Help:Copying from Wikipedia

From Engineering

[edit] Introduction

Copying from Wikipedia to this wiki is permissible because both use the same license. However, it is necessary to include the proper acknowledgment so that readers can refer to the original and discover its authors.

Whenever you do such copying from a page in the English-language ("en") version of Wikipedia, please add the following template near the bottom of the page: "enWP|" (inside double curly braces, i.e. {{enWP|}}). Then before the final brackets paste the name of the Wikipedia article. You need to add similar attribution for other languages of Wikipedia and for other GFDL projects.

Note that Wikia sites are not intended to duplicate substantial portions of Wikipedia. You may copy all or part of an article (and its links and templates) to start off a page on the subject, but you are expected to adapt it so as to reflect this particular wiki's slant on the subject. (See also Engineering:Wikipedia}.

[edit] How to copy it

1. Open the edit box of the Wikia page that is to be created or enlarged. Copy the page title (unless you already have the Wikipedia article in another window).
2. In a new window, go to Wikipedia and find the article (pasting the Wikia article name into the search box). Open the Wikipedia edit box as if you were going to edit the article.
3. Highlight the whole box (eg with [Ctrl] + A), then "copy" (eg [Ctrl] + C).
4. Go back to the Wikia page and paste; preview.
5. Delete interwiki links (usually right at the bottom; form is like "[[fr:Moteur]]") if any.
6. (If the WP article was all your own work, there's no need to do this next thing.) Above the category listings, add the "enWP" template, with the exact name of the Wikipedia page (preferably pasted for accuracy) after the pipe.
7. Preview again and save.

[edit] What happens next

Look for "[[Template: ]]" - that means the page uses a Wikipedia template which does not have a Wikia version. Go and find the WP version (which is probably in a list near the bottom of the page if you still have the WP article edit box open) and copy it too. In that case, the "enWP" acknowledgment could go on the new template's talk page so as not to upset the working of the template, though it can go on the same page as the template if enclosed in the tags .

Go through the article, removing anything you are sure will not interest readers of your Wikia. If in doubt, leave in.

Check the categories; usually the Wikipedia categories will be useful on your Wikia (probably already existing) but you can add others and delete some if you see a compelling reason. If in doubt, leave in.

Look at each internal link. They point to WP pages in the original but to existing or potential pages in this Wikia.

1. Plan to create new articles from the links that deserve articles.
2. Delete the square brackets of any link where you are quite sure no user of your Wikia would want to follow that link either to a Wikia page or to the original Wikipedia page. Examples would include terms any engineering student would know plenty about.
3. Direct the other links to the original Wikipedia targets, by adding "wikipedia:" straight after the opening pair of brackets. If there's a pipe in the link, that's all you need to do; but if there isn't you can add one just before the closing brackets, so that the link will appear just as the word or phrase flowing naturally in the text without "wikipedia:" in front.