This page is currently inactive and is retained for
historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
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.
( Wikipedia:News will be merged with Wikipedia:Community Portal once the help content has been merged with this page.)
Partial merge with Main Page?
Advanced navigation
To be synced with Wikipedia:Contact us and Wikipedia:Where to ask a question?
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. |
You can avoid some disputes by being aware of common practices and rules. See the Rules for editors section, below.
Move to the Community Portal? Merge or cross-reference multiple "central" discussion lisings?
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.
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.
A complete listing is available at Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. The most commonly used are listed below and in the chart to the right.
The following how-to sections are under active construction. -- Beland 11:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
(The below links are from meta:Help:Editor and may not be specific to Wikipedia!)
Referencing
Formatting
Organizing
Fixing mistakes and vandalism
Saving effort
Communicating
Extensions
< Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Wiki_markup
Probably to be merged with the above:
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.)
This page is currently inactive and is retained for
historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
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.
( Wikipedia:News will be merged with Wikipedia:Community Portal once the help content has been merged with this page.)
Partial merge with Main Page?
Advanced navigation
To be synced with Wikipedia:Contact us and Wikipedia:Where to ask a question?
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. |
You can avoid some disputes by being aware of common practices and rules. See the Rules for editors section, below.
Move to the Community Portal? Merge or cross-reference multiple "central" discussion lisings?
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.
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.
A complete listing is available at Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. The most commonly used are listed below and in the chart to the right.
The following how-to sections are under active construction. -- Beland 11:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
(The below links are from meta:Help:Editor and may not be specific to Wikipedia!)
Referencing
Formatting
Organizing
Fixing mistakes and vandalism
Saving effort
Communicating
Extensions
< Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Wiki_markup
Probably to be merged with the above:
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.)