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Help:Contents

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This page provides assistance with the most common questions about Wikipedia.

To start, click on what you need assistance with below, or search all the help pages using the search box to the right. Or browse the Help menu or the Help directory.

Read or find an article

The Readers' FAQ and our about page contain the most commonly sought information about Wikipedia.

For simple searches, there is a search box at the top of every page. Type what you are looking for in the box. Partial matches will appear in a dropdown list. Select any page in the list to go to that page. Or, select the magnifying glass "Go" button, or press ↵ Enter, to go to a full search result. For advanced searches, see Help:Searching.

There are other ways to browse and explore Wikipedia articles; many can be found at Portal:Contents. Also see our disclaimer for cautions about Wikipedia's limitations.

Edit an article

Contributing is easy: see how to edit a page. For a quick summary on participating, see contributing to Wikipedia. For a listing of introductions and tutorials by topic, see getting started. Or play the Wikipedia Adventure to learn to edit in an hour. The Cheatsheet can remind you of basic wiki markup.

Be bold in improving articles! When adding facts, please provide references so others may verify them. If you are affiliated with the article subject, please see our conflict of interest guideline.

If you're looking for places you can help out, the community portal is the place to go. You can practice editing and experiment in a sandbox.

Report a problem with an article

If there is a problem with an article about yourself, a family member, a friend or a colleague, please read Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Help and, if necessary, add a discussion to the biographies of living persons noticeboard.

If you spot a problem with an article, you can fix it directly, by clicking on the "Edit" link at the beginning of that page. See the "edit an article" section of this page for more information.

If you don't feel ready to fix the article yourself, please post a message on the article's talk page. This will bring the matter to the attention of others who work on that article. There is a "Talk" link at the beginning of every article page.

Alternatively you can contact us. If it's an article about you or your organization, see Contact us – Subjects.

Create a new article or upload media

Check Your first article to see if your topic is appropriate, then the Article wizard will walk you through creating the article.

Once you have created an article, see Writing better articles for guidance on how to improve it and what to include (like reference citations).

For contributing images, audio or video files, see the Introduction to uploading images. Then the Upload wizard will guide you through that process.

Factual questions

If searching Wikipedia has not answered your question (for example, questions like "Which country has the world's largest fishing fleet?"), try the Reference Desk. Volunteers there will attempt to answer your questions on any topic, or point you towards the information you need.

Stuck?

For your convenience, answers have been recorded for the most frequently asked questions.

You can find also where to ask questions or make comments.

You can ask questions about using Wikipedia at the Help desk or at the Teahouse. Volunteers will respond as soon as possible.

Or ask for help on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you there!

You can get live help with editing in the help chatroom.

For help with technical issues, ask at Village pump (technical)

Directories

  • Directory: main list of directories and indexes.

Help related

  • Help directory: for informative, instructional and consultation pages.
  • Request directory: for services and assistance that can be requested on Wikipedia.
  • Tips library: where you can digest how to use Wikipedia in bite-sized morsels.
  • Editor's index: for everything an editor needs to know to work on Wikipedia.

Protocols and conventions

Community related

Terms

  • Glossary: for Wikipedia jargon, with definitions.
  • Abbreviations: for various pages, processes, policies, and proposals.

Help by topic

Tip of the day

Keep track of your questions

Wikipedia has many places to ask questions, such as the:

Sometimes, a user will post a question and forget all about it. It is easy to forget about these unless you keep a record of the questions you posted to refer back to later. One useful method for doing this is to set aside a section of your User page or Talk page, to keep a list of links to your queries. In this list, you can place section links which lead directly to the subheadings (AKA sections) under which you posted your queries.

Read more:
Become a Wikipedia tipster – Tips library, by subject
To add this auto-updating daily tip to your user page, use {{totd}}

Additional searches

The blue bars that follow are navigation boxes linking many help pages and useful policies and guidelines. Click "show" on the right to expand them.
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