[Cz-engineering] An introduction and some initial questions.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Replying to Milt and Landon -

 

I'll be happy to review. 

 

Let me share the way I usually get started on topics, for which Milt may yell at me, but
that I find very useful.  We'll help you with formatting, but I'm going to suggest to do
things not with the traditional "start article", but the way that I actually do things.
Accept that a couple of things are simply magic to keep certain software gods happy.

 

You may want, first, to do some searches to find what related articles exist, and save
their names.

 

Also, go to an article such as Geospatial intelligence, "edit this article", and just
glance at some of the formatting conventions such as ==Headings==. We will help with
reference format.

 

1. Into the search box, type Public Land Survey System/Definition.  Hit GO, not SEARCH.

 

2. This will give you a prompt saying you can create the article. Click the pink text, and
it will give you an edit screen.  

 

3. Now, write a CZ definition. This is 100 words or so, NOT containing the name of the
article. Bear with me; this will not make sense at first. Save it.

 

4. Next, type Public Land Survey System (not Definition) into Search, and hit GO.  Click
the "create".

 

5. Enter {{subpages}} and save.  You will now see what we call a "lemma article" that
repeats the definition, with the name in front of it. There will be a prompt for create
metadata template; ignore that for now.

 

6. Into the search box, type Public Land Survey Definition/Related Articles. Click create.
Now, I'm going to use an example; you will fill in articles either that you found relevant
or existing, or need to be written.

 

7. Into that edit box type

{{subpages}}

==Parent topics==

{{r|Engineering}} ( comment: and anything you think is a hierarchically higher ter, such
as 

{{r|Baseline (surveying}}

...

==Subarticles== (type in R-templates for anything you think should be subordinate, even if
there is no such article)

{{r|some article name}}

 

==Related articles== (type in R-templates for things that might be relevant, or to remind
yourself)

{{r|Geospatial intelligence}} (just as an example)

 

You can hit Preview now, although it's probably a good idea to Save soon.

 

Now, look at the list. Blue or black article names exist, in one form or another. Pink
names do not. Gray fields mean there is no definition..

 

To define a term, click on the gray. It will take you to step #2 above. If there was no
main article, follow at least to step 5. You can then do steps 6 and 7 again, and use your
judgment to fill in whatever strikes you as potentially relevant, defined or not. If this
was a subarticle of Public Land Survey System, by all means put Public Land Survey System
as a Parent Topic. We aren't fussy about parentage; the subtopic can have multiple
parents.

 

Whenever you are ready to start filling in the content of an article, type the article
name into Search (or click the name from a Related Articles page), and just start writing.
For the moment, ignore the "create metadata template" until we walk you through that part.


 

Start by writing a sentence, containing the name of the article in '''triple
apostrophes''' (which bold it), more or less defining the term, but add a few sentences
and paragraphs explaining it. 

 

Once you get past the introduction, write away, with appropriate ==Heading== and
===Subheading=== and ====Subsubheading==== on their own lines.


For now, when you want to have a reference (footnote), put <ref>bibliographic
information</ref> where you want the footnote to appear; we can help with citation
formatting or you can copy some as templates. To make the footnotes appear, at the end of
the text type

 

==References==

{{reflist}} or {{reflist|2}} for double column.

 

Save.

 

 

  _____  

From: cz-engineering-bounces at mail.citizendium.org
[mailto:cz-engineering-bounces at mail.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of mbeychok
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 1:07 PM
To: cz-engineering at mail.citizendium.org
Subject: Re: [Cz-engineering] An introduction and some initial questions.

 

Landon:

Let me echo the welcome you got from Howard Berkowitz and I will try to answer your
questions.

As for the Public Land Survey System you referred to at
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System,  what you saw there is not a
stub, but an empty page telling you that there is no such article as yet. So the answer to
your question is go ahead and write such an article.  The way to start an article is to
look at the left hand vertical column on every page and click on the link  "Start
Article". Name your article "Public Land Survey System" or any other title you wish. ...
and go to it. Howard and/or I will help you format it if that is needed.

I would strongly suggest that you look at the article at
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Baseline_%28surveying%29 entitled "Baseline (surveying)" to
get an idea of how to format articles. Also, for whatever title you select,  you should
only capitalize the first letter of the first word ... unless it is the name of an actual
recognized system or organization that always uses more capitalization. It is a bit of a
hassle to have to change a title later.

My direct email is mbeychok at cox.net and please let me know when you need any help. You can
also leave post messages to me at [[User talk:Milton Beychok]].

Milton Beychok

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