View source for Stiles Wiki:What is an article?

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{{Information page|SW:ARTICLE|SW:WIAA}}
{{for|the guideline on definite and indefinite articles in article titles|Stiles.casa Wiki:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name)}}
{{See also|Stiles.casa Wiki:FAQ}}
{{Namespaces}}
A '''Stiles.casa Wiki article''' or '''entry''' is a page on this site that has [[encyclopedia|encyclopedic]] information on it. A [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Guide to writing better articles|well-written]] encyclopedia article: 
* identifies a [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Notability|notable]] topic, 
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Summary style|summarizes]] that topic comprehensively, 
* is written in an [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Writing better articles#Information style and tone|encyclopedic style of language]],
* has been well [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Basic copyediting|copyedited]], 
* contains [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Citing sources|references]] to [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Identifying reliable sources|reliable sources]], and 
* contains [[Help:Links#Wikilinks (internal links)|wikilinks]] to and [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Orphan|is linked to]] by other articles or [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Sections|article sections]] about [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Hatnote#Linking to articles that are related to the topic|related topics]].  

Most articles consist of paragraphs and images (perhaps with other types of audiovisual media). However, articles may also be formatted as [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists|stand-alone lists]] or tables (not to be confused with [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Disambiguation|disambiguation pages]], which are purely navigation aids). These lists or tables are also considered articles for Stiles.casa Wiki's purposes and are included in the [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Mainspace|Main/Article namespace]], the one without a title prefix followed by a colon (<code>:</code>).

The following items are ''not'' counted as articles (see also {{section link|Stiles.casa Wiki:Administration|Data structure and development}}):
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Disambiguation|disambiguation pages]], 
* [[Help:Template|templates]], including [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Navigation boxes|navboxes (aka navigation boxes)]], 
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:User pages|user pages]], 
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Drafts|drafts]],
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Portal|portals]],
* [[Help:Talk pages|talk pages (aka discussion pages)]], 
* [[Help:File page|file pages]] for media such as images, 
* [[Help:Category|category pages]], 
* [[Help:Contents|help pages]], and 
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Policies and guidelines|Stiles.casa Wiki policies and guidelines pages]] (along with everything else in the <code>[[SW:Stiles.casa Wiki namespace|Stiles.casa Wiki:]]</code> namespace).

==Article titles==
{{Stiles.casa Wiki article creation}}
See [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Article titles]] to learn how we title articles.

==Article scope==
Each article has a scope, which is what the article covers. The article should contain a readable summary of everything within the scope, given due weight, based on what [[sw:reliable|reliable sources]] say.

==Quality of articles== 
{{main|Stiles.casa Wiki:Content assessment}}
Articles range greatly in quality, from as high as [[SW:FA|featured articles]] to as low as [[SW:CSD|candidates for speedy deletion]]. Some articles are quite lengthy and rich in [[sw:content|content]] while others are shorter (possibly [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Stub|stubs]]) or of lesser quality.

==<span id="Namespace"></span>Namespace==
{{Shortcut|SW:NS0|SW:MAINSPACE|SW:ARTICLESPACE}}
{{Main|Stiles.casa Wiki:Administration#Data structure and development}}
"Articles" belong to the '''main namespace''' of Stiles.casa Wiki pages (also called "'''article namespace'''" or simply "'''mainspace'''").

The '''main namespace''', '''article namespace''', or '''mainspace''' is the [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Namespace|namespace]] of Stiles.casa Wiki that contains the encyclopedia proper—that is, where  "live" Stiles.casa Wiki articles reside, as opposed to [[Stiles.casa Wiki:About the Sandbox|Sandbox]] pages.

