Help:Directory
This is a directory of directories.
You can browse help related pages using the "search box" below.
Most common questions
- How to edit a page
- How to start a new page
- How to use talk pages
- How to rename (move) a page
- How to use redirect pages
- How to revert a page to an earlier version
- How to link together Wikipedia articles in different languages
- How to delete pages
- How to import articles
- How to break up a page
- How to use tables
- How to edit on mobile devices
- How to find the Manual of Style (MoS)
About Wikipedia
Note: You can use the sandbox to experiment with page editing. |
- About Wikipedia – general introduction for visitors to Wikipedia.
- Administration – discuses both the non-human administrative structure of Wikipedia, as well as its human components.
- FAQ – the most common questions about Wikipedia.
- Readers' FAQ – concerns and questions readers may have.
- Advice for parents – information for parents and legal guardians.
- Contact Wikipedia – how to get in touch with Wikipedia directly.
- General disclaimer – there is no guarantee of validity and reliability.
- Content disclaimer – Wikipedia is not censored.
- Legal disclaimer – Wikipedia does not give legal opinions.
- Medical disclaimer – Wikipedia does not give medical advice.
- Risk disclaimer – use Wikipedia at your own risk.
- Policies & guidelines – community standards set forth by Wikipedians.
- Principles – a listing of fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates.
- Statement of principles – by founder Jimmy Wales and Wikipedians.
- Wikipedia in brief – Wikipedia aims to be neutral, verifiable and factual.
- Researching – Wikipedia can be a great tool for learning, however ...
- What Wikipedia is not – there are certain things that Wikipedia is not.
- Where to ask questions – find the right place to ask a question.
- Where to make requests– find the right place to make a request.
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.
- Core content policies – Wikipedia's content is governed by three principal core content policies.
- Simplified rule-set – some basic aspect of Wikipedia norms and practices.
- Simplified Manual of Style – the basics about commonly used style guidelines.
- Welcome to Wikipedia– portal style page to get you started.
- Getting started – small listing of pages dealing with the basics.
- New contributors' help page – what would you like to do?
- Common mistakes – a few common mistakes y'all should try to avoid.
- Plain and simple overview– all about this amazing project Wikipedia.
- Primer for newcomers– blunt introduction intended to help newcomers.
- Learning the ropes – highlights the resources to help you help Wikipedia.
- Help hub– a page that has links to useful directories.
- 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.
- Creation and usage of media files– only logged in users can upload files.
- Upload Wizard– will walk you through the process of submitting media.
- Article wizard – will walk you through the process of submitting a new article.
- Annotated article – is a well-constructed sample article, with annotations.
- Frequently Asked Questions – common questions about using and contributing.
- Editorial oversight and control- we have tens of thousands of editors, from expert scholars to casual readers.
- How to help – what anyone can do to contribute.
- 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.
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.
- Edit toolbar – explains the basics about how to use the toolbar.
- Edit conflict – explains how to deal with an edit conflict.
- 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/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.
- Citation Style – explains some of the different reference styles.
- Cite errors – explains how to deal with errors in references.
- 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
- Multilingual support – explains how articles may contain words or texts written in different languages and scripts
- Special Characters – contains recommendations for which characters are safe to use and how to enter them.
- Entering – explains how special characters (those not on the standard computer keyboard) are useful—and sometimes necessary.
