating an article that has no other pages that link to it. This can sometimes happen when links to an article from another article are removed or when a linking article is deleted. In these cases, one should check to see that there are links elsewhere to that same article before taking any such action. You can help remedy orphaned articles by adding links to other articles for any of the articles on the list of orphaned pages.