Cities Wikia:How to add a city

This project page shows you how to add a city in Cities Wikia.

Is it already listed?
Before you start, please check the list to see if the city you're interested in already has pages here or even its own wikia. If it hasn't already been started, give it a shot. This page explains how. The rest of us will help you with formatting and other wiki stuff, if you'll contribute some content.

Add to the main list
Add your city (or town or village) to the list, e.g. . If it's the only one in the world with that name (e.g. Porirua) or the one nearly everybody thinks of (e.g. Tokyo), it needs nothing but the name in the brackets; but if there are two or more and therefore possible ambiguity, add a commonly used locator (e.g. San Jose, Costa Rica). Since many cities share the same name, we may one day need to create some naming conventions to clarify. If in doubt, use the Wikipedia page name.

Preview the page to make sure there are no spelling typos and other problems, and save.

Create main page content
Next, clicking on the link you have just created will create a main page for the city as soon as you give it some content or a category. So the first thing you can do is to add the template and the Cities category and   to that article. But don't forget to write an introductory sentence at the top if you have one already prepared.

Preview; save; and your page is created and can be found by anyone searching for the name or browsing the list or appropriate categories.

You can then save time and get some ideas by pasting in the ready-made Template:Outline/City (from its "Edit" box).

City's own category
The city's "own" category page itself should look a bit like the following:

Category:City

Pages about City are listed below.

Copy and paste everything in the above box, from "Pages..." down to "...region]]", and replace the city, country, and continent or region with the appropriate place names. The template will be replaced with instructions about how to add a page to this category.

A filled-in example would be:

Category:Metropolis

Metropolis is most famous for its well-known residents (notably Superman). Pages about Metropolis are listed below.

See Category:Porirua for a good example.

More content?
Now you can sit back and plan the rest of the main page. When it has grown appreciably, someone can remove that "stub" template.

Please add original content when possible. Do you have digital pictures that you are willing to share under a free license? Can you tell us about a place from your personal experience? We would rather contribute by adding new material and information than to be a mirror of other sites.

It is fine to add information you gather by researching other sources (books, Web sites, etc.). Please give appropriate credit when you do.

While it is legitimate, and can save heaps of time, to copy what Wikipedia says about your city (which can then be expanded), it may be better to add it as an external link. See Template talk:EnWP for what we need to do to acknowledge such use when we do copy pages or paragraphs. Note other good web resources as external links too.

Create links to related pages
We use the name of the city to preface other pages about the city, so we can tell the difference between one city's museums (etc.) page and another's.

The MediaWiki style is to use "Sentence case" for headings and page names, i.e. no capital letters except at the very beginning and for proper nouns.

Suggestions for additional categories or subsidiary page contents
Think of things that are special or unique to the city or town. See the list of categories, thought starters, or the attractions category for other ideas.

Promote
Tell your friends, relatives, neighbors and the local newspaper about the page and how easy it is to add content, and how satisfyingly creative!

Invite local organizations to use the "Current events" page for free publicity about their planned activities that could interest the public. After they do (or you do some of it for them, using their flyers or their notices in other media), create a link out of their group name and start a separate page then take the next step below.

Target specific local groups with direct links to relevant subsidiary pages, which they can make "their own".