- Browser notes
- Troubleshooting
- Bypass cache
- Mobile access
- Printing
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Editing
- VisualEditor
- User guide
- User access levels
- Software notices
- IRC
- Create a page
- Page history
- Page information
- Page name
Special pages
- Special page help
- Searching
- Advanced search
- Linksearch
- Logging in
- Notifications/Echo
- FAQ
- Moving a page
- Fixing cut-and-paste moves
- Watching pages
- User contributions
- Emailing users
- Random pages
- Logs
- What links here
- Related changes
- Recent changes
- Pending changes
- Page Curation
- Page import
- Edit filter
- Tags
Links and diffs
- URLs
- Links
- Permanent link
- Interwikimedia links
- Interlanguage links
- Link color
- Pipe trick
- Colon trick
- Diffs
Media files: images, videos and sounds
* Media help
- Options to hide an image
- Uploading images
- Files
- Creation and usage
- Moving files to Commons
- Visual file markup
- Images
- Preparing images for upload
- Picture tutorial
- Extended image syntax
- Gallery tag
- Graphics tutorials
- Graphics Lab resources
- Sound file markup
- SVG help
Other graphics
- Family trees
- Graphs and charts
- Math formula
- Math symbols
- Rendering math
- LaTeX symbols
- Musical scores
- Timeline
- WikiHiero syntax
Namespaces
- Namespace structure
- Main/Article
- Talk namespaces
- User
- User page design
- Project/Wikipedia
- File
- MediaWiki
- Bug reports and feature requests
- System message
- Template
- Help
- Category
- Portal
- Book
- Draft
- TimedText
- Module/Lua
- Topic/Flow
- Special
- Media
Customisation and tools
- Preferences
- Skins
- Customizing watchlists
- Hide pages
- Gadgets
- Beta Features
- User scripts
- IRC Scripts
- User styles
- Tools
- Cleaning up vandalism tools
- Citation tools
- Wikimedia Labs
Automating editing
- Bots
- Creating
- Twinkle
- FurMe
- NPWatcher
- HotCat
- WPCleaner
- igloo
- AutoWikiBrowser
- Navigation popups
- STiki
- AfC helper script
- Huggle
Coding (Wiki markup)
- Wiki markup– explains the coding used by text, links, & talk pages
- Cheat-sheet – basic coding used by Wikipedia,
- 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).
- Citation templates – list of reference templates.
- Columns – explains how to make columns.
- HTML – explains how to 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.
CSS
- HTML in wikitext
- Markup validation
- Span tags
- Cascading Style Sheets
- Catalogue of CSS classes
- Useful styles
- Classes used in microformats
- Ambox classes
- Common.js and common.css
Templates and Lua
- Templates
- Template messages
- Citation templates
- Transclusion
- Substitution
- Advanced template coding
- Template limits
- Template sandbox and test cases
- Template documentation
- Purge
- Lua help
- Lua project
- Guide to Scribbling
Tutorials
- Main tutorial– will help anyone become a Wikipedia contributor.
- Editing– almost every page has an "Edit" tab.
- Formatting– the basics on coding.
- Links– the basics on internal links.
- Sources– the basics on adding references.
- Talk pages– the basics on how to communicate with others.
- Policies– there are some things to keep in mind when editing Wikipedia.
- Registration– registering a username is optional, but encouraged.
- Graphics – the basics on how to use graphics.
- Images– the basics on how to use images.
- IRC (live chat) – to access the freenode IRC servers, you'll first need to.
- VisualEditor user guide – a guide that gives illustrated, step-by-step instructions about VisualEditorfeatures.
Introductions
Wiki Markup
- Main introduction – quick overview of what Wikipedia is all about.
- 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.
VisualEditor
- 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
- Wikipedia assignments for class.
- Training for educators – four-part orientation for professors and other educators running assignments for class.
- Campus and Online Ambassadors.
- MediaWiki training – learn about editing and formatting content using MediaWiki, the software that powers Wikipedia.
- The Wikipedia Adventure – Wikipedia is not a game, but learning it should still be fun.
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 while logged out.
- 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
- Naming, redirects & disambiguation– helping people to navigate Wikipedia.
- Categorizing– adding categories to articles is easy.
- Better articles– serve as a detailed checklist for improving articles.
- Deletions– some editors abuse the privilege, creating nonsense articles, attack articles, or promotional articles.
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.
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.
General knowledge questions
Replying to general knowledge questions – contains guidelines for users who respond to general knowledge questions posed by other users.
Note: legal or medical responses are prohibited. See Wikipedia's Legal disclaimer and Medical disclaimer. |
- 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
- Noticeboards– Wikipedia noticeboards are pages where editors can ask questions and request assistance from people who are familiar with the policies and guidelines covered by each individual board.
- Administrators – for posting information and issues that affect administrators.
- Dispute resolution – provides a central compilation of the boards listed below to help resolves conflicts.
- Third opinion– for disputes between two editors to receive an outside opinion.
- Requests for comment– the place to go to get outside input on issues from a broad number of users.
- Dispute resolution noticeboard – used as a "first step" in solving content issues.
- Arbitration – the "last resort" for conduct issues when all other avenues are exhausted, issues binding rulings.
- Conflict of interest – for determining whether a specific editor has a conflict of interest.
- external linkspolicy.
- Neutrality – for reporting issues regarding whether article content is compliant with the Neutral Point of View policy.
- original research.
- sources are reliablein context.
