Help:Contents – Site map

Displayed below are the pages of the main help menu. For the main help page, see Help:Contents.

Navigating Wikipedia [Edit]


What is Wikipedia?

Basic navigation

Navigation
Browsing Wikipedia = scrolling, clicking on links
Good starting points:
To browse the encyclopedia: Wikipedia:Contents
To browse the Wikipedia community: Wikipedia:Department directory
To browse help resources: Help:Menu or Help:Contents/Directory
Searching     type your search term into the search box (at the top right of every page)
Go to the search screen     clicking on the magnifying glass will get you there too

Browse the encyclopedia via the contents navbar:

Advanced navigation

Advanced browsing
Shortcut
List of shortcuts
Tabbed browsing     open multiple links at the same time
Tabbed browsing in Firefox
Tab Mix Plus     add-on for Firefox
Advanced searching
Search titles with grep
Searching Wikipedia with regular expressions (regex)

See also


Joining Wikipedia [Edit]

Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopedia. It is a worldwide community of people who volunteer their time and share knowledge to make the world a better place. You are welcome to join us in this important mission...

Getting an account

Why create an account? (to get more privileges and to make communication easier)
Choosing a username
How to log in

Teamwork

Who writes Wikipedia? (Anyone with Internet access)
We are Wikipedians
Talk pages   how to communicate in Wikipedia
WikiProjects collaborate with others to develop your favorite subject areas
Quick directory/Department directory

Getting started

Just go for it! the easiest and fastest way to get involved is to click the edit tab at the top of an article that interests you and improve it in the editor that appears.

Keep in mind...
The Five Pillars  (the core rules)
Tutorials
{{tutorials}} place this on your user page to display a navigation box with helpful links
Overviews
Plain and simple the basic mechanics of Wikipedia
Primer for newcomers an overview for new contributors
Advice for parents

Where to next?

Editing Wikipedia [Edit]


Basic editing

If you can't find what you're looking for on this page, you can ask questions at the Help desk or at the Teahouse. Volunteers will respond as soon as possible.


Be bold!
Introductory tutorial
Contributing to Wikipedia
How to edit a page
Experiment in the sandbox
Show preview to review your edits before you save
Editing sections
Creating links
Making categories

Saving your edits

"Show preview"     always use this to avoid errors
Edit summary     please explain your edits
Minor edits     check this for typos and small corrections
Edit conflict     what to do when another editor changes the page while you're editing it

How to write an article

Style and formatting

Article standards

Article maintenance

See also

Tips on editing
Simplified ruleset — Essential information to understand when editing articles (for new editors)
Category:Wikipedia information pages and Category:Wikipedia how-to


Links and references [Edit]


Images and media [Edit]

Overview of images

Creation and usage of media files

Upload an image to Commons (preferred) or to English Wikipedia.

Find

Help

Policy and guidelines

Other


Keeping track of changes [Edit]


Policies and guidelines [Edit]


The principles which the policies and guidelines are based on

Five pillars statement of our principles
Jimbo's statement historic principles
Simplified ruleset synopsis of our conventions
Wikimedia principles common to all projects
Principles other essays on Wikipedia's principles

Tutorial on policies

Introduction to policies and guidelines  a quick introduction to the major policies and guidelines for very new users.

General policies

Procedural policies

Policies & guidelines how policies and guidelines should be developed and maintained.
Mediation
Bot policy

Content policies and guidelines

Behavioural policies and guidelines

Editing policies and guidelines

Style and formatting conventions

Classification guidelines

See also

List of policies and guidelines  a list of principle policies and guidelines.
List of policies a comprehensive descriptive directory of policies.
List of guidelines a comprehensive descriptive directory of guidelines.
Manual of Style contents a comprehensive descriptive directory of the pages which make up the Manual of Style.
Related essays
Simplified rule-set  some basic aspect of Wikipedia norms and practices.
Eight rules for editing    if you start out by following these simple rules, the rest should come naturally.
Ten rules for editing   Wikipedia can be daunting, but here we provide tips to make editing smoother.
Trifecta  ultra fast overview of foundational principles related to policies and guidelines.
The rules are principles  policies and guidelines exist as rough approximations of their underlying principles.
Wikimedia Foundation policies
List of policies
Licensing and copyright
Privacy
Values


Asking questions [Edit]

First check these lists of frequently asked questions

FAQ main page    questions about using and contributing.
Administration    answers some questions related to Administrators.
Article subjects    what to do about specific articles.
Categories    about using Wikipedia's categories.
Contributing    answers to questions commonly asked by contributors.
Copyright    four most commonly asked questions about copyright.
Editing    answers the most common questions about editing.
Forking    how do I download and use Wikipedia content?
IRC (live chat)    about "chat rooms" – real-time discussions.
Organizations    editing without displaying a conflict of interest.
Problems    solving problems you may encounter when browsing or editing.
Readers    addresses concerns and questions readers may have.
Schools    questions that teachers, librarians and administrators might have.
Technical    answers some questions related to the technical workings of the site.
(Miscellaneous)    questions that do not fit into any of above sections.
If you can't find your question, then it's time to ask someone...

