Help:How to Create an Un-Portal Page

This article explains how to create a new Un-Portal Page, and how to migrate content from an existing portal page into a new Un-Portal Page. Please follow all of the instructions very carefully to avoid any broken links.

Whether you are creating a new Un-Portal Page from scratch, or creating an Un-Portal in which to migrate content from an existing Portal page, the process is the same. The first few steps are the same as creating any new page.

1. Choose a name for the Un-Portal Page. First learn about naming conventions, and then follow the instructions for creating a new page:


 * Log in to the FamilySearch Research Wiki
 * In the search box, type the title of the article you want to create. Make sure you type the title in exactly as you want it to appear, including capital letters, spelling, and punctuation.
 * After typing the new title into the search box, click on "Search."
 * After clicking "Search," a list of search results will appear.
 * In the search results page, determine if the article you want to write already exists. If a similar article already exists, consider editing or adding to that article rather than creating a new article.
 * If "No page title matches" were found, or if there are no close matches covering the topic, then locate the title you searched for shown in red text at the top of the page.
 * Click on the red text title. This will open the edit window.

2. Now that you have created a new page, save that page by typing any text in the editing window, and clicking, "Save page." Just type a few characters to save the new page.

3. Copy the text shown in the box below. You will now paste this text into the page you created above. Go to the newly created page, and click "Edit" so that you are in the editing window. The easiest way to paste into the Wiki is in Wikitext mode. With the editing window open, click the word "Wikitext" on the editing toolbar. You may now paste the copied text into the editing window. Click "Save" to save your changes. (If you don't have the editor turned on, just paste directly into the editing window.)

{| width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="5" class="FCK__ShowTableBorders" (Add introductory text and/or an image here)
 * valign="top" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;" |
 * valign="top" style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;" |

Getting started with (Your Locality) research
(Your text or images here.)

(Jurisdictions in this locality, ie, "States," "Counties," etc.)
(Your text or images here)

Research Tools
(Your text or images here)
 * (helpful tools and resources, gazetteers)
 * (language dictionary, handwriting guide or tutorial, etc.)

Help Wanted (or other title)
(For example, help wanted list of activities for your users)

(Additional Heading)
(Your text or images here)

(Additional Heading)
(Your text or images here, or use the table below:)

(All text below this is included in a column on the left side of the screen.)

Or as an alternative to the above, use the following wikicode to create the article layout.


 * NOTE: Where needed variations of the sidebar template will be created to be used in the first line of the code. eg. replace sidebar with US-sidebar if the article to be created is for a locality in the United States.

(Description/Introduction to Locality)

Getting started with (Your Locality) research
(Your text or images here.)

(Jurisdictions in this locality, ie, "States," "Counties," etc.)
(Your text or images here)

Research Tools
(Your text or images here)
 * (helpful tools and resources, gazetteers)
 * (language dictionary, handwriting guide or tutorial, etc.)

Help Wanted (or other title)
(For example, help wanted list of activities for your users)

(Additional Heading)
(Your text or images here)

(Additional Heading)
(Your text or images here, or use the table below:)

4. You are now prepared to edit your Un-Portal page. Several headings, tables, and other suggestions appear on the screen. These may be edited and changed as needed.

Copying Content from an old Portal Page into an Un-Portal Page
How do you know the difference between an OLD portal page and an Un-Portal page? It's easy. Look at the title of the page. If the title begins with "" this is located in the Portal namespace. Most Portal pages also consist of several colored boxes containing text. These boxes are sub-pages of the main Portal page. Often, several other pages in the Wiki link to Portal pages AND directly to the sub-pages. When migrating content from any page to a new page, great care must be taken to make sure that migrating content does not create broken links. After copying the content from sub-pages into the Un-Portal, you will need to make sure that all of the links that used to send users to the old Portal page will now send users to the new Un-Portal page.

1. Old Portal pages do not contain any real content, rather it is a home for several sub-pages. Only the sub-pages contain content. Content may be copied from these sub-pages and pasted into sections (or under headings) of the Un-Portal page. The best way to copy the content or information from a sub-page, is to go to the main Portal page, and click on the word "Edit" located in the upper right-hand corner of the individual Portal page box. This will open up the editing window for that box, or subpage. In the editing window, click on the word "Wikitext" on the editing toolbar. You may now select the text you want to copy from the subpage left-clicking anywhere in the edit window, and then, while holding down the Ctrl button on your keyboard, tap the letter "A" on your keyboard. This action will select all of the text in the editing window. You may also select only those portions of the text you want to copy by selecting it with your mouse. After selecting the text you want to copy, hold down the Ctrl button on your keyboard and tap the the letter "C" on your keyboard. The text is now copied.

2. Navigate to the new Un-Portal page. You may easily find it by clicking on "My contributions" located in the Navigation Bar Personal Tools, and then clicking on the name of the Un-Portal page you just created. Once you are on the Un-Portal page, locate the heading under which you want the copied content to be pasted, and click the word "Edit" next to that heading (NOT the word "Edit" in the Navigation Bar). This will open the editing window for that section of the Un-Portal page.

3. With the editing window open, click the word "Wikitext" on the editing toolbar. Highlight the words, "(Your bullets here)" or "(Your text here)" with your mouse. You may now paste the copied text into the editing window by holding down the Ctrl button and tapping the "V" key on the keyboard. Click "Save" to save your changes. (If you don't have the editor turned on, just paste directly into the editing window.)

4. Repeat steps 1-3 until all content has been copied into the Un-Portal page. NOTE: While in Wikitext mode, make sure you paste the copied text in the same location where the phrase "(Your bullets here)" or "(Your text here)" appear. This will make sure the tables and formatting of each box stays the same. If you added the text in the wrong place, and need help fixing it, please contact a Sysop.

Repair Links and Add the Delete Template

 * 1) Find the linking pages While on the Old Portal page, locate and click on the phrase "What links here" located in the Navigation Bar Toolbox. This will contain a list of all of the pages that link directly to the Portal page. If the list is especially long, you may want to copy the list into a Word document, or another text editing tool.
 * 2) Repeat for the subpages The easiest way to do this is to click "Edit" on each of the boxes on the Portal Page. You will not actually edit these pages. After clicking "Edit" the editing window will appear; locate the phrase "What links here" located in the Navigation Bar Toolbox. This will contain a list of all of the pages that link directly to the Portal page. If the list is especially long, you may want to copy the list into a Word document, or another text editing tool.
 * 3) Replace the Portal links with the new link Click on each of the links on the "What links here" page, open the editing window on each of these pages, and locate the link on that page that links back to the Old Portal page or subpage. Change the link to the name of the new Un-Portal page, save the page, and repeat steps 1-3 until all links have been changed to the new Un-Portal page.
 * 4) Mark the portal page for deletion by a sysop. Do this page replacing all the content of the main portal page with, where NewPage is the name of the page where you have moved the content. All the content of subpages of the Portal can be replaced with the  template template. You can add a note to the template with the reason for deletion (Example:
 * 5) *Please remember to put the delete notice in every 'box' as they are each separate pages You can do this at the time you are checking (in edit mode) for pages that link to the 'box' pages.
 * 6) *NOTE: If there is a link to the old Portal Page on the Wiki Main Page, please notify a Sysop, so that they may have a Wiki Administrator redirect this link to the new Un-Portal page.

Update Project Page
Once the portal page has been converted, move it from the not converted category to the converted category on the Portal project page