Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that is being written collaboratively by people from around the world. The following articles contain guidance and information about reading, authoring, and participating in the Wikipedia community.
- MediaWiki User's Guide (links to another website)
- For those who have installed the MediaWiki software that runs this site, and need help using it.
- Contact us
- For information on how to contact us.
For information on how to use this website and contribute to it, read on.
How do I do that?
See also: Wikipedia's How to for a full list of help topics.
Using Wikipedia
- How to explore Wikipedia
- How to download Wikipedia content
- How to search for an article
- How to use talk pages
- How to use the Recent Changes page
- How to use the Related Changes page
- How to use the Go button
- How to log in
- How to set preferences (Meta-Wikimedia version)
- How to contact us
- How to conduct research using Wikipedia
Modifying a Wikipedia page
- Tutorial
- How to edit a page, including markup details. You can experiment with editing pages in the sandbox.
- How to start a new page
- How to use categories
- How to use images (and the image use policy)
- How to use redirect pages
- How to use tables
- How to use templates (and the available templates)
- How to upload files to Wikipedia
- How to add boilerplate text
- How to create pages for topics with several different definitions
- How to rename (move) a page
- How to delete pages/images/categories
- How to link together Wikipedia articles in different languages
- How to link to sister projects
- How to revert a page to an earlier version
- How to edit an article so long that you can't edit
- How to edit with an external editor
- How to edit mathematical formulae using TeX
- How to produce graphics for pages
- How to protect/unprotect pages (sysops only)
Information and resources for contributors
- Frequently-asked questions
- Policies and guidelines for contributors
- Glossary of common Wikipedia terms
- Style and How-to Directory
- How to write a great article
- Public domain resources
- Manual of style
- Contributing to articles outside your native language
- WikiProjects, writing and style guidelines for specific disciplines.
- Topical index, a collection of links to pages that are useful to "doing things" in Wikipedia.
Getting in touch
- Contact us
- General Complaints for things in general (that is, a problem on more than one page) that could be fixed or made better.
- Help desk for newcomers with questions about Wikipedia or editing.
- Village pump, a discussion forum to ask questions not answered here or in the FAQs.
- Reference desk, request an article or information. See also Requested articles.
- Wikipedia mailing lists
- Chat with other users on IRC
- Bug reports and feature requests
- Wikipedians
- Meta Wikipedia, a site that works alongside the main Wikipedia project. Here you can post essays and discussions about topics related to Wikipedia.
- Contingency page for when the main Wikipedia server is down