So you want to write a wiki article for SQLServerPedia, and you're not sure where to begin. You're not alone: we get this question a lot!

The easiest way to get started as an author is to take something you've already written and tweak it for the wiki audience. In this article, we'll cover how to do it.

Start by Copying and Pasting

That's right: you're going to start by committing the cardinal sin for authors: copying and pasting. Go to the Wiki_Article_Template, and click Edit at the top of the page. Copy that text and use that as the skeleton to start with. (Don't edit that actual page - just copy the contents, and close your browser window.)

The template includes basic information about headers, how to add code, how to add images, and how to do a Related Reading section at the bottom of the article.

Paste it into Notepad or your favorite text editor. On Windows, we recommend the free Notepad++ for beginners. Save your article locally with a .html extension so that you get the nice color-coding. Do your editing locally in your text editor, and then when you're ready you can paste it into SQLServerPedia. More on that shortly.

Then copy your blog post into this file, and start working it into the template.

Never copy someone else's content.

If we catch you copying content (and that includes images) we will ban you from the wiki, and we will name your name in public to point out what you did. We are not playing around.

Never copy your own work that you got paid for.

If you were paid to write a tip or an article somewhere, then the company that paid you probably owns the rights to that content. You can't copy that content, even though you wrote it, unless you get written permission from that company.

Linking To Other People's Work

If you've found a great resource that you want to pass on to other blog readers, that's great: link to it in the Related Reading part of the template. We heartily encourage linking to anything that relates to your article, anywhere on the internet - you can link to articles at SQLServerCentral, MSSQLTips, wherever there's useful information about the topic. We do request that you keep the links confined to the Related Reading section at the bottom of the article.

When you're adapting your own blog entry into a wiki article, your original blog entry should be one of the Related Reading links. If you've written tips or articles on other web sites on this same topic, feel free to point to those too.

If your original blog post includes images, then follow the instructions in the template on how to include images in your post. Don't try to link to images on your own web site or someone else's. This can lead to bandwidth problems on your site, and it can lead to problems on SQLServerPedia if your images aren't accessible for some reason.

Now, let's talk about ways we might need to clean up the content.

Don't Be Afraid of Skeletons

When a wiki article first gets started, it's often a barebones collection of random facts. That's completely okay - it's called an article skeleton. We have to get started somewhere. Wikipedia's Editing Policy sums this up well:

"During this process, the article might look like a first draft—or worse, a random collection of notes and factoids. Rather than being horrified by this ugliness, we should rejoice in its potential, and have faith that the editing process will turn it into brilliant prose."

Don't be afraid to start with a small blog entry that doesn't cover too much of the topic, and just put in headers where more content should be added by other readers and contributors.

As of this writing, the article on Upgrading from SQL Server 2005 to 2008 is a good example of a skeleton. It's got maybe a hundred words, but it has several headers that lay out how the article can be expanded. If someone wanted to go in and add more reasons or issues, they can easily see how to add them in. This is a skeleton: the bones are in place, but there's not much meat yet. That's completely okay.

The I's Don't Have It

When bloggers write blog posts, we tend to say "I" and "me" a lot. This is what I think, this is how I've done it in the past, this is what works for me. In wiki articles, we want to avoid "I" and "me" because there's no single author in the wiki. Two days after you publish it, someone else can come in and expand your article. They might disagree with something you've said, and then the article looks like it's got split personalities. Say we've got an article on backups, and it's been modified by a couple of people:

I think maintenance plans are the best way to back up my databases. I think that last sentence was written by a moron, and I only use T-SQL scripts to back up my databases.

To aoid that problem, scan through your article and replace "I" and "me" with neutral language like "database administrators. This:

I think maintenance plans are the best way to back up my databases, and I'll explain why.

Becomes this:

Some database administrators find that maintenance plans are the best way to back up databases, and this article will explain why.

If you wrote a blog post that's chock full of "I", and you're frustrated at the thought of cleaning it up, then go ahead and post it. One of our anal retentive editors will help by cleaning it up for you.

Don't worry about using "you" - that's perfectly okay for our audience. We're not trying to write a flawless technical book here, just get knowledge out to people. Which leads into our next point...

Don't Delete Your Sense of Humor

The wiki is not a technical book. We do have Editors, but they don't sit around dissecting your work to make it as bland as possible. We want the wiki to be a fun, enjoyable community reference. There's enough boring stuff out there on the web.

Having said that, avoid curse words. Let's not go overboard here. (Anal retentive is not a curse word. (We think.))

Lastly: Read The Manual and Ask for Help

We've got a lot of content about How to Contribute at SQLServerPedia, including articles about how to contribute, edit and review articles. Spent a few minutes surfing through those and they'll answer a lot of questions.

If you've still got questions, email us at ask@sqlserverpedia.com and we'll get back to you within a day. If you need answers faster, send a message to SQLServerPedia on Twitter.