Help Directory
About Wikipedia
Contributor information
- Contributing to Wikipedia - the main page that provides information, links, videos and other resources on the basics needed to comprehend, comment on, and contribute to Wikipedia.
- Welcome to Wikipedia - portal style page to get you started.
- Why create an account - don't need to be registered to edit, however it does provide additional features.
- Choosing a username - do not choose names which may be offensive, misleading, disruptive, or promotional.
- How to log in - If you are not logged in your edits are labelled in page history with your IP address.
- Your first article - guide to starting your first encyclopedia article.
- Annotated article – is a well-constructed sample article, with annotations.
- Article wizard - will walk you through the process of submitting a new article.
- Frequently Asked Questions - common questions about using and contributing.
- More instructional material - provides links to instructional material useful for users. **Trifecta - ultra fast overview of foundational principles related to policies and guidelines.
- Things you may not know about Wikipedia - insights specifically targeted at people who have limited experience.
- Tip of the day - provides "very useful" advice daily on how to use or develop Wikipedia more effectively.
- See also Wikipedia:Tips, the complete library of tips arranged by subject.
- User page design center - where you will find all the resources for developing your user page. Enjoy!
Frequently asked questions
- FAQ main page - questions about using and contributing.
- Administration - answers some questions related to Administrators.
- Article subjects - what to do about a specific articles.
- Categories - about using Wikipedia's categories.
- Contributing - answers to questions commonly asked by contributors.
- Copyright - four most commonly asked questions about copyright.
- Editing - answers the most common questions about editing.
- Forking - how do I download and use Wikipedia content.
- IRC (live chat) - about "chat rooms" - real-time discussions.
- Organizations - editing without displaying a conflict of interest.
- Problems - solving problems you may encounter when browsing or editing.
- Readers - addresses concerns and questions readers may have.
- Schools - questions teachers, librarians and administrators might have.
- Technical - answers some questions related to the technical workings.
- (Miscellaneous) - questions that do not fit into any of the others above.
Tutorials
Introductions
Wiki Markup
- Main introduction - quick overview of what Wikipedia is all about.
- Exploring - finding your way around Wikipedia.
- Editing - the basic pages on how to contribute to Wikipedia.
- Images - introduction to adding images to Wikipedia.
- Manual of Style - introduction to the style guide for articles.
- Media - how to add media to Wikipedia.
- Navigating - Wikipedia is a big place.
- Policies - how to apply policies and guidelines.
- Sourcing - why references are so important.
- Tables - how an where tables are used and how to make them.
- Talk pages - how to communicate within Wikipedia.
Visual editor
- Editing with VisualEditor - a five part introduction to editing with VisualEditor. Opening the editor. Toolbar basics. Links and Wikilinks. Saving your changes. Summary
- Referencing with VisualEditor - a five part introduction to referencing. Verifiability. Inline citations. RefToolbar. Reliable sources. Summary.
- Uploading images with VisualEditor - a six part guide on uploading images. Introduction. Free content. Non-free content. Wikimedia Commons. Using an image. Summary.
Training modules
Built-in tours
- Help Guided tours - providing tooltip-like tours of the Wikipedia experience.
- Wikipedia GettingStarted - feature, which provides a "getting started" page to newly registered Wikipedians. Immediately after creating an account, users see the page Special:GettingStarted, which invites them to try out editing by improving one of the pages presented.
The Missing Manual
- The Missing Manual - comprehensive how-to guide (book) that explains everything about contributing for novice to expert editors.
- Introduction - originally written in 2008 by John Broughto, the Manual has since been expanded and updated by many others.
Part I - Editing and Creating Articles
- First edit - explains what you see when you look at an article in Wikipedia's editing window and how to practice.
- Sourcing - you will need to learn some technical matters.
- Account setup & personal space - having an account actually protects your privacy better than editing anonymously.
- Creating articles - get a much better sense of what articles in Wikipedia should be like.
- Page history & reverting - as an editor you're likely to want to see what other editors do to articles you've edited.
- Monitoring changes - experienced editors monitor articles they've edited.
- Vandalism & spam - explains in detail what you, a Wikipedia editor, can do in terms of spotting and fixing vandalism and spam.
Part II - Collaborating with Other Editors
- Communicating with others - you will need to know how to use the pages where editors interact and collaborate with each other.
- WikiProjects - many editors at Wikipedia work together in groups, formal or informal.
- Content disputes - if you find yourself involved in a content dispute...
- Incivility - shows you helpful ways to respond to incivility and personal attacks directed against you or other editors.
- Helping others - shows you all the places and ways you can lend other editors a hand.
Part III - Formatting and Illustrating Articles
- Sections - shows you how to effectively use sections in an article.
