THC Science

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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.

Finding Answers
(to frequently asked questions)

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

The Wikipedia community

Wikipedian culture

Wikipedian humor (including bad jokes and other deleted nonsense)

Wikipedian games

Awards

Account settings and maintenance - how to:

Customize your Wikipedia experience

Change your preferences

Change your signature

Change your username

Delete your account

Log in (troubleshooting)

Customizing your display with CSS (advanced programming knowledge required)

Dealing with vandalism

Reverting a page to undo vandalism (and the Three-revert rule)

Reporting vandalism to administrators (urgent cases only)

Persistant vandals

current vandalism

The Counter Vandalism Unit

Most vandalized pages

Don't provoke the vandals!

Voting and consensus

Feedback by editors, to editors.

Administrator nominations

You can also ask the Wikipedia community to consider...

...deleting a page (full policy)

...moving a page or merging it with another (and how to actually do it)

...protecting a page (full policy)

File:Nuvola apps clanbomber.pngResolving disputes

Stay cool!

Be nice to newcomers

Alert others

Request assistance from a members' advocate

Dispute resolution

Arbitration policy

More about Wikipedia

Welcome!
Overview of Wikipedia (All about Wikipedia)

Category:Wikipedia

What Wikipedia is not
Press Kit resources for press enquiries
About Wikipedians

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)

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

Regional notice boards

Policies, conventions and guidelines

Wikipedia etiquette

Be bold!

Overview of policies

Simplified ruleset for beginners

The Five Pillars of Wikipedia

List of policies and guidelines

List of official policies

List of guidelines

Neutral point of view (NPOV)

Wikipedia:Verifiability

Page protection policy

Deletion policy

Policy on permanent deletion of pages

Privacy policy

Getting Started

Introduction to Wikipedia

Sandbox

About Wikipedia

How to log in

Why create an account?

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

Glossary of Wikipedia terms

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