- Page moves – a process for requesting the retitling of an article, template, or project page.
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
- Request departmentspage 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-helpIRC channel for real-time chat.
- Contact Wikipedia – is a page that describes how and where to contact Wikipedia directly for a variety of reasons.
- Place
Community standards and advice
- Policies & guidelines – describes how policies and guidelines should normally be developed and maintained.
- List of policies and guidelines – lists the main community standards for "English Wikipedia".
- List of policies – a comprehensive descriptive list of policies.
- List of guidelines – a comprehensive descriptive list of guidelines.
- Simplified rule-set – essay about some basic aspect of Wikipedia norms and practices.
- Expectations & norms of the community – essay about some social norms that editors are expected to follow.
- Eight rules for editing– essay stating if you start out by following these simple rules, the rest should come naturally.
- Ten rules for editing– essay that provides tips to make editing smoother.
- List of policies and guidelines – lists the main community standards for "English Wikipedia".
- How-to and information pages– about pages that contain technical and factual information or supplement guidelines and policies in greater detail.
- Essays – Although essays are not policy or guidelines many are worthy of considerations.
- Advice pages – guideline about advice pages written by WikiProjects.
- Difference between policies, guidelines & essays – essay about what is called a "policy", "guideline" or "essay".
- Essays are not policy– essay about how it is not a good idea to quote essays as if they were community standards.
- The value of essays – essays are not policy or guidelines, but many are worthy of consideration.
- Essays in a nutshell – summarizes the gist of user written essays on Wikipedia.
- 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.
- Accessibility dos and don'ts – regardless of disability, all should be able to read, navigate, and contribute easily.
- Alternative text for images– allows the content and function of an image to be understood by text-only readers.
- Article deletion – policy about how articles and other Wikipedia pages can be removed from general view.
- How to delete a page – essay with an easy explanation of how to ask for an article to be deleted.
- Guide to deletion – essay with step by step instructions for nominating articles for deletions.
- Arguments to avoid during deletions – essay about what not to say or talk about during a deletion.
- Save an article proposed for deletion– essay about how to familiarize yourself with the deletion process.
- "several" options availableto you.
- Deletion essays– summarizes the gist of user written essays about deletions.
- 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.
- Libel – policy about how it is the responsibility of all to ensure that material posted is not defamatory.
- Blocking – policy behind how administrators technically prevent users from editing.
- Appealing blocks – essay about how to appeal a block.
- Unblock request – you can use the {{unblock}} template on your talk page to request an unblock – however if you have had talk page access removed see Unblock request.
- 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.
- Protecting children's privacy – essay about how all users, including children, are permitted to edit without disclosing information about themselves.
- Guidance for younger editors – essay on advice for young editors about what they should be aware of.
- 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.
- Conflict of interest guide – essay for editors who want to write and edit articles about a subject they are affiliated with.
- Best practices for editors with close associations– essay about having a close association with a topic.
- Paid editing – essay that provides advice on what to do, when it comes to Paid Editing & Wikipedia.
- our goals.
- BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (BRD) – is a method for reaching consensus.
- Consensus and discussion essays – summarizes the gist of user written essays on consensus.
- BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (BRD) – is a method for reaching consensus.
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Close paraphrasing – essay that states all should summarize in their own words, instead of closely paraphrasing.
- Donating published work – essay for editors who would like to grant permission to use their own previously published work.
- copy-and-pastes.
- Requesting copyright permission – essay about editors who would like to get permission to use other people's work.
- .
- Article development– lists the ways in which you can help an article grow.
- Article writing essays – summarizes the gist of user written essays on article building.
- bright line known as the three-revert rule(3RR).
- Disruptive editing – disruptive editors may be blocked or banned indefinitely.
- Editorial discretion – essay about the proper inclusion of relevant and well-sourced content.
- Etiquette – principles of decorum, also referred to as "Wikiquette", how to work with others on Wikipedia.
- Civility – Wikipedia's basic conduct expectations.
- Assume good faith – unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, assume people are trying to help not harm Wikipedia.
- No personal attacks – comment on content, not on the contributors.
- posting personal information is strictly prohibited.
- Don't bite the newcomers – it's very unlikely for a newcomer to be familiar with the community standards.
- IPs are human too– essay about how unregistered users input is just as important in building consensus.
- Honesty – essay about how truthfulness is expected in all processes, including content discussion.
- Civility essays – list of essays that summarizes the gist of user written essays on civility.
