Help:Page Editing

Part of the refactoring of Help:Editing; main page is User:Lord Farin/Sandbox/Help:Editing

This page intends to describe the general structure the various sections most used on ProofWiki are to adhere to. While this naturally intersects with house style at some points, an attempt is made to separate the global editing instructions and section-specific instructions.

This page provides the general outline on creating pages and instructions for specific sections; for the rest, see Help:House Style (Currently User:Lord_Farin/Sandbox/Help:House Style). Furthermore, this page does not dwell on details pertaining to the MediaWiki architecture; the reference for such things is Help:Wiki Editing (Currently User:Lord_Farin/Sandbox/Help:Wiki Editing).

Creating a Page
In general, pay attention to the fact that page names are case sensitive.

Pages can be created in several different ways. Before creating a page, please put some effort in ensuring that the anticipated content is not already up somewhere else on ProofWiki. This does also apply when following a red link; after all, the page in question may simply have a (slightly) different name.

By Searching
First, search for the page name which you would like to create. If this page has not already been created then you will see something that looks like this: There is no page titled "Proof Name". You can create this page. Clicking on create this page will open the page editing window.

Direct URL
If you know for sure that the proof is not on the site, then simply type that name into the URL. For example, if you wanted to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, you would type:

http://www.proofwiki.org/wiki/Riemann Hypothesis

If this page does not exist then, you will get a single line saying:

There is currently no text in this page, you can search for this page title in other pages or edit this page.

Clicking edit this page will open the editing page where you can edit the page.

Page Naming
For all types of pages, major words in the title of the page should be capitalized. For example: Subring Generated by Unity of Ring with Unity. It is also generally better not to start a page name with "A" or "The", as this makes it significantly harder to find pages alphabetically in their categories. For example: Pythagorean Theorem, not The Pythagorean Theorem.

So as to promote consistency, be informed that in particular, the words 'iff', 'implies', and 'under' are not considered to be "major", and so are ought to be used in their lowercase form when naming a page.

Naming Proofs
It is not necessary to begin the name with "Proof of ...", and this should be avoided. Since ProofWiki is a collection of proofs, it is assumed that each page is going to be a proof of something. This also makes searching for articles much easier.

If the name of a page contains mathematical statements, the following formatting practices should be adhered to:

Eg: (1+2)x3. Eg: 1 = 3/3 != 3/4.
 * Put no spaces between numbers/elements that are added, subtracted, divided, or multiplied together.
 * Do, however, put spaces between elements that are put into equality or inequality with one another, and please use != to signify inequality.

Naming Other Pages
When you would like to create a page for a definition, all you have to do different from naming a proof is to add  in front of the name. So for example if you wanted to create a page for the definition of calculus you would name the page: Definition:Calculus

Also, after you create the page, be sure to add the definition to the appropriate "Definitions" categories (see Category:Definitions).

The same method that is used for Definitions is also used to name and categorize axiom and symbols pages. Simply substitute  or   for   in the page name and, mutatis mutandis, in the category name.

Disallowed Characters
The following characters should not be used in page names:
 * 1) < > [ ] | { } * & $ @

Writing Pages
Of course the most important part is to fill pages with actual content. On all pages (except for talk and user pages), the House Style applies.

Below, various recurring sections on ProofWiki pages and their particular rules are explained. All of these should have a type 2 heading.

The sections should be placed in the following order (with this exact capitalization):


 * 1) Definition / Theorem
 * 2) Proof
 * 3) Also known as
 * 4) Also defined as
 * 5) Also see
 * 6) Named for
 * 7) Linguistic Note
 * 8) Technical Note
 * 9) Sources

Also see
The "Also see" section is intended to contain references to closely related concepts and/or results. These are entered as a bulleted list:

Also see

 * Check This Out 1
 * Check This Out 2
 * Etc.

It is understood that pages (definitions included) should be referenced in this section without changing capitalization. Thus:


 * Increasing Sequence of Sets

is a correct entry. When referring to a page whose title contains parentheses, such as Definition:Ring (Abstract Algebra), it is left to the editor's discretion whether or not to include the part in parentheses.

In almost all cases, the convenient shorthand  (with the "pipe"   before the closing braces) will yield the desired result.

In addition to the above, when a definition has associated a category, this category is to be referenced as well.

For example, Definition:Set Union refers to Category:Union. This is accomplished by the LinkToCategory template, entered as:

More documentation for this template can be found on its page, Template:LinkToCategory.

Named for
This section is exclusively created by the namedfor template.

It is entered as:

where  actually is the name of the mathematician's subcategory of Category:Named Theorems - multiple notable mathematicians with identical surnames exist.

If some page is named for multiple mathematicians (e.g. Cayley-Hamilton Theorem) they should all be listed, via: