User:CFCF/sandbox/12

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Explore Wikipedia's Contents

There are two ways to look things up in Wikipedia: by searching or by browsing.

Article collections

Overview articles

Overview articles summarize broad topics like

Carl Linneaus
. Overview articles aim to give a broad introduction and can be a good place to start leaning about a topic.

  • Wikipedia's overview articles

Vital articles

Vital articles are lists of subjects for which Wikipedia should have corresponding high-quality articles. They serve as centralized watchlists to track the status of Wikipedia's most important articles.

Classification systems

Knowledge can be ordered in many different ways, each classification with their own pros and cons, from heirarchical systems to interconnected webs of knowledge. Wikipedia employs and number of different classifications to help you navigate, a short list of different systems follows:

Outline pages

Outline pages have trees of links in a heirarchical format. These outlines show a visualization of how topics relate to each other, and can be useful as condensed alternative to overview articles.

  • Portal:Contents/Outlines
    a list of Outline-pages, organized by subject
  • Outline of academic disciplines covers subjects studied in academia, and links directly to overview articles

Third-party classification systems

Various third-party classification systems have been mapped to Wikipedia articles, which can be accessed from these pages:

List pages

List pages enumerate items of a particular type, such as the

Lists of people
). There are several ways to find lists:

  • Portal:Contents/Lists
    – A limited single-page collection of lists and lists of lists
  • List of lists of lists – A broad single-page collection of lists of lists
  • Category:Lists – Browse lists comprehensively via the multi-page Wikipedia category system

Timelines

Timelines are chronological lists of events, often including links to more detailed articles. There are several ways to find timelines:

Of particular interest may be:

  • List of centuries and decades
  • List of historical anniversaries
    —e.g. events on January 1 of any year
  • 2024—major events this year
  • Portal:Current events—featured current events and related project activities
  • Deaths in 2024—lists notable people who died this year
  • Category:Graphical timelines—graphical timelines in the category and subcategories, arranged alphabetically

Category system

Wikipedia's collection of category pages is a classified index system. It is automatically generated from category tags at the bottoms of articles and most other pages. Nearly all of the articles available so far on the website can be found through these subject indexes.

If you are simply looking to browse articles by topic, there are three top-level pages to choose from:

For biographies, see Category:People.

Category:Contents is technically at the top of the category hierarchy, but contains many categories useful to editors but not readers. Special:Categories lists every category alphabetically.

Alphabetical lists of articles

Wikipedia's alphabetical article indexes

  • Special:Allpages lists all of the current pages in Wikipedia.
  • Portal:Contents/A–Z index
    provides an easy way to skip to a particular part of the alphabet in the list of all articles.
  • Lists of alphabetical indexes

Special format collections

Portals

Portals include featured articles, images, news, categories, excerpts of key articles, links to related portals, and to-do lists for editors. There are two ways to find portals:

  • Portal:Contents/Portals
    – A single-page list of portals
  • Category:Portals – Browse portals comprehensively via the Wikipedia category system

Wikipedia books

Wikipedia books are collections of Wikipedia articles that can be viewed, downloaded, or printed into a book. They provide a roadmap for a course of study in a particular subject.

Glossaries

Glossaries are lists of terms with definitions. Wikipedia includes hundreds of alphabetical glossaries; they can be found two ways:

  • Portal:Contents/Glossaries
    – A single-page list of glossaries

Spoken articles

Growing collections of Wikipedia articles are starting to become available as spoken word recordings.

Collections of articles by quality or popularity

Featured content

Featured content is the best Wikipedia has to offer, via vigorous peer review
. Presented by type:

Most popular articles