Guidelines

1.0 Getting Started

Handylore covers all kinds of subjects. We do not necessarily focus on one particular category or types of articles. So before creating a new article, do a search for the topic. You may find an article related to your topic that already exists.

Articles will only be accepted if the content is factual and non-biased, and can be verified by a respectable source. In other words your article cannot be opinionated presented in a negative way. Please also keep in mind your users can only create a new article once they have registered an account. Once you've registered and verified your account with us you can login and begin creating new articles.

To better improve an article cite references source(s) of the information you will include within your article to demonstrate the notability of your article's subject matter. References to blogs, personal websites, Facebook and Twitter are unsuitable. We need reliable sources. There are many places to find them, including your local library, but if internet-based sources are to be used, start with books and news archive searches rather than a web search. Extra care should be taken to make sure that articles on living persons have reliable sources – articles about living people without reliable sources may be deleted, especially if they include negative or controversial content. Articles that do not meet these guidelines and do not cite reliable published sources are likely to be deleted.

You can view and edit your article from your profile page. As a registered user, you have your own profile. You can start the new article at anytime, on any subject. Take your time, ask others for help, don't be shy. Your efforts are what help makes handylore. If you ever need to update or re-submit your article you can, as detailed on your profile page upon the creation of a new article.

Do not create pages about yourself, your company, your band or your friends, nor pages that advertise, are personal essays or other articles you would not find in an dictionary or encyclopedia. Also be careful about copying things, controversial material, extremely short and long articles, and local-interest articles.

1.1 Content

Avoid esoteric or legal terms and dumbed-down language. Be clear, be plain, direct, unambiguous, and specific. Avoid platitudes and generalizations. Do not be afraid to cite an outside source when needed. Be as concise as possible. Omit needless words. Direct, concise writing may be more clear than rambling examples. Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Clearly identify the purpose and scope early in the page. Content should be within the scope of its policy. When the scope of one advice page overlaps with the scope of another, minimize redundancy. When one policy refers to another policy, it should do so briefly, clearly and explicitly.

Pay attention to spelling. Articles with good spelling and proper grammar will be easier for our editors to read and comprehend and ensure your article be submitted. This will also encourage further contributions of good content. Try your hardest and do your best when submitting and re-submitting your articles. Sloppiness in one's work may also be transpired into others as well.

Avoid overlinking. Links to policies, guidelines, essays, and articles should be used only when clarification or context is needed. Links to other helpful pages may intentionally defer authority to them. Make it clear when links defer, and when they do not.

1.2 What to avoid

Here are some tips on what to be careful to watch out for and things you should avoid. For instance, media generally published after 1923, and almost everything written since January 1, 1978 are automatically under copyright even if they have no copyright notice or © symbol. Never copy and paste text into unless it is a relatively short quotation, placed in quotation marks, and cited properly. That is why it is important to research with the best sources available and reference them properly. Say where you got it, (e.g. "It was published in 1894..."). Doing this, along with not copying text, will help avoid violating copyrights and the possibility of plagiarism.

Avoid writing articles about yourself, your own theories, opinions, insights, friends, your website, a band you're in, your teacher, a word you made up, or a story you wrote, even if you can support them by reference to accepted work. Please do not try to promote your business, company, group by advertising external links, images or anything relative to your commercial or private website. if you are writing about a product or business be sure you write from a neutral point of view, that you have no conflict of interest, and that you are able to find references in reliable sources that are independent from the subject you are writing about.

Please do not write articles that advocate one particular viewpoint on politics, religion, or any other controversial material. Unsourced negative information on a person or organization material that violates biographies of living persons policy or is intended to threaten, defame, or harass its subject or another entity will be deleted immediately. Below is a list of what to avoid when creating an article:

Sometimes there is already an article under your chosen title, but on a different topic. In this case, the titles must be distinguished from one another. There are many ways to avoid creating redundant articles. Before creating a new article, run a search for the topic—you may find a related one that already exists. then only create disambiguous pages for existing article clashes, not for prospective articles.

People frequently add pages to Handylore without considering whether the topic is really notable enough. Articles like this are likely to be removed. In this process, feelings may be hurt and you may be blocked from editing if you repeatedly make attempts to re-create the article. These things can be avoided by a little forethought on your part. The article may remain if you have enough humility to make it neutral and you really are notable.

1.3 References

Gather references for the information you will be writing about. For your article to be published, the subject matter must be verifiable through citations from reliable sources. References to books published by vanity presses, blogs, personal websites, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other similar venues are unusable. There are many places to find reliable sources, including your local library, newspapers, magazines, reputable websites and other internet-based news source's.

Figuring out which style to use when referencing may seem like a daunting task, if your using the proper style format. Do not worry though because, Handylore has no preferred way to cite sources. whether you are using the MLA, APA, Harvard, Chicago style or any other style for referencing your sources. If you cannot decide There is several APA examples below on how to reference books, magazines, websites, newspapers, and more.