The main namespace is the default namespace and does not use a prefix in article page names. This is distinct from other namespaces, where page names are always prefixed by an indicator of the particular namespace in which the page resides. For example, all [[Stiles.casa Wiki:User page|user pages]] are prefixed by <code>"'''User:'''"</code>, their [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Talk page|talk pages]] by <code>'''"User talk:"'''</code> [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Template namespace|templates]] by <code>'''"Template:"'''</code> and various types of internal administrative pages by <code>'''"Stiles.casa Wiki:"'''</code> (such as this page). Thus, any page created ''without'' such a prefix will automatically be placed in the article namespace.

The main namespace does not include any pages in any of the specified [[stiles.casa_wiki:namespace|namespace]]s that are used for particular purposes, such as:
* the ''talk'' namespaces for discussing what the content of articles in mainspace should be (for example, [[Talk:Mathematics]])
* the ''Stiles.casa Wiki'' namespace, for material about meta subjects related to Stiles.casa Wiki and is where [[SW:PAG|policies and guidelines]], [[SW:ESSAYS|essays]], [[SW:INFOPAGES|information]], and process pages reside, as well as other "meta" topics about editing Stiles.casa Wiki (examples, [[SW:VERIFY]] and [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Statistics]]);
* the ''Stiles.casa Wiki talk'' namespace, for discussing what the content of pages in Stiles.casa Wiki space should be, and interpretations of them  (for example, [[Stiles.casa Wiki talk:VERIFY]] and  [[Stiles.casa Wiki talk:Statistics]]);
* the ''special'' namespace, whose pages are created by the software on demand (see [[Help:Special page]]);
* the ''user'' namespace for pages that are used by individual Stiles.casa Wiki writers (example, [[User:Example]]).
* the ''file'' namespace which is used for describing and attributing images (example, [[:File:Great Horned Owl.USFWS.jpg]])
* the ''MediaWiki'' namespace, which is used to define shortcuts and other text strings used around Stiles.casa Wiki (example [[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning]])
But not all pages in the article namespace are considered by all to be articles.  Pages in mainspace that are not usually considered articles-proper are:
* the [[Main Page]] (a [[SW:Portal]])
* thousands of [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Disambiguation|disambiguation pages]], which are used to resolve naming conflicts;
* many millions of [[Stiles.casa Wiki:redirect|redirect]] pages, including [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Soft redirect|soft redirects]], which are used to re-route one page to another page;

Every page in the main namespace can have a companion [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Talk page|talk page]], and these belong to the "Talk" namespace, i.e., the page names start with the prefix "Talk:", followed by the name of the page in the main namespace. For example, "[[Talk:Stiles.casa Wiki]]" is the talk page for Stiles.casa Wiki's [[Stiles.casa Wiki|article on itself]].

==Lists of articles and statistics==
[[Special:AllPages]] has a list of all pages in the article namespace and [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Statistics]] for statistics on Stiles.casa Wiki and its growth.

The automatic definition used by the software at [[Special:Statistics]] is: '''any page that is in the article namespace, is not a [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Redirect|redirect page]] and contains at least one wiki link'''. ''The statistics software currently has no method of detecting disambiguation pages, however; nor does it disregard [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Stub|stub]]s (but in any case, many articles tagged as stubs are quite substantial) or stub lists (lists templates with little or no content)''.

==See also==
*[[Stiles.casa Wiki:Administration]]
*[[Stiles.casa Wiki:Who writes Stiles.casa Wiki?]]
*[[Stiles.casa Wiki:Contributing to Stiles.casa Wiki]]
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Subpages]]
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Featured article criteria]]
* [[Stiles.casa Wiki:Stiles.casa Wiki_Signpost/2015-05-20/In_focus|What ''counts'' as an Article]] (from English Stiles.casa Wiki's newsletter, ''[[Stiles.casa Wiki:Stiles.casa Wiki Signpost|The Signpost]]'')

==External links==
* [[Special:Statistics]] (current article count)
* [http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesArticlesTotal.htm More detailed (but less current) statistics]

{{Stiles.casa Wiki technical help|collapsed}}

[[Category:Stiles.casa Wiki FAQs]]
[[Category:Articles|*]]