THC Science

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Ongoing improvement of the Help System is underway at the Wikipedia Help Project.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written by its users (in over 200 languages worldwide). Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and its contents are free and open. The following articles explain everything about reading, authoring, and participating in the Wikipedia community.

Don't know where to jump in and contribute? Find out where your help is needed at the Community Portal.

Warning: Wikipedia may contain false information and offensive content. Read our disclaimer for more information.

Getting Started

Introduction to Wikipedia
Sandbox
About Wikipedia
How to log in

Account benefits

Choosing a username

Sign the new-user log - introduce yourself!

The Help Desk - post questions, receive answers
Helping Hand Group - request a tutorial or help page be improved or created
Donations - make Wikipedia possible

Browsing Wikipedia

Who writes Wikipedia (essential information for new readers)

Browsing - how to:

search for an article (including "Go" button)

explore Wikipedia

use the what links here browsing tool

use talk pages (discussion pages)

create talk archive subpages

use the Recent Changes page

use the Related Changes page

do research using Wikipedia

play media files in Wikipedia

Other Wikipedia languages

Navigation System

Basic topics

Navigation browse bar (see very top of this page)

Almanac

Featured content

Changing your settings
and account maintenance

Managing your account - how to:

customize your Wikipedia experience

Change your preferences

change your signature

change your username

delete your account

Log in (troubleshooting)

Advanced customization

Customizing your display with CSS

More about Wikipedia

Welcome!
Overview of Wikipedia (All about Wikipedia)

Category-based access to pages about Wikipedia
Glossary of common Wikipedia terms
What Wikipedia is not
another way to browse help topics
Category:Wikipedia how-to (a full list of help topics)

Finding Answers
(to frequently asked questions)

FAQ list
Overview FAQ
Administration FAQ
Contributing FAQ
Editing FAQ
Schools FAQ
Misc FAQ
Problems FAQ
Readers' FAQ
Technical FAQ

Communication

Asking questions

Requests for administrator attention, to get help from an administrator.
Reference desk, request an article or information you can't find. See also Requested articles.
Help desk for users with questions about Wikipedia or editing.
Each article has a Talk page — click on the article's discussion link — to read or take part in discussions about the article.
General Complaints, for discussing problems with the way Wikipedia is designed and making suggestions for improvement.
Village pump is the place for technical and policy issues.
The Helping Hand Group is the place for requests for improvement or creation of Wikipedia tutorials or help files.

Getting in touch

Contact us
Discussion pages
User pages

Babel - multi-lingual Wikipedians

Wikipedia mailing lists
Chat with other users on IRC
Get involved at the Community Portal
Village pump

Bug reports and feature requests
Wikipedians
Surveys
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
Instant Messaging
In person meetings

Keeping informed: News

The Signpost - Wikipedia's newspaper
Wikipedia in the media
Goings-on
Announcements
Press releases
Stats
Milestones
Regional notice boards

Tracking changes

Special pages
Recent changes
Enhanced recent changes
Related changes
Watching pages

Public watchlists

Page history
Diff
User contributions
Edit summary
Minor edit

File:Ac475.gif Editing Wikipedia - The Basics

Tutorial
Simplified ruleset, essential information to understand when editing articles (for new editors). See also the Five Pillars.

Editing - how to:

edit a page, including markup details.

experiment with editing pages in the sandbox. (You can also carry out editing experiments "in situ" by editing the page itself and using the Show Preview button. Be careful not to accidentally save the page though! If you do, then :revert your changes.)

cheat (editor's cheat sheet - keep this open in another window)

use sections in an article

test edits, and other things

revert a page to an earlier version

use categories

use redirect pages

do a purge

edit an article so long that you can't edit

edit with an external editor