Books

List author names as they are written in the original article/book. The author's last name and first name, include only the year of copyright, if no date of publication is listed, put "n.d." in the parenthesis. Give the full title of the book, including the subtitle if one is given. Numbered editions, use the abbreviation for the number that applies (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). For a revised edition, use the abbreviations "Rev. ed." and give as much of the publisher's name as necessary to render it comprehensible.

Magazine & Newspapers

APA has different rules for formatting magazines, newsletters, and newspapers than are used with scholarly journals. According to the APA publication manual, dates for magazines, newsletters, and newspapers should include “the year and the exact date of the publication” which means either the month or the month and day. So, this would mean that the month is provided for monthly periodicals and the month and day for weeklies. So, (2000, November) would be provided for Newsweek.

Journal articles

When referencing Include a Journal article include the DOI or Digital Object Identifier if available. See APA manual (6th ed.), pp. 187-192, 199 #3. When you do not have a DOI assigned and the reference is retrieved online, give the URL of the exact URL if available. If not, use the journal home page. No retrieval date is included. If the journal article was not retrieved online, end the citation with the period after the page numbers.

Press releases

Use press releases when the article has been accepted for publication but not yet published, or the word "in" should not be capitalized. Once the article has been accepted, use the name of the journal. Note that the article title is no longer italicized. If the publisher provides access to the journal, include the URL or DOI number.

Webpages & Websites

Separate each item of the citation with a period and two spaces. Use hanging indents following the first line and List entries alphabetically by author. If the author is not known, omit the author altogether, or substitute something vague like "Open Source Initiative Contributor". The date in parenthesis is the date of publication for the webpage, and should be omitted if it is not known. The title of the webpage is listed in quotation marks, and is hyperlinked to a URL from which the page can be retrieved.

2.0 Markup Format

Here you will find everything you need to know about using the correct syntax to better format your article, insert and list references, create links, and more. Handylore makes it really easy to create references and insert links into your article. We employ the use of just two easy to use tags which will allows you to link to a particular reference, and create external hyperlinks for your references.

The <ref> tag is for displaying which reference you are wanting to refer to in your article. And the <link> tag which is used in the reference section to create external hyperlinks to other websites, and data. When you want to link to your references use the <ref> tag. You can create up to 20 references.

You can use simple HTML tags like break returns, bolded text, by using their standard HTML tags. For instance:

2.1 Special characters

Here is a list of special characters that can be used throughout your article creation process. These were not implemented by Handylore but, are ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) html coding standards intended for public use.

Commercial

Diacritical

Greek

Mathematical

Punctuation

2.2 Creating A Reference

To create a reference, use the <ref>tag with the pound sign # and the number you are wanting to use for that particular reference. Below are all of the <ref> tag parameters you can use.

Reference Links

Creating external links for your references is easy. Just use the <link> inside an already existing <ref> tag. Below are all of the <link> tag parameters you can use.

This is much easier than creating multiple ways to insert hyperlinks, below you will notice many variations on you can use the <link> tag.

Using media icons

You can also employ the use of differnet media icons within your reference, either as part of the exisitng reference link, or by creating a new one of it's own. Simply use <media> tag and specify which kind of media icon you're wanting to insert.

*Note: There is no closing tag for the <media> tag.

2.3 Linking to you references

Now that you've figured out how to create references, linking back to them is easy. Just use the same <ref#> tag within your article's context to specify which reference you are wanting to cite. For instance:

3.0 What's Next

That's all you have to do, the ref tag will automatically link to your corresponding reference. You can apply the ref tag anywhere throughout your article's body and cite up to 20 sources.

Now that you have an general idea of what an article may ential, you may want to go back and check the facts of your sources being cited. Remember that this is an important part of creating good verifibale references. Even if you think you know something, you have to provide references anyway to prove to the reader that the fact is true.

If you have already submitted your article, please be patient, it takes time for our editors to read everyones work. We will kept your article on file for 90 and keep you posted on the status of your submission. You will know if your article has been accepted for posting, if it needs work or if the content is inaprporatie for Handylore's Audienence.

If the topic of your article has already submitted remember your article may still be submitted with your approval. Disambiguas articles do happen, if however this is the case with your article you are encouraged to make improvments. Consider other meanings of the word(s) in the title to describe your article. In some cases a similar category may exist where your article can be applied, if there is already a similar article in the cateogry you've first chosen. Ultimatly you will be notified of any changes, updates, and the submission stauts of your article.

3.1 The Final Step

An article is usually never completed the moment it has been submitted. There is still a long way to go. It may take you several edits just to get it started. This might be later today, tomorrow, or several months from now, that you've decided to update your article. Rest assured all of your works can be accessed by you at any time from your profile page. Any time you are ready to work on them and makes changes go ahead. Keep making improvements, Improve formatting, avoid conflicting with other article titles and creating ambiguous titles. Remember there is no deadline to when your article has to be submitted.