Help:First steps

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Editing the NBDb is easy but might require some getting used to, even if you have already edited wiki in the past. This page will guide you through the first steps in the NBDb in the simplest way possible.

Items, properties and statements

The NBDb presents its information in a structured and concise way instead of the traditional long-form prose that you can find in other resources Nonbinary Wiki. There are two types of page:

  • Items are concepts related to nonbinary people, identities, pronouns and more. They are the pages you look up in the search bar. Their page titles are a unique numeric identifier that starts with the letter Q, inside the Item: namespace. Example: Item:Q1 is the item about the they/them pronoun set.
  • Properties describe facts about items. Their page titles are also a unique numeric identifier, but it starts with the letter P (inside the Property: namespace). Example: Grammatical number can be used to specify what's the grammatical number of a specific pronoun set.

Item pages have two parts:

  • Terms: they appear at the top of every page and always have the same kind of data: language, label, description, and alias ("also known as").
  • Statements: they are located under the terms box, in a dedicated Statements section, and contain property-value pairs that describe the item in detail. For example, they/them has a statement with the property Language and the value English (because it's a pronoun used in the English language).

Now that we know that, let's learn how to actually create your first item!

Creating an item

1. Check for duplicates

It's very important that you check if the item already exists. To do so, just type the word or name of the item you want to create in the search box. If there are no results, go to the next step! If there are results, go to the item page and check if there is missing information; if so, skip to step #3 to learn how to add more data to an item.

2. Define the item

Go to the page Special:NewItem (or click the blue button in the main page of the NBDb). This page has a form with fields that define the terms of the item. let's take a look at them:

  • Language: This is the language in which you are writing the terms, not the language of the actual word. If you are writing in English, leave it with the default value (this will be the case for most people).
  • Label: That's the name of the item. For a person, enter their name; for an identity, the most common spelling of the word; for a pronoun set, the subject and object forms (e.g. they/them, not they/them/theirs).
  • Description: Short explanation of the item. Keep it as short and straightforward as possible!
  • Aliases: If the item can be called in multiple ways, add the alternatives here, separating it with pipes (e.g. nonbinary|non-binary|non binary|enby). If you are creating an item for a pronoun set, use this field to specify at least the subject form alone, but the rest of them as well if possible (e.g. they|them|their|theirs|themself|themselves).

All text fields are optional, but you need to fill at least one of them (it's recommended to at least fill a label).

Once this is done, click the Create button! The item will be created, but now we need to add statements.

3. Add statements

Statements are essential for any item, as they describe it in more detail and are easily understandable by a program. To add a statement to an item, click the + add statement link under the Statements header (or at the bottom of all statements if the item already has some). A new box will appear; follow these steps to add the statement!

  1. Add a property: use the left text box to select a property. Just start typing the name of the property and choose from the drop-down!
  2. Add a value: add the value for the property you selected. Some properties only accept other items as values; if that's the case, you will see a drop-down when you start typing. If this happens, just choose the option from the drop-down.
  3. Add a reference (optional): you can specify where did you get that data from. To do so, use the + add reference button.
  4. Save!

Sometimes a single property needs multiple values. In this case, just click the edit button after saving the statement and then click the + add value link.

How do I know which properties to add?

it's pretty easy! Just go to an item that is similar in topic to the one you are creating. If you are creating a pronoun set, take a look at they/them; for a gender identity, to nonbinary; and so on. All items should have a base property called instance of that defines what are you defining in that page (pronoun, gender identity, person, etc.). Other than that, the statements you add will change according to the item topic.

4. Celebrate!

That's about all you need to know to get started! If you think you can't remember all this information, then just remember this: be bold. Don't be afraid of errors! We've all been in your shoes, trying to figure out how something works. Don't be afraid of messing something up; old revisions of all pages are stored and easily accessible, so we can always un-mess it! :)

If you need help, feel free to join our Discord server and ask in the #wikitalk channel: https://discord.gg/3mEyU8s