User:Brian McNeil/Definitive article template

Introduction

Whenever you start or work on a story for wikinews, the final resting place of articles that survive the editorial process is in the archive. Having racked up in excess of 3000 pages protected, I now offer my attempt to define the template that all articles should largely hold to.

The lead in

The first thing for every article is the date or dateline template, {{date|Month day, year}} is preferred unless onsite Original reporting, it is assumed you've been around a bit and know what you're doing with {{dateline}}.

Next bit is optional, and that's use of one of our many infoboxes. If you're using one it goes on a line of its own after the {{date}} template and before any pictures, article text, or things like the {{breaking}} template. No blank lines between it and the date template, and the article text starts immediately after with no blank lines either.

The body

How you arrange the body of the article is pretty open, but when using pictures and templates such as {{QuoteLeft}} put these in instead of blank lines between paragraphs.

If you do a short 2-3 paragraph article, remember the {{expand}} template to invite other users to contribute, that should be placed immediately before the sources or related news section.

Closing

There are three possible 2nd level heading sections that can be added at the end of an article. First, == Related news ==. If there are any other wikinews stories on the event this is the section they go in using the {{wikinews}} template.

Next up is == Sources ==. Always plural, with {{Original}} instead of a blank line between the heading and the start of the listed sources where appropriate. Sources must be listed with the *{{source}} template, please format with each parameter on a single line to make the wikicode easier to read. No blank lines between sources, this keeps it as a single list of sources in the HTML as opposed to a set of single item lists.

Lastly, == External links ==. Again, always plural. Use *[link Description], no blanks between items, for the same reason as with == Sources ==. Try to avoid volatile links.

And, at the very end, comes the {{publish}} tag, categories and interwiki. The tag should have a blank line between it and the last item in any preceding section all appropriate categories listed on their own lines immediately following it, a blank line, then all interwiki links on lines of their own. If you're really new or English isn't your first language, use the {{ready}} template, but ask for copyedit help on the collaboration (i.e. talk) page.

Example

 {{date|January 1, 2007}}

 First paragraph of article....

 Second paragraph of article

 Etc.

 == Related news ==

 *{{wikinews|title=Blah|date=x}}

 == Sources ==

 *{{source|url=xxx
 |title=xxx
 |author=
 |pub=xxx
 |date=xxx}}

 == External links ==

 *[url description]

 {{publish}}
 [[Category:xxxx]]
 [[Category:yyyy]]

 [[fr:Interwiki to French version of story]]