- Lists & tables - shows you how to create and edit both lists and tables.
- Images - shows you how to place an image in an article, after you or someone else has uploaded it.
Part IV - Building a Stronger Encyclopedia
Part V - Customizing Wikipedia
- Personal preferences - "My Preferences" is where you can change a number of settings that control how pages look and function.
- JavaScript - you can customize Wikipedia in ways that make your editing easier with scripts.
Part VI - Appendices
- Wikipedia Pages - when you're registered, and logged into Wikipedia, you'll see links in a number of places.
- Reader’s guide - background on what Wikipedia is and how to get the most out.
- Learning more - shows you the myriad places you can go, both inside and outside Wikipedia.
How to pages
- Help:help - explains how to find and navigate the help pages.
- Books - explains how to make and download Wikipedia books.
- Categories - explains how to edit categories.
- Copyright - explains how to deal with copyright concerns.
- Diff - explains how to view the difference between two versions of a page
- Editing - explains the basics of editing.
- Find sources - explains how to find references.
- Files - explains how to manage media.
- Footnotes - explains how to add notes and references.
- Nesting footnotes - explains how to include a note or reference within a note or reference.
- Glossary - quick overview of terms.
- Infobox - explains the basics about how to use infoboxes.
- IPA for English - explains how the International Phonetic Alphabet system works.
- List - explains how to add lists.
- Linking - explains how to add internal links.
- Link color - explains how to add color to link text.
- Logging in - explains how to access your account.
- Magic words - explains how words surrounded by brackets or underscores function.
- Media - explains the basics of seeing media.
- Merging - explains how to consolidate articles.
- Mobile access - explains how to access Wikipedia from mobile devices.
- Navigation - explains how to get around Wikipedia.
- Other languages - explains how to deal with other languages.
- Page name - explains how to deal with page titles.
- Redirect - explains how to direct pages to the proper place.
- References - explains how to make those complicated sources work.
- Rename - explains how to change your user name.
- Password - explains how to change your personal password.
- Reverting - explains how to roll back edits.
- Searching - explains how to use Wikipedia more effectively.
- Section - explains how to edit just portions of a page.
- Talk pages - explains the basics of what to do on talk pages.
- Students - explains the basics for students.
- URLs - explains how to add and deal with external links.
- User contributions - explains how to view editors additions.
- Watching pages - explains how to track pages.
Technical help
Special pages
Links and diffs
Media files: images, videos and sounds
* Media help
Other graphics
Customisation and tools
*Customisation
Automating editing
Navigation
Coding (Wiki markup)
- Wiki markup - explains the coding used by text, links, & talk pages
- Barchart - explains how to make charts.
- Calculations - explains how to make complicated calculations.
- Characters - explains how to add special characters.
- Citations quick! - simplistic examples of two preferred ways of doing footnotes (reference).
- Columns - explains how to make columns.
- HTML - explains how use HTML in text.
- Musical symbols - explains the basic coding of music symbols.
- Sound files - explains the basic coding sound files.
- Tables - explains the basic coding for making tables.
- Wiki-table - more advanced coding information on tables.
- Templates - explains the basic for templates.
- Documentation - explains the basic of how to properly document template information.
- Visual files - explains the basic of coding for visual media.
- Wiki tools - various tools and tutorials intended to simplify, make more efficient, or provide additional functionality.
Templates and Lua
Interactive assistance (help forums)
Questions about Wikipedia
Replying to help requests - contains guidelines for users who respond to questions about how to use or edit posed by other users. |
- Help desk - the "main page" for asking questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia.
- Teahouse - a "very friendly place" for new editors to become accustomed to and ask questions about editing.
- Editor help - a "far less busy place" where editors will get comprehensive assistance about on going problems related to editing.
General knowledge questions
- Reference desks - you can ask questions about any topic at the specific pages listed below.
- Computing - to ask about computing, information technology, electronics, software and hardware.
- Entertainment - to ask about sports, popular culture, movies, music, video games, and TV shows.
- Humanities - to ask about history, politics, literature, religion, philosophy, law, finance, economics, art, and society.
- Language - to ask about spelling, grammar, word etymology, language usage, and translations.
- Mathematics - to ask about mathematics, geometry, probability, and statistics.
- Science - to ask about biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, geology, engineering and technology.
- (Miscellaneous) - to ask about anything that is not listed above.
Specific help and mediation
Technical issues
- Village pump - main directory divided into five boards by topic (as seen below), to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia.
- Policy - to discuss changes to existing and proposed policies.
- Proposals - to discuss new proposals that are not policy-related.
