Wikipedia:Editing FAQ

Overview FAQ -- Readers' FAQ -- Contributing FAQ -- Editing FAQ -- Administration FAQ -- Technical FAQ -- Problems FAQ -- Miscellaneous FAQ -- Help page

This FAQ answers the most common questions about editing Wikipedia. For full help on editing articles, see the Help page, and these help articles:

• How to edit a page
• How to start a new page.
• How to use talk pages, which are used to discuss how to improve articles.
• How to rename (move) a page.
• How to use redirect pages.
• How to revert a page to an earlier version.
• How to create page(s) for topics with several different definitions.
• How to link together Wikipedia articles in different languages.
• How to delete pages
• How to import articles

How do I edit a page?

It's quite simple. Simply click "Edit this page" on the bottom or the side of the page, and type away. See How to edit a page to learn about making links, using bold and italics, linking to images, and many other things...

But I have problems editing with my browser!

See Wikipedia:Browser notes.

How do I make links?

A link is just the name of the page surrounded by double square brackets. It's also possible to make the link display text that is different to the link:

[[page name]]

[[page name]]s -- suffix text will display as part of the link

[[page name|display name]] -- hide the page name and display something else (but use this sparingly, and never "click here"!)