![]() | This help page may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: This chapter used to refer to a very large number of processes which no longer exist. Several sections may need re-writing or reformatting to ensure they still make sense. Please help improve this help page if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. |
Most of this book is about articles—creating, improving, arguing over, deleting. But Wikipedia is more than just a large number of articles. It's a community of people—the editors. Wikipedia has a number of pages and activities to assist editors: to answer specific questions, to help editors learn more about good editing, to help resolve differences of opinion, and even just to show appreciation. As with everything else at Wikipedia, the people who run these pages and activities are also editors—volunteers just like you. This chapter shows you all the places and ways you can lend other editors a hand.
If you're not an experienced editor, you may feel that it's too soon to read this chapter. But many of the pages and activities described below don't require a lot of experience. More importantly, you can pick and choose where you want to help. For example, if you're looking at a page of questions by editors, you can just skip any questions that you don't understand. Furthermore, you have one advantage that many other editors don't—you've read this book.
One of the easiest ways you can help other editors is by answering their questions. If you don't know an answer, or don't have the time to research an answer, you can simply leave the question for other editors to answer.
The main place for editors to ask general questions is the page Wikipedia:Help desk (shortcut: WP:HD). On a typical day, editors ask and answer 10 to 20 questions. This section shows you how to answer Help desk questions. You can also answer questions on other Wikipedia pages, listed at the end of this section.
To get started answering questions at the Help desk, first read the top of that page (Figure 12-1). The Help desk page starts out with a number of, er, emphatic announcements. As you can guess, a lot of folks have misunderstood the Help desk's purpose. It's for help using the online encyclopedia, not for help finding articles. People who are very new to Wikipedia should check the FAQ first, since the answers to their questions are probably already there. Self-help, however, doesn't come easily to people who are completely new.
The Help desk also has its own talk (discussion) page (Figure 12-2). If you want to lend a hand answering questions, read the talk page to get a feel for what other volunteers have been doing and thinking for the past couple of months. If you have a question about answering questions, or you think of a way to improve the help process, bring up the issue on this talk page.
The most important link for a helpful editor like you who wants to answer questions is hidden on the talk page, in small print at that. Look on the right, just below the first box of instructions in Figure 12-2, for the box that reads, " How-to guide for those answering questions". That page walks you through the process of answering questions from other editors (Figure 12-3): being concise, avoiding edit conflicts with other editors who are answering questions, providing links to relevant policies and guidelines, finding answers to questions about Wikipedia, and handling general knowledge questions that really belong at the Reference desk.
The Wikipedia Reference desk (shortcut: WP:RD) is like the reference desk at your local public library, except volunteer editors take the role of all-knowing librarian. Visitors post questions about things other than editing Wikipedia, and volunteers post answers or suggestions (Figure 12-4). Here's a condensed sampling of questions from a number of Reference desk categories:
If you have some specialized or eclectic knowledge, or like researching possibly obscure questions, you might consider lending a hand. If so, read Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines first.
The Help desk gets a wide range of questions about editing every day. You can learn a lot there just by reading answers, or by researching questions yourself in order to provide answers. New contributors are often invited to the Wikipedia:Teahouse (shortcut WP:TH), another busy forum.
Others find their way to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) (shortcut WP:VPM) or to the talk pages of various pages in the Help namespace (for example, Help talk:Table, Help talk:Books and Help talk:Searching).
And if that's not enough, editors can ask questions in two more ways—two more ways that you can offer answers and help:
Editors tend to ask specialized questions (for example, about a particular policy) on the relevant talk (discussion) page, not on a consolidated help page. Still, Wikipedia has a few places for specialized questions, and thus a few places where you can consider offering advice if you're comfortable with the particular area:
Wikipedia gets better every day, because of the efforts of thousands of editors every day. There are many ways you can help other editors by recognizing the time and effort that they give to Wikipedia.
For brand-new editors, Wikipedia has a Welcoming committee (the shortcut to its main page is WP:WC). Committee members mainly post welcome notices (in the form of templates) on the user talk pages of newly registered editors. They also suggest to anonymous (IP address) new editors that they register and get user names. The committee also maintains pages specifically for helping new editors get started. You can see a list of such pages—including the Help desk—at WP:WC.