- Technical - to discuss technical issues. For wiki software bug reports, use Bugzilla
- Idea lab - to discuss ideas before proposing them to the community and attempt to find solutions to common issues.
- (Miscellaneous) - to post messages that do not fit into any other categories listed above.
Other ways to get help
- Special services - a section on the Request departments page that lists the alternative ways of getting help as seen below.
- Place {{Help me}} (including the curly brackets) "then your question" on your talk page, a volunteer will visit you there!
- If you require personal administrator assistance in regards to blocking, deleting, protecting, personal harassment or legal threats you can place {{Admin help}} (including the curly brackets) "then your concerns" on your talk page, an administrator will visit you there!
- Adopt-a-User – is where you can find experienced Wikipedians that "adopt" new users and mentor them.
- Co-op – a mentorship space where you can work with an experienced Wikipedian to learn about and improve Wikipedia.
- Join the #wikipedia-en-help IRC channel for real-time chat. New to IRC? Read the disclaimer or connect instantly!
- Contact Wikipedia - is a page that describes how and where to contact Wikipedia directly for a variety of reasons.
Community standards and advice
- Policies & guidelines - describes how policies and guidelines should normally be developed and maintained.
- Essays– Although essays are not policy or guidelines many are worthy of considerations.
- Advice pages – guideline about advice pages written by WikiProjects.
- Accessibility - guideline primarily intended to assist those with disabilities, it can be helpful for all readers.
- Article deletion - policy about how articles and other Wikipedia pages can be removed from general view.
- Biographies of living persons (BLP) - guideline about how bios on living persons must be written with great care.
- Libel - policy about how it is the responsibility of all to ensure that material posted is not defamatory.
- Avoiding harm - essay that contains the ideas behind the philosophy that formed the BLP.
- Blocking - policy behind how administrators technically prevent users from editing.
- Child protection - policy about the behavior and actions of adult editors with regards to children.
- Offensive material - guideline about how articles may contain offensive words and images, but only for a good reason.
- Citing sources - guideline that contains information on how to place and format citations (references).
- Verification methods - essay about several common methods that Wikipedia editors use to make their articles verifiable.
- Referencing for beginners - essay that shows you how to use the most popular system for providing inline citations.
- Conflict of interest - guideline about how it is best to not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests.
- Consensus - the primary way decisions are made, its accepted as the best method to achieve our goals.
- Copyrights - policy that states permission is granted to copy, distribute or modify text under CC BY-SA 3.0
- Editing policy - Be bold in updating articles in a fair and accurate manner, because perfection is not required.
- Etiquette - principles of decorum, also referred to as "Wikiquette", how to work with others on Wikipedia.
- Ignore all rules (IAR) - policy that states if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.
- Image use policy - policies towards images, like content and copyright issues—applicable to "English Wikipedia".
- Manual of Style (MOS) - main guideline page that describes communal consensus on layouts and presentation.
- Neutrality (NPOV) - policy about how articles should represent the views of main scholars and specialists on topics.
- No original research (OR) - policy about how all material must be attributable to a reliable, published source.
- Notability - guideline that outlines how suitable a topic may be for its own article or list.
- Fringe theories - guideline about how articles should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it is.
- Notability essays - list of essays that summarizes the gist of user written essays on notability.
- User rights - ability to perform certain actions in Wikipedia depends on his/her user access level.
- Verifiability (RS) - policy stating how readers must be able to check that articles are not fabricated or embellished.
- Understandability - guideline about how all should strive to make each part of every article as understandable as possible to the widest audience of reader.
- Words to watch - guideline about how certain expressions should be used with care.
- Vandalism - if you see vandalism in an article, the simplest thing to do is just to remove it.
Directories
- Directory - the main list of "Wikipedia" and "Help" namespace directories and indexes
- Abbreviations - a list of all the abbreviations used on Wikipedia
- Departments - a list of all the different divisions of Wikipedia.
- Editor's index - a list of all the pages to help people who edit pages.
- Essays - a list of pages that contain advice or opinions from one or more Wikipedia contributors.
- FAQ - a list of frequently asked questions by topic.
- Glossary - a list of terms (slang) commonly used by editors.
- Guidelines - a descriptive list of official guidelines for "English Wikipedia"
- Manual of Style - a descriptive list of the pages which make up the Manual of Style.
- Policies - a descriptive list of official policies for "English Wikipedia"
- Quick directory - a small list of key pages with emphasis on interaction between members of the community.
- Shortcuts - a list of abbreviated redirects and the pages they lead to.
- Tips - a list of "tips" created by users at Tip of the day project.
Help contents by topic
Further reading (external links)
- Note - publications below may contain out of dated information or images.
Sister projects (external links)
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