Where to ask questions

Where to ask factual questions
Reference desk    volunteers will attempt to answer any factual question you may have. They are organized into the following subject areas:
Computing
Entertainment
Language
Humanities
Mathematics
Science
Miscellaneous
Where to ask help-related questions
Help desk    the volunteers here will help you with Wikipedia-related questions.
Wikipedia:Questions    another help page
Wikipedia:Teahouse    friendly place for new editors to become accustomed to Wikipedia culture, ask questions, and develop community relationships.
Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)    the place to ask technical questions about Wikipedia and all related technology.
Wikipedia:Media copyright questions    about images, audio files, and other media.
{{Help me}}    write a question or request on your user talk page, and place {{Help me}} with it, and someone will be by shortly to help you on it.
Live help    ask other editors questions in real time in a Wikipedia chat room.

See also

Adopt-a-user    new users can find mentors here. Mentors are dedicated to answering questions and teaching.
Questions and comments
Requests department    for when you need assistance.


The Wikipedia community [Edit]
The Community Portal
Wikipedia department directory
Wikipedia quick directory

Community support

Teahouse - peer support for new editors
Harmonious editing club - keep the peace, peacefully
Kindness Campaign - spread kindness and recognition of users
Adopt-a-User - experienced editors can "adopt" newer editors, helping to mentor them along the way as they learn about Wikipedia
Welcoming committee
Editor assistance
User pages
How to report a bug
Mailing lists
In-person meetings
Wikipedians
Local Embassy – find a user that speaks your language
Babel – Another way to find multi-lingual Wikipedians
Surveys
Expressing thanks

Voting and consensus

Keeping informed: News

Community Portal – Bulletin board collaborations and updates – Wikipedia's hub of activity.
The Signpost – Wikipedia's newspaper
Wikipedia in the media
Wikipedia milestone announcements
Wikizine – news letter about the Wikimedia projects
Press releases
Stats
Milestones
Regional notice boards
Goings-on
Dashboard
Wikipedians: the people who contribute to Wikipedia
List of Wikipedians
WikiProjects: where people interested in specific topics work together
List of WikiProjects
WikiProjects category
Collaborations: Wikipedians focusing on one article for a set amount of time
List of collaborations
Wikipedia essays
User essays
Wikipedian humor
Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
Department of Fun
Wikipediholism
Unusual articles
Editcountitis: a condition that can be fatal
Wikipedian games
Barnstars
Awards programs

More about Wikipedia

The wider community

Meta – The site that organizes all Wikimedia projects.
Resources and lists [Edit]

List of wiki markup

Categories

General information
Resource Description
Wikipedia:Categorization Introduction to categorization.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) Discusses naming conventions for categories.
Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates Discusses the three different ways to group and organize articles.
WikiProject Categories-related pages
/uncategorized Taskforce page for categorizing and patrolling for uncategorized articles.
Category:Wikipedia categorization Category page listing our project pages.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories/Current subprojects WikiProject Categories subprojects.
Category:WikiProjects Category page containing list of WikiProjects and helpful resources.
Category:Category needed Category containing articles that need categorization.
Category:Uncategorized pages Category containing pages that need categorization.
Special:UncategorizedPages Special page for uncategorized pages.
Uncategorized Categories Special page for uncategorized categories.
Advanced resources
Wikimedia stats:Category Overview Index Dumps of the category tree.
Wikipedia:Database_reports#Categories Page containing generated reports about categories.
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion Where deletion, merging, and renaming of categories is discussed.
Miscellaneous
Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting Similar WikiProject for stubs.
Wikipedia:Contents Browse Wikipedia's contents.
Wikipedia:Contents/Overviews Browse Wikipedia's contents overviews.

Lists

Stubs

Infoboxes

Templates

Wikiprojects & article series

Shortcuts & "magic words"

Other resources

Administration

New user greetings

Essays

Account settings [Edit]
Technical information [Edit]