For appreciation of more established editors, the Kindness Campaign main page (shortcut: WP:KC) provides a good starting point. The most common way of recognition, by far, is to post an award—a template—on the editor's user talk page, with a signature identifying who gave the award. You'll find more information at Wikipedia:Awards (shortcut: WP:Award), including the box of links shown in Figure 12-5.
The best way you can help improve articles and other content is by editing articles: improving the wording, removing improper content, and adding new information and sources. But Wikipedia has many places where editors ask for opinions about the quality of what's already in place. Editors have various reasons for requesting review: They're not sure what to work on next, they're looking for recognition, or they're hoping that other editors will see the article and join in. No matter the reason, your job as a reviewer is not to change or add content but to provide suggestions and opinions on quality.
You don't have to be an ultra-experienced editor to make good suggestions for improving an article, but you should understand what a really good article looks like. If you're just gaining experience, be sure to read Chapter 18: Better articles: A systematic approach before adding your opinion to any of the review pages listed here.
In the next section, you'll find places to discuss articles that are among the best at Wikipedia (see the section about featured content). Unfortunately, most processes for review of less developed articles have fallen out of use. The only still-active process is Peer review (shortcut: WP:PR), for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work. It's often used to prepare an article for candidacy as a Good or Featured article, as described next.
Wikipedia has two classifications for high-quality articles that have been through an assessment nomination process: Good and Featured. Below are five places where assessments take place, and you may be able to contribute.
Candidates for Good and even Featured classification may be a long way from perfect. You may find the checklist approach to improving articles described in Chapter 18: Better articles: A systematic approach a big help here. As always, when you're looking over listed articles, you can pick and choose. You don't have to comment on articles you're not interested in, or where you don't see obvious opportunities for improvement.
Images, in addition to articles and lists, can achieve Featured status. As with articles, they gain that status via editor review, at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates (shortcut: WP:FPC). Given the vast number of pictures uploaded every week, it's interesting that only about 10 pictures per week achieve FP status.
If you're a skilled or aspiring photographer, you may find the critiques interesting and want to join in the discussion. If you're not a skilled or aspiring photographer, you may still want to take a look to learn about the challenges of taking high-quality pictures for Wikipedia.
Chapter 10: Resolving content disputes and Chapter 11: Handling incivility and personal attacks discussed a number of different places you can go for help resolving a disagreement over content or behavior. This chapter shows you how to get involved helping out with disputes at Wikipedia.
This book can't give you a full course in negotiation and mediation skills. There are entire college degrees in that topic. Instead, here are a few Wikipedia-specific principles to keep in mind when you're helping in a situation where two or more editors disagree:
If you're game for helping with content disputes, you can get involved in a number of areas. Your options range from offering your opinion on content disputes to helping editors reform uncivil behavior.
The previous sections discussed pages where extensive experience at Wikipedia isn't a requirement for helping out (although more experience is always better). In the place described in this section, which involve mentoring, experience matters a lot.
If you haven't spent at least 6 to 12 months doing editing at Wikipedia, and if you haven't accumulated a couple of thousand edits, then refrain from offering your help there until you have more experience:
If you're an experienced editor, you may find Adopt-a-User a change of pace from editing or vandal-fighting or whatever most occupies your time at Wikipedia.
As an editor at Wikipedia, virtually every page where a discussion is going on is open for you to add comments. Even with Arbitration Committee cases, the most formal process within Wikipedia, outside comments are accepted at certain points. Thus, you can interact with and help other editors just about anywhere you want: talk pages for guideline and help pages; discussion areas like the Village Pump (see the section about general discussion areas); or pages like RfCs where editors come specifically for assistance.
