Wikipedia:Tips

Wikipedia's tips library

Welcome!

Here you can digest how to use Wikipedia in bite-sized morsels. The tips listed below were created for the Tip of the day project, or the Styletips project, but are listed here by title and organized by subject area for your convenience.

See also the Tip of the day talk page where most of the tips are written. Feel free to join in!

Tip of the day...

Mediation

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.

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Tips about Wikipedia as a whole

Wikipedia in brief

How popular is Wikipedia?

Do not believe everything you read

How reliable is Wikipedia?

What the world knows about us

How does Wikipedia stack up?

Advice for parents

Wikipedia etiquette = Wikiquette

Copyrights? Copyleft

Welcome to Wikipedia!

"Where do I begin?"

Help Wikipedia help you

The Wikipedia Adventure!

Flashback to Wikipedia's past

Spreading the WikiLove

Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia

What did they say?

How to use Wikipedia offline: xowa

Tips on accessing Wikipedia pages

Explore Wikipedia's contents

Digital audio support

Spoken Wikipedia

Screen readers for accessibility

Wikipedia for your mobile...

Mobile view sidebar from the desktop

Browsing Mobile Wikipedia on your big screen

Editing articles for web accessibility

Souping up your Smartphone editing of Wikipedia

Finding your way around Wikipedia and beyond

Introduction to navigating Wikipedia

Wikipedia's Quick directory

To see everything on Wikipedia about a subject area...

The Wikipedia Curriculum

Wikipedia has 34 sections, called namespaces

Namespace entry points

How to see a list of the pages in a namespace

Wikipedia's alphabetical index of articles

When to use subpages

Getting a subpage listing

How to get a list of a page's subpages

Wiki-exploration: beyond Wikipedia...

Wikimedia links and shortcuts

Linking to non-Wikimedia wikis

Wikipedia Database reports

Cannot find what you are looking for?

Tips on searching

How to easily recall a username

Wikipedia industrial-powered search

Highlight text on any website, then search Wikipedia for it with a single click

Power search Wikipedia using AutoWikiBrowser

Searching Wikipedia with regular expressions (regex)

Search Wikipedia from any website

Using Wikipedia's search box:

Wikipedia Search box - basic

Wikipedia Search box - advanced

Jump to the search box ⇧ Shift+Alt+F

To search a specific namespace, include the prefix in searches

Title searches

Searching Wikipedia with Google:

How to search Wikipedia with Google

How to provide a Google search in a link

Wikipedia-specific searching with Google

When and how to exclude Wikipedia from your Google search

Another way to search Wikipedia with Google

Firefox search tips:

Wikipedia-specific searching within Firefox

Wikipedia Search Box for Firefox

Tips on bookmarking, creating access points, etc.

Wikipedia toolbar for Firefox

Back to contents

Getting help

Help for new contributors

Where to look for help

Go to the right desk

Ask for help at Wikipedia's Help Desk

Stop by the Reference Desk

A comprehensive index for editors

Getting real-time help via IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

Come visit the Teahouse

Visit the Village Pump for technical issues

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Ask intelligent questions

Keep track of your questions

Wikipedia's Manual of Style

How to catch admin attention fast

How to request help on your Talk page

Where to post requests

Please return the favor

Tips for contributors on getting started

Create a user account

Why create an account?

The five pillars

A plain & simple introduction

A self-guided tutorial

Please read department instructions

Where to begin?

Use the Article Wizard to easily create new articles

Articles for Creation (AFC) process

Avoiding common mistakes

How to improve Wikipedia's reliability

Speed up your learning curve...

Are you lost?

Now what? (Are you lost, and do not know what to do?)

What is a Talk page?

Article construction stages

Article development

Article quality assessments

Accuracy, quality and peer review

Good article nominations

Tips on working with articles

Be neutral, like Wikipedia

Be neutral when editing Wikipedia

Look before you leap

What writing style to use

No copies of primary sources

Not everything that is true is verifiable

Avoid trademarks

Avoid using neologisms

Preventing markup glitches

How to start a new article

How to create a new page

Article deletion process

Tagging pages for problems

Find articles for cleanup

Copyright Cleanup

CopyPatrol tool

Basic copyediting

SuggestBot is a fun way to pick pages to edit

What is BRD? the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

The three revert rule

List the things to do for an article

Where did that fact come from?

Fixing bare URLs to prevent link rot

Do not use forums or emails as sources

Forums and emails are not acceptable sources

If you have privileged access to web pages...

Citation Requests

Acronyms and initialisms

S.W.A.T., T.I.M, & the U.S.D.A

How do you pronounce that?

Link to Wiktionary word definitions using Wikt:

Introduction to tables

How to make a table on a page

Pretty tables

Using Math

Footnotes

Please fill in edit summaries

Please summarize your work using the Edit summary box

Abbreviating edit summaries

Automatic edit summary reminder

Spell Checkers

Fix double redirects

Collaborations

Tips on working with specific types of pages

Biographies

Biography articles needing attention

Portals

Difference between wikiprojects and portals?

Subject bar template

Working on the Main Page

Main page - Did you know

List tips

General topics lists

The topic list

Why have lists when there are categories?

