See Also: How_To_Help

Before You Start

Make sure the topic doesn't already exist. Use the Search feature of the wiki to search for several different terms to describe the article you'd like to write.

If a somewhat related article exists, think about expanding that article first, or how your article will fit in with that existing article. Will people want to read that article before they read yours, or after? Write your article in a way that it dovetails in with the other article. If you can't think of how to do it, it may be a better idea to expand the existing article.

Contact the section editor. Email the editor (their email addresses are in the Editors page) and give them a one or two sentence description of what you'd like to write. They may have a similar article in the works already that they can share with you, or they may know someone else working on a similar article that can help.

But at the same time - if you're feeling the urge to write, and if you've got the time available, just start writing. We don't always have the writing bug, and it's best to bang out the words when we feel the mood! Don't be afraid - we're not formal here at SQLServerPedia. It's all about getting help from the community to make the experience better for everybody, and we really appreciate your help.

Don't Copy/Paste Content or Code

Plagairism will not be tolerated. Remember, your name gets linked to the edits you're doing, and the Editors each have a decade or more of experience working with databases. If you're copying content from somewhere, they've probably seen the content, and it'll be much tougher for you to get your contributions accepted in the future - even if they're completely legit.

If you want to copy/paste your own content from your blog, your web site or your documentation, make absolutely sure that you didn't sell the content to anyone else. If you've sold it to a magazine or web site, you need to get their written permission to put that content here, and we will ask for that permission to keep on file.

If you want to post code snippets, stored procedures, queries, etc, make sure you own that code and are willing to contribute it into the public domain. If you wrote that code while employed by a company, you may need to get permission from your employer to post the code, since that work may be considered owned by that company.

Article Subjects

We're interested in articles that help DBAs and developers do their jobs better. If you've gained knowledge that you want to pass on to other members of the community, we want to help you do it.

We're not interested in articles that:

• Review a product - those are best suited for magazines
• Encourage the user to buy (or avoid) a commercial product - those are best suited for advertisements
• Are copy/pasted from any source that is even remotely copyrighted. If you didn't write it yourself, it shouldn't go here.

Having said that, if you want to write an article that explains how to use Microsoft System Center Operations Manager to its fullest potential, or best practices for Quest LiteSpeed, that's acceptable. Just be aware that we're doing this for the community, not to plug products. If a product smells anything like an ad, it's gone.

Understanding the Review Guidelines

Before you start writing, take a moment to look at the review guidelines. Knowing what the reviewers are looking for will help you write a better article the first time.

The best articles:

• Don't rehash Books Online or try to explain every parameter
• Give real-life examples of why a particular command or technique is used or avoided
• Are easy to read, and have been spell checked
• Explain the subject thoroughly and accurately
• Link to other SQLServerPedia articles that help explain prerequisites or acronyms
• Don't bash a product, whether it's a Microsoft product or a third party product

Check Out Wikipedia's Standards

When in doubt about whether your article is a good fit or whether your writing style works, check out these articles at Wikipedia. Wikipedia does a great job of incorporating community knowledge without bringing in advertisements or subjective language. We can only dream of being this good, but it helps to have a dream:

• Article Development
• Writing Better Articles

Ready to Start Writing?

You've done enough reading - now it's time to bust out the text editor. The easiest way to write articles is to do them in a text editor, using the formatting commands in Help:Editing.

Save the file frequently on your local machine, and that way you won't run into trouble if your internet connection goes down or if, heaven forbid, SQLServerPedia.com is offline.

When it's finished, email it to the section editor or just add it online, and the two of you can work together to edit it to get it ready.

At SQLServerPedia, our goal isn't to simply deny articles. No article is ever done, even when it's published - it's always a work in progress. The editors will work with you to format, modify, or improve your article until it's ready for distribution, and then we'll publish it.