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This is a long list of Wikipedia help resources, which used to be on the Help:Contents/Draft (see that page's history, 19 Dec 2005). It really should have been moved using the move tab; if someone knows how to move histories, please restore the history to this page. Thank you.

Learn more about Wikipedia

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(Wikipedia:News will be merged with Wikipedia:Community Portal once the help content has been merged with this page.)

Tips for reading

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  • If English is not your first language, try the Simple English Wikipedia. It is smaller, but easier to understand. (Described at Wikipedia:Simple English Wikipedia.)
  • At the bottom of most pages, you will find a list of categories. Click on the name of a category to see related pages on that topic.
  • You can search Wikipedia using the search box on the left-hand side of the page.
  • You can browse Wikipedia, starting from the Main Page.
  • Remember that any Wikipedia reader can also be a Wikipedia editor. Just click "edit this page" at the top of almost any page. Scroll down for editing help.
  • Wikipedia is available in many languages. See the wikipedia.org multi-lingual portal.

Partial merge with Main Page?

Advanced navigation

Using Wikipedia for research

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Ask a question

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To be synced with Wikipedia:Contact us and Wikipedia:Where to ask a question?

How can I help the project?

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Get help from an administrator

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Report or fix a problem

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Content problems

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Resources for maintenance
and collaboration
Cleanup
Categories
Create an article
Referencing
Stubs
Deletion
Polishing
Translation into English
Images
Controversy
To-do lists
Disambiguation
More
For a listing of ongoing discussions,
see the dashboard.
  • Please keep in mind that in many cases, it's actually easier for you to fix the problem yourself. (Yes, you can do that!) Just go to the page you'd like to fix, and click the "edit this page" tab near the top. If you find a problem you don't have time or don't know how to fix, there are several things you can do to draw attention to the problem. We certainly encourage you to do so; quality is a top priority of our project.
  • If you encounter abuse or defacement, please see Wikipedia:Vandalism.
  • If there is a problem with a specific article, the fastest thing to do is to leave a note on the talk page associated with that article. Go to the article and click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. Then click the "+" tab to start a new section.
  • To make sure your note doesn't get lost, it's a good idea to "tag" the article for attention. If you find an obvious and commonly encountered problem, you might not have to write a note at all. Wikipedia:Cleanup resources has a list of commonly used "problem" tags, and Wikipedia:Template messages has a complete listing.
  • The chart on the right lists some other commonly used pages to deal with specific problems. Category:Wikipedia maintenance has a complete listing.
  • If you find a page that is unsalvagable, our deletion policy page explains the deletion process.
  • See also Content review, below.
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Technical problems

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Systematic problems

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Disputes

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You can avoid some disputes by being aware of common practices and rules. See the Rules for editors section, below.

Discussions and proposals

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Move to the Community Portal? Merge or cross-reference multiple "central" discussion lisings?

Content review

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How-to edit Wikipedia...

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New editor orientation

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Note: Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers, Wikipedia:Introduction, and this section all serve essentially the same purpose - to get new editors the information they need to get started. Possibly the Welcome page could be transcluded here or merged with the Introduction.

Rules for editors

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Note: There are way too many different pages that list the "most important" policies and guidelines. A good streamlining approach might be to merge the most popular "most important" lists into the beginning of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, and tell people they can stop reading after the first 3, or 5, or 14, if they choose. Should the top N most important policies be listed here directly?

Wikipedia has rules for editors. Official policies are quite firm and either have very widespread support, are mandated by the Foundation, or both. Guidelines range from widely enforced, to controversial, to neglected. These include "style guidelines" (documented below) which are simply the project's conventions about how encyclopedia articles should be presented to readers.

Familiarizing yourself with the most basic rules before you start editing might save you some trouble, but don't feel you need to read everything up front. Be bold and start editing as soon as you like!

Quick summaries of important rules, from different perspectives:

Excellent pointers for new editors:

To learn more, see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines for a listing of our most important policies and guidelines, or Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines for a complete listing.

See also the section on disputes, above.

How to edit a page

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Legal concerns about adding content

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Style guidelines and conventions

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A complete listing is available at Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. The most commonly used are listed below and in the chart to the right.

ORANGE CONE

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The following how-to sections are under active construction. -- Beland 11:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia editing basics

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Wiki syntax help

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(The below links are from meta:Help:Editor and may not be specific to Wikipedia!)

  • Help:Editing - Confusing to new editors, due to transwiki mismash

Help:Starting a new page

  1. Help:Page name

Referencing

  1. Help:Link
  2. Help:Piped link
  3. Help:Interwiki linking
  4. Help:Variable
  5. Help:URL
  6. Help:Anchors

Formatting

  1. Help:Formula
  2. Help:List
  3. Help:Table
  4. HTML in wikitext
  5. Image & File uploads
  6. Image page

Organizing

  1. Sections
  2. Templates
  3. Categories
  4. Redirects
  5. Namespaces
  6. Renaming (moving) a page

Fixing mistakes and vandalism

  1. Reverting edits
  2. Testing

Saving effort

  1. Editing shortcuts
  2. Editing toolbar
  3. Magic words

Communicating

  1. Edit summary
  2. Talk page
  3. Edit conflict
  4. Minor edit

Special characters

  1. Turkish characters
  2. Romanian characters

Extensions

  1. WikiHiero syntax — warning: lots of images! (for Egyptian hieroglyphs)
  2. EasyTimeline syntax

Frequently Asked Questions


How to...

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<Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Wiki_markup




Accounts

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Advanced help for contributors

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Multimedia help

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Probably to be merged with the above:

Foreign language issues

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Resources for editors

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Enhanced reading and editing

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Technical information

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The MediaWiki User's Guide (links to another website) is for those who have installed the MediaWiki software that runs this site, and need help using it.

The IRC channel #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net is also available for discussion of MediaWiki software issues. (Not Wikipedia or Wikipedia server issues.)

Help for administrators

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More information

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TODO

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Unsorted

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Need work

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