Nostalgia is a link to what Wikipedia looked like back in 2001 when we had only 19,000 articles.
The English Wikipedia now has over 6,912,230 articles. (purge server to refresh number). The five-millionth article, Persoonia terminalis, about a rare shrub, was written by an editor in Australia just after midnight on November 1, 2015.
To view an archived version of Wikipedia between 2001 and now, see the Wayback Machine.
Noticeboards are for reporting problems that editors encounter while writing or while maintaining Wikipedia articles. Noticeboards are monitored by volunteer administrators and by experienced editors.
For a list of noticeboards, see Template:Noticeboard links.
Noticeboards are best used for simple or urgent matters. Posting a message to a noticeboard can also be an appropriate early step in resolving disputes on Wikipedia.
If the issue is sensitive or confidential please use the Wikipedia private email system available to logged in users.
Sometimes it is useful to look up a topic in the same way you would look it up in a paper book—using an index. Perhaps you are unsure of the precise name of what you are looking for, or maybe you are interested in a word root which has many applications, such as "self-". Or maybe you would just like to browse the index.
Wikipedia has an index of all of its articles. Here are 3 ways of accessing it:
You can place these links on your user page or talk page (or both) for convenient access.
There are many tasks that need to be done to maintain Wikipedia, from fixing typos, to adding citations, to finding archived versions of dead external links—and many many more.
There is a tremendous backlog on all the types of improvements, which can be found on Wikipedia's backlog page.
Please help!
Internal links work for linking to other wikis, and bypasses the need to paste in URLs (which tend to be both long and cryptic and make source text harder to read). This also avoids the appearance of the external link arrow ( 
).
Here are the prefixes and shortcuts for creating links to Wikipedia's sister projects:
| Project | Example | Shortcut | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
[[wikibooks:]]
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wikibooks: | [[b:]]
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b: |
[[commons:]]
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commons: | [[c:]]
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c: |
[[wikidata:]]
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wikidata: | [[d:]]
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d: |
[[meta:]]
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meta: | [[m:]]
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m: |
[[wikinews:]]
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wikinews: | [[n:]]
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n: |
[[phabricator:]]
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phabricator: | [[phab:]]
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phab: |
[[wikiquote:]]
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wikiquote: | [[q:]]
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q: |
[[wikisource:]]
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wikisource: | [[s:]]
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s: |
[[wikispecies:]]
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wikispecies: | [[species:]]
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species: |
[[wikiversity:]]
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wikiversity: | [[v:]]
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v: |
[[wikivoyage:]]
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wikivoyage: | [[voy:]]
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voy: |
[[wikipedia:]]
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[[wikipedia:]] | [[w:]]
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w: |
[[wiktionary:]]
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wiktionary: | [[wikt:]]
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wikt: |
The long form does not work within the same project. The shortcut works everywhere.
Links to foreign-language Wikiprojects can be made by prefixing the language code: [[:de:s:]] will link to the German-language Wikisource, [[:fr:wikt:]] to the French-language Wiktionary, etc. You can use piped links ( "|" ) to avoid seeing the colons in the link.
It is good Wikiquette to sign your messages on talk pages. This is done by typing ~~~~ (four tildes). Do not sign article pages.
Some users have fancy signatures with lots of colors and links. Here are 3 different ways to do that:
- Edit directly in the signature box
- Go to your Preferences and type some wiki-markup code (and/or HTML markup code) into the signature box to augment your stock signature
- Check the box that says "Treat the above as Wiki markup"
- Press the "Save" button. Or...
- Use an HTML editor
- Open an HTML editor (e.g. Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression Web)
- Design how you want your signature to look, putting links in it by adding brackets [[ ]]
- Select it and click the HTML tab and copy the code of your text into the signature box mentioned above.
- Be sure not to copy the tags at the beginning and end of the code that say <p> </p>. Or...
- Adapt someone else's signature
- Find a signature you like
- Click edit this page
- Copy and paste the signature into your signature box (see #1 above), but change all the links to your links: you do not want your signature leading to someone else's user page!
Do not use images, templates, or external links in your signature. Please ensure your custom signature complies with the relevant guideline. Use special code for displayed pipe character.
Wikipedia strives to be neutral (NPOV). Remember, you have a point of view (POV). Think about whether your edits will breach this. If you think other users will think it is POV (Wikijargon for "biased"), then run it past other editors using the talk page for the article. This will allow for constructive debate and editing rather than an edit war.
You know normal links—they look [[like this]]. But did you know that you can use normal links to pages on any other wiki? This is called InterWiki linking, and applies to all wikis, not just Wikipedia's sister projects. You can link to a page on MeatballWiki by typing [[MeatBall:PageName]], for example. See Interwiki map.
