User talk:IainDW
Welcome IainDW!
I'm Yngvadottir, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge.
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Hi IainDW! Oshwah has health issues right now and isn't on Wikipedia as much as usual, so I thought I'd respond to your question.
There's some information above about writing an article in the welcome template above. Note that pages in the encyclopedia are not owned by their creators; anyone can come along and improve them; and that the topic must meet a certain standard of notability (basically, having been extensively written about elsewhere) and the article must have references to demonstrate this and to allow the reader to verify the information and to read more on the topic if they wish. This page is a good summary of the requirements, with links to explanations; the notability requirements for people are here (with links to special rules for people in particular professions, like performers and academics). There are a lot of rules and conventions, so it's a good idea to edit other articles for a while first—fixing typos, adding references, updating ... before writing your own. In any case, until you've been here for a few days and also made a certain number of edits, the software won't let you create a new page; if you do go ahead and start with a new article, start it in your sandbox (User:IainDW/sandbox), or as a draft (Draft:ARTICLE TITLE) and there is a process called Articles for Creation where you submit it when you're ready and experienced Wikipedians either accept it or tell you what needs to be improved first. There's a page about writing your first article here. ... Finally, since you mention wanting to write about members of your family, have a look at our page on conflict of interest. Since articles must be neutral and based on references not personal knowledge, you will have to be very careful if you write about people or subjects you have a connection to.
I know that's a lot, but I hope it's helpful. Welcome aboard! Yngvadottir (talk) 18:43, 27 May 2025 (UTC)