The pages mentioned in this chapter have probably given you at least one option that fits your skills and desire to help. But if you're still looking for more places where lots of discussion's going on, where editors are asking questions and requesting input, here are more pages that might interest you:
As with editing articles, it's up to you to decide where your time—for reading, researching, analyzing, and composing a reply—is best spent. Here are some points to consider:
![]() | This help page may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: This chapter used to refer to a very large number of processes which no longer exist. Several sections may need re-writing or reformatting to ensure they still make sense. Please help improve this help page if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. |
Most of this book is about articles—creating, improving, arguing over, deleting. But Wikipedia is more than just a large number of articles. It's a community of people—the editors. Wikipedia has a number of pages and activities to assist editors: to answer specific questions, to help editors learn more about good editing, to help resolve differences of opinion, and even just to show appreciation. As with everything else at Wikipedia, the people who run these pages and activities are also editors—volunteers just like you. This chapter shows you all the places and ways you can lend other editors a hand.
If you're not an experienced editor, you may feel that it's too soon to read this chapter. But many of the pages and activities described below don't require a lot of experience. More importantly, you can pick and choose where you want to help. For example, if you're looking at a page of questions by editors, you can just skip any questions that you don't understand. Furthermore, you have one advantage that many other editors don't—you've read this book.
One of the easiest ways you can help other editors is by answering their questions. If you don't know an answer, or don't have the time to research an answer, you can simply leave the question for other editors to answer.
The main place for editors to ask general questions is the page Wikipedia:Help desk (shortcut: WP:HD). On a typical day, editors ask and answer 10 to 20 questions. This section shows you how to answer Help desk questions. You can also answer questions on other Wikipedia pages, listed at the end of this section.
To get started answering questions at the Help desk, first read the top of that page (Figure 12-1). The Help desk page starts out with a number of, er, emphatic announcements. As you can guess, a lot of folks have misunderstood the Help desk's purpose. It's for help using the online encyclopedia, not for help finding articles. People who are very new to Wikipedia should check the FAQ first, since the answers to their questions are probably already there. Self-help, however, doesn't come easily to people who are completely new.
The Help desk also has its own talk (discussion) page (Figure 12-2). If you want to lend a hand answering questions, read the talk page to get a feel for what other volunteers have been doing and thinking for the past couple of months. If you have a question about answering questions, or you think of a way to improve the help process, bring up the issue on this talk page.
The most important link for a helpful editor like you who wants to answer questions is hidden on the talk page, in small print at that. Look on the right, just below the first box of instructions in Figure 12-2, for the box that reads, " How-to guide for those answering questions". That page walks you through the process of answering questions from other editors (Figure 12-3): being concise, avoiding edit conflicts with other editors who are answering questions, providing links to relevant policies and guidelines, finding answers to questions about Wikipedia, and handling general knowledge questions that really belong at the Reference desk.
The Wikipedia Reference desk (shortcut: WP:RD) is like the reference desk at your local public library, except volunteer editors take the role of all-knowing librarian. Visitors post questions about things other than editing Wikipedia, and volunteers post answers or suggestions (Figure 12-4). Here's a condensed sampling of questions from a number of Reference desk categories:
If you have some specialized or eclectic knowledge, or like researching possibly obscure questions, you might consider lending a hand. If so, read Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines first.
The Help desk gets a wide range of questions about editing every day. You can learn a lot there just by reading answers, or by researching questions yourself in order to provide answers. New contributors are often invited to the Wikipedia:Teahouse (shortcut WP:TH), another busy forum.
Others find their way to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) (shortcut WP:VPM) or to the talk pages of various pages in the Help namespace (for example, Help talk:Table, Help talk:Books and Help talk:Searching).
And if that's not enough, editors can ask questions in two more ways—two more ways that you can offer answers and help:
Editors tend to ask specialized questions (for example, about a particular policy) on the relevant talk (discussion) page, not on a consolidated help page. Still, Wikipedia has a few places for specialized questions, and thus a few places where you can consider offering advice if you're comfortable with the particular area:
Wikipedia gets better every day, because of the efforts of thousands of editors every day. There are many ways you can help other editors by recognizing the time and effort that they give to Wikipedia.
For brand-new editors, Wikipedia has a Welcoming committee (the shortcut to its main page is WP:WC). Committee members mainly post welcome notices (in the form of templates) on the user talk pages of newly registered editors. They also suggest to anonymous (IP address) new editors that they register and get user names. The committee also maintains pages specifically for helping new editors get started. You can see a list of such pages—including the Help desk—at WP:WC.