- Ignore all rules (IAR) – policy that states if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.
- The rules are principles – essay on how policies & guidelines exist as rough approximations of their underlying principles.
- Reasonability Rule– essay about how anything unreasonable that is being done shouldn't be done at all.
- common senseas you go about editing.
- Image use policy – policies towards images, like content and copyright issues—applicable to "English Wikipedia".
- Image deletion – a how to guide for nominating images for deletion.
- Image dos and don'ts – images can make Wikipedia more informative, however ...
- Manual of Style (MOS) – main guideline page that describes communal consensus on layouts and presentation.
- Manual of Style contents – descriptive directory of all the pages which make up the Manual of Style.
- Simplified Manual of Style – essay about the basics commonly used style guidelines.
- Styletips – a list of advice pages for editors on writing style and formatting.
- Better articles – essay about guidance on how to make articles better.
- Perfect article – essay with a point by point guidance on what makes a great article.
- Manual of Style contents – descriptive directory of all the pages which make up the Manual of Style.
- Neutrality (NPOV) – policy about how articles should represent the views of main scholars and specialists on topics.
- NPOV tutorial – essay on how to realize you may have a bias you're not aware of.
- Be neutral in form – essay about how some editing methods may lead to disputes over points of views.
- Describing points of view – essays that describes the best way to handle a neutral point of view.
- Neutral point of view essays – summarizes the gist of essays on NPOV.
- No original research (OR) – policy about how all material must be attributable to a reliable, published source.
- Examples of original research – some examples of original research.
- 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.
- Fringe theories – guideline about how articles should not make a fringe theory appear more notable than it is.
- User rights – the ability to perform certain actions in Wikipedia depends on an editor's user access level.
- On privacy, confidentiality and discretion – essay about how your rights to privacy may not extend as far as you believe.
- Verifiability (RS) – policy stating how readers must be able to check that articles are not fabricated or embellished.
- Identifying reliable sources– guideline that discusses how to identify reliable references.
- Cherrypicking – essay about how to include contradictory and significant qualifying information from the same source.
- Common knowledge – essay about how often people don't actually know what you consider basic knowledge.
- Independent sources – essay that gives the opinion of some editors on why independent sourcing is required.
- Potentially unreliable sources – essay that gives general advice on what is and isn't a reliable source.
- Verifiability and reliable sources essays – summarizes the gist of user written essays on good references.
- 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
- Help menu – main menu-style help page (old format used on the Help:Contents page).
- Navigating Wikipedia – a list of help pages for reading the encyclopedia and navigating the site.
- Joining Wikipedia – a list of basic introductions about how to get started.
- Editing Wikipedia – a list of general help pages for editors.
- Links and references – a list of page to help with creating links or dealing with references.
- Images and media – a list of pages dealing with using images, videos and sound files.
- Tracking changes – a list of pages about tracking the evolution of a page or how to follow a user.
- Policies and guidelines – a list of community standards.
- Communication– a list of pages about contacting another user or keeping yourself informed.
- The Wikipedia community – a list of pages about resources for editors.
- Resources and lists – a list of pages about tips and tools for registered users.
- Account settings and maintenance – a list of pages about tips and tools for registered users
- Technical information – a list of pages about tools for "advanced users" and troubleshooting information.
- Site map – the "big page" of all the help pages from above.
Further reading (external links)
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Instructional videos on using Wikipedia.
- The Bookshelf - A vast collection of high-quality, freely licensed, user-generated informational material about Wikipedia
- Mission statement – The Wikimedia Foundation
- Wikimedia values – The six values of the Wikimedia Foundation
- In a nutshell, what is Wikipedia? And what is the Wikimedia Foundation? – The Wikimedia Foundation
- Wikimedia founding principles – Principles generally supported by all of the Wikimedia communities
- Note – publications below may contain out of dated information or images.
- Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; ISBN 978-1-59327-176-3.
- John Broughton (2008). Wikipedia Reader's Guide: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0-596-55387-6.
- John Broughton (2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0-596-55377-7.
- Dan O'Sullivan (2009). Wikipedia: A New Community of Practice?. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4094-8606-0.
- Andrew Lih (2009). The Wikipedia revolution: how a bunch of nobodies created the world's greatest encyclopedia. Hyperion. ISBN 978-1-4013-0371-6.
- Joseph Michael Reagle, Jr.; Lawrence Lessig (2010). Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01447-2.