List building

Alphabetical list of articles

Disambiguation page tips

Same titles, different meanings

Formatting disambiguation pages

Tips on working with images

Image processing tools

Graphics Lab

How to find legal photographs and graphics

Permission requests

Where to upload images and media files

Uploading Free Images

Tag your image uploads

Cite the source on all image uploads

Where on the page to put images

How to insert a picture into an article

How to add a picture to an article

Captions

Brilliant pictures

Boilerplate/template tips

How to create reusable boilerplate

What are templates used for?

Using templates

Placing templates

Displaying one page within another = Transclusion

How to transclude a page into the page you are editing

Transclusion caveat

Transclusion vs. Substitution

Pick from a list of template parameter choices

User page tips

Your user page

Are you jealous of others' user pages? (WP:UPDG)

Calendar date display for your user pages

Displaying Tip of the day on your user page

Displaying tips on your user page

Motto of the day...

Your very own Wikipedia bookmark page

User Sub Pages

Userboxes

Back to contents

Other ways to contribute

Help reduce the Wikipedia backlog

Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement

Translating content

Join a WikiProject

When is a Wikipedia project a WikiProject?

Welcoming Committee

Wikipedia needs pictures. How you can help...

Wikipedia banners and buttons

How to help prepare the Main page

Giving editor awards

Help test the MediaWiki software

Running MediaWiki on your own computer

Becoming an Administrator

Writing articles for The Signpost

Communicating with other editors

Be forgiving to new users

Love thy neighbor

Talking to Wikipedians

Explaining Wiki markup to other users

How to send a message to other editors

How to fix unsigned comments

Thanks - send a notification

Guestbooks

Screenshots

Posting on the Wikipedia Community Bulletin Board

How to catch admin attention fast

Try to see it my way!

The fastest way to end a conflict: walk away

Report problems on noticeboards

In conflicts, reach consensus

Mediation

Centralizing project discussion

Wikimedia-wide issues

Wikimedia has mailing lists

Back to contents

Watchdogging (monitoring) Wikipedia

Use your watchlist

How to make your watchlist easier to read

How to watch for pages that do not exist yet

Preview tomorrow's Featured Article

Join the Recent Changes Patrol

How to enhance Recent changes

What is Page curation?

Intruder alert! Intruder alert! (Vandalism-level warning)

Join the fight against vandalism

Configuring and customizing your account

How to change your username

Customize appearance of dates

Setting Wikipedia time to your time zone

Super-customize your account with gadgets

Troubleshooting Wikipedia's look and feel with skins

How to adjust the height of your edit window

How to enhance Recent changes

Upgrade Recent Changes in my preferences

User scripts

User scripts examples

Prove it with ProveIt

Install your first javascript

Tips on working faster

Speed up your learning curve...

Automating tasks on Wikipedia

Automatic page loader

The semi-automated article peer-reviewer

What are dummy edits good for?

Breaking the 500-edit limit in "View History"

Making the editbox more visually pleasing

Shortcut for minor edit box

Supercharge your browser

Toolbar links to access the WP pages you use the most

Article banner templates

Templates for Age and Dates

Archives for lengthy pages

Search box bookmarklet for your browser

Wikipedia search box focus

Are your hands full? (Use search box as a small but convenient clipboard)

Shortcuts

Shortcuts

Navigate faster using Wikipedia shortcuts

Work faster with keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts

Navigation

Use your browser's toolbar to navigate Wikipedia

Your customizable Wikipedia navigation hub

Navigation popups

Power tool: Navigation Popups

Become clairvoyant with Navigation Popups

How to skip scrolling and clicking

How to turn links to disambiguation pages orange so you can see them

How to turn redirects green

Back to contents

MetaTips

Wikipedia's dozen most essential tips

Wikipedia's top ten essential tips

Wikipedia's top ten power tips

Wikipedia's ten most powerful tips

Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other

These need sorting into the above categories

Be sure to check for duplication - do not include them if they are already there!
Note: this section is currently empty.

Tip of the moment...

How to add an article to a category

Wikipedia has index pages called Categories, in which links to articles are provided based on category tags included in each article.

To add an article to a particular category, add [[Category:Category name]] to the article's text (preferably at the bottom). The assigned category should now show up at the bottom of the article, and a link to the page should show up on the indicated category page in Wikipedia's category system. If the category shows up as a blue link it is an active category; if the link shows up red then the category has yet to be created. Click on the red link to create the category page.

Prior tip – Tips library – Next tip

Tips about Wikipedia as a whole

Tips on accessing Wikipedia pages

Finding your way around Wikipedia and beyond

Tips on searching

Tips on bookmarking, creating access points, etc.

Getting help

Tips for contributors on getting started

Tips on working with articles

Tips on editing

Style tips

Tips on creating and editing links

Category tips

Tips on working with specific types of pages

List tips

Disambiguation page tips

Tips on working with images

Boilerplate/template tips

User page tips

Other ways to contribute

Communicating with other editors

Watchdogging (monitoring) Wikipedia

Configuring and customizing your account

Tips on working faster

MetaTips

These need sorting into the above categories

See also