However, links to Wikipedias in other languages are done a little differently. You can link to these by typing, for example, [[:de:Hauptseite]] (replace "de" with language prefix). The colon at the beginning prevents the link from becoming an interlanguage link, which shows up in the left sidebar.
To hide the prefix from the link, use the pipe trick.
Bonus tip: the same basic syntax works in the search box. ( Try typing in Meatball: )
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that explains millions of things about the world, the people and things on it, and beyond. There are 2 ways to look things up in Wikipedia: by searching or by browsing...
If you know the name of the topic you are looking for, simply type it into Wikipedia's search box, press ↵ Enter, or click on the magnifying glass.
If you would like to look around Wikipedia to see what is on it, keep in mind that many major subjects have a root article on the Portal:Contents/Overviews page, and an outline listed at Portal:Contents/Outlines.
There are some other "Tables of Contents" type pages on Wikipedia. They are:
- Portal:Contents/Portals – portals provide a digest of excerpts and things to do
- Portal:Contents/Lists – item lists like List of dog breeds
- Portal:Contents/Glossaries – alphabetized lists of definitions
Wikipedia also has an alphabetical index of all of its articles, and a categorical index of most of them.
Web accessibility is the goal of making web pages easier to navigate and read. While this is primarily intended to assist those with disabilities, it can be helpful to all readers.
While editing articles, keep in mind the goal of making Wikipedia web accessible. All users, regardless of ability, should be able to read, navigate, and contribute to Wikipedia easily.
The Accessibility section of Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MOS) is a valuable resource that provides helpful guidelines. In addition, Accessibility dos and do nots is a quick summary of the most important guidelines for editors.
WikiProject Accessibility is a group of editors promoting better access for disabled and other users. For more information, such as what you can do to help, see the main project page.
The outline of academic disciplines is an overview of and topical guide to academic branches of knowledge. The outline presents the major fields of study you might find in a college course catalog.
Whether an editor collaborates with a team of editors on a WikiProject or is improving articles independently, an editor can give a Wikipedia award (often a barnstar) to another deserving editor.
Editors may reward vigorous Wikipedia contributors for their hard work and due diligence by awarding them a fitting barnstar, or other award. In addition to these virtual awards, editors may nominate someone to receive a gift in the mail from the Wikimedia Foundation.
A list of barnstar awards is available at Barnstar award templates.
There is an ongoing effort to create a number of Wikipedia articles that can be listened to instead of read. Many users can greatly benefit from this feature and there is a constant need for contributors.
See Spoken articles for the current list of completed articles. This is a hidden category and is not shown unless the corresponding user preference 'Show hidden categories' is set. Do not include this category in article content categories.
When there is a dispute over content for which there seems to be no end in sight, it may be time for mediation.
But mediation should be a last resort. So, if after you have tried getting a Third opinion or making a Request for comment, and the problem is still deadlocked, it may be time to check in with Dispute resolution requests. The Dispute resolution guide offers general advice.
Wikipedia is part of the Wikimedia family. To explore other wikis, see Wikimedia's InterWiki map. Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects:
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Commons
Free media repository -
MediaWiki
Wiki software development -
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia project coordination -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Sometimes, a desired topic link goes to a disambiguation page instead. This tip lets you spot them without having to click on them first, so you can more easily help fix them.
In preferences under the gadgets tab, check the box next to "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange", and then click the save button at the bottom of the page.
When creating articles on forums, fansites, or other webpages, remember that Wikipedia has two notability requirements for these types of articles. These requirements are:
- The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself
- The website or content has won a well known and independent award
While a particular website need not meet both of these requirements, it should meet at least one of them.
Here is an example of a link which activates a Google search: Tip of the day, on Wikipedia
It was built using this wikilink:
[[google:"Tip of the day"+site:en.wikipedia.org|Tip of the day, on Wikipedia]]
Sometimes it is useful to place a link to a Google search directly in a discussion. You can also use links to predefine an entire search session, and then use a tool like WP:LINKY to open the searches all at once into separate web browser tabs.
Many users like to create user subpages to store various bits of information such as welcome templates or other information. For example, if you are drafting a new page that is not ready to "go live", or proposing major changes in redrafting an existing page, a user subpage may be very useful.
To create a subpage simply visit your User page and then append the name of the subpage in your browser's URL bar. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CoolDude would become http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CoolDude/MySubpageName. When you press the ↵ Enter key you will be prompted to create the new subpage.
If you no longer need a subpage, or wish to have it deleted, you can mark the page with {{db-owner}} or {{db|reason}}.
Sometimes, it might be useful to look up a subject in the same way you would do so in a book—in the index. Wikipedia has an index. To use it—it is available at the editor's index to Wikipedia.
Although it is called an "editor's index", it is really intended to be an index for anyone involved with Wikipedia in other than the role of a reader. Most of the topics are directly relevant to editing of articles, but some topics are less directly relevant to editing.
As a new editor you may be wondering, "How can I help?" and be overwhelmed by the extent and scope of the entire Wikipedia project.
An introduction for new contributors is available at Help:Getting started which provides a self-guided road map of tutorials, introductions, training topics and other resources allowing you to learn more about how you can help improve the Wikipedia project.
Do you know the CC BY-SA/GFDL License inside-out, and have thousands of edits to your credit? Are all those copyright disclaimer warnings starting to bug you? Add this to your (pick one): vector.css (default), monobook.css, modern.css, minerva.css Skin (or add it to your common.css to hit all your skins):
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/* Remove to-me-useless notes in all edit boxes. leaves only the command buttons and special chars. */ |
Many editors often wonder how to request permission to use an image they found somewhere, or a section of text from another source. Try using one of the permission request templates created specifically for this purpose so that you do not have to fuss with all the details.
The lead section of a Wikipedia article is the section before the first heading. The table of contents, if displayed, generally appears between the lead section and the first subheading.
Rule of thumb: If a topic deserves a heading or subheading, then it deserves short mention in the lead.
The lead section should contain up to four paragraphs, depending on the length of the article, and should provide a preview of the main points the article will make, summarizing the primary reasons the subject matter is interesting or notable. The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, should be written in a clear and accessible style, should be carefully sourced like the rest of the text, and should encourage the reader to want to read more. The following table has some general guidelines for the length of the lead section:
| < 15,000 characters | medium size | > 30,000 characters |
|---|---|---|
| one or two paragraphs | two or three paragraphs | three or four paragraphs |
Frustrated by the comments, edits, and reverts of another user? Remember, behind that sig line is another human being, just like you! And just like you, that person wants to see his or her ideas come to life on Wikipedia.
If you feel yourself getting angry, hurt, or frustrated, explain yourself in a reasonable way and politely ask that others involved in the conversation do the same. But do not expect everyone to agree with you. Differences of background and opinion are part of what makes Wikipedia so great!
Do you have a list of possible choices for a template parameter? Use the #switch parser function to define the choices. Then simply enter the choice's numeric value into the template for the applicable parameter, e.g., 1="Sunday" 2="Monday" 3="Tuesday" ... Default choices also can be listed. For simplicity with lists, use a switch statement instead of a "nested if-then-else" conditional statement to control flow.
Our culture is full of fiction, entire fictional universes inhabited by millions of fictional characters. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that seeks to describe facts and opinions about reality. When writing about fiction, please be sure to establish the necessary context for the reader, so that it is clear that the article describes a fictional entity from a specific work. It is also often a good idea to combine many minor fictional characters or places into a single article about the fictional realm in question, especially when there is only a very limited amount that could be said about each of them.
To distinguish between pages that would otherwise have the exact same title, disambiguation is needed. Unless one meaning clearly dominates, the article should be replaced with a disambiguation page, e.g. Pan, which links to the different meanings with a qualifier in parentheses, e.g. Pan (mythology) vs. Pan (moon), or using a more specific natural name, e.g. cooking pan. If there is one dominant meaning, (cat), add a link to a disambiguation page—cat (disambiguation)—or to the secondary meaning if there is only one, on top of the article.
You probably know that Wikipedia's best articles become Featured Articles. But did you know that a similar process exists for images? Go to Featured Picture Candidates to help judge which images are both attractive and valuable to Wikipedia.
Of course, the best can be found on featured pictures. Many of these photos are taken by Wikipedians. If you are a photographer, you can add yourself to the list, or encourage others by nominating great photos you come across. Feel free to use featured pictures in your own works (according to the terms on the image description page).
Anyone can revert a page to fix vandalism. All revisions of a page back to the first one are stored in the page history. To revert to an earlier version, just select and copy the text from the history, open the article for editing, paste it back in, and save it. When not dealing with obvious vandalism, reverting often is a bad strategy. It alienates other users and provokes edit wars. Stay cool, talk to the user in question directly, or try to resolve issues on the article's Talk page.
Please do not revert the same page more than three times within 24-hours (the three-revert rule). Doing so can lead to a temporary ban against you. Administrators and Rollbackers have a handy rollback feature that allows them to instant-revert vandalism by going to a user's contributions page. To revert only the most recent edit there is an undo link on the article history page or on the article diff page.