 | This draft was merged with another draft by Jakec and has been improved by many others. It can now be found at Wikipedia:Five million articles, where all further edits should be made. |
Wikipedia has reached 5 million articles in English. But we're not done yet.
Out of 6,912,041 articles, 2,332,699 are currently stubs. Stubs are unsatisfactory articles; they are too short to provide an adequate encyclopedic coverage of their subjects. Some of them fail the core content policies of verifiability, neutral point of view, and no original research, and some of them cannot be improved.
However, the vast majority of stubs do have the potential to be improved. And you can help.
Wikipedia is a collaborative project to build an encyclopedia that is written by the people who use it. This means that anyone, regardless of background, can contribute to building the encyclopedia, including you. To celebrate the 5 millionth article, Wikipedia's community of editors invites you to join them.
If you find an article that is a stub, you can edit the article to make it more accurate and useful for everyone else. Wikipedia values boldness and the pursuit of consensus through discussion. Don't be afraid or disillusioned if your first contributions are undone—Wikipedia is a collaborative project, and that means that sometimes we get into disagreements. That's okay. Each page on Wikipedia has a talk page dedicated to discussing improvements, and each of your fellow editors has a talk page where you can contact them individually.
If you're new here, firstly: welcome! We sincerely hope you like it here and decide to stay. Below are some helpful links to get you started:
- Five pillars of Wikipedia — the fundamental principles which guide our decision-making
- Contributing to Wikipedia — a comprehensive outline of the basics of contributing
- The Wikipedia Adventure — an interactive tour that will help you engage in the basics of editing
If you get stuck, a variety of resources are available to assist you. The page Wikipedia:Questions lists locations where you can ask for help. The most valuable assets, however, are your fellow Wikipedians. If you have any questions about editing Wikipedia, Wikipedians at the Teahouse will be more than happy to provide answers.
If you have already been editing Wikipedia, thank you for your contributions!
Sincerely,
The Wikipedia community