For appreciation of more established editors, the Kindness Campaign main page (shortcut: WP:KC) provides a good starting point. The most common way of recognition, by far, is to post an award—a template—on the editor's user talk page, with a signature identifying who gave the award. You'll find more information at Wikipedia:Awards (shortcut: WP:Award), including the box of links shown in Figure 12-5.
The best way you can help improve articles and other content is by editing articles: improving the wording, removing improper content, and adding new information and sources. But Wikipedia has many places where editors ask for opinions about the quality of what's already in place. Editors have various reasons for requesting review: They're not sure what to work on next, they're looking for recognition, or they're hoping that other editors will see the article and join in. No matter the reason, your job as a reviewer is not to change or add content but to provide suggestions and opinions on quality.
You don't have to be an ultra-experienced editor to make good suggestions for improving an article, but you should understand what a really good article looks like. If you're just gaining experience, be sure to read Chapter 18: Better articles: A systematic approach before adding your opinion to any of the review pages listed here.
In the next section, you'll find places to discuss articles that are among the best at Wikipedia (see the section about featured content). Unfortunately, most processes for review of less developed articles have fallen out of use. The only still-active process is Peer review (shortcut: WP:PR), for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work. It's often used to prepare an article for candidacy as a Good or Featured article, as described next.
Wikipedia has two classifications for high-quality articles that have been through an assessment nomination process: Good and Featured. Below are five places where assessments take place, and you may be able to contribute.
Candidates for Good and even Featured classification may be a long way from perfect. You may find the checklist approach to improving articles described in Chapter 18: Better articles: A systematic approach a big help here. As always, when you're looking over listed articles, you can pick and choose. You don't have to comment on articles you're not interested in, or where you don't see obvious opportunities for improvement.
Images, in addition to articles and lists, can achieve Featured status. As with articles, they gain that status via editor review, at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates (shortcut: WP:FPC). Given the vast number of pictures uploaded every week, it's interesting that only about 10 pictures per week achieve FP status.
If you're a skilled or aspiring photographer, you may find the critiques interesting and want to join in the discussion. If you're not a skilled or aspiring photographer, you may still want to take a look to learn about the challenges of taking high-quality pictures for Wikipedia.
Chapter 10: Resolving content disputes and Chapter 11: Handling incivility and personal attacks discussed a number of different places you can go for help resolving a disagreement over content or behavior. This chapter shows you how to get involved helping out with disputes at Wikipedia.
This book can't give you a full course in negotiation and mediation skills. There are entire college degrees in that topic. Instead, here are a few Wikipedia-specific principles to keep in mind when you're helping in a situation where two or more editors disagree:
If you're game for helping with content disputes, you can get involved in a number of areas. Your options range from offering your opinion on content disputes to helping editors reform uncivil behavior.
The previous sections discussed pages where extensive experience at Wikipedia isn't a requirement for helping out (although more experience is always better). In the place described in this section, which involve mentoring, experience matters a lot.
If you haven't spent at least 6 to 12 months doing editing at Wikipedia, and if you haven't accumulated a couple of thousand edits, then refrain from offering your help there until you have more experience:
If you're an experienced editor, you may find Adopt-a-User a change of pace from editing or vandal-fighting or whatever most occupies your time at Wikipedia.
As an editor at Wikipedia, virtually every page where a discussion is going on is open for you to add comments. Even with Arbitration Committee cases, the most formal process within Wikipedia, outside comments are accepted at certain points. Thus, you can interact with and help other editors just about anywhere you want: talk pages for guideline and help pages; discussion areas like the Village Pump (see the section about general discussion areas); or pages like RfCs where editors come specifically for assistance.
The pages mentioned in this chapter have probably given you at least one option that fits your skills and desire to help. But if you're still looking for more places where lots of discussion's going on, where editors are asking questions and requesting input, here are more pages that might interest you:
As with editing articles, it's up to you to decide where your time—for reading, researching, analyzing, and composing a reply—is best spent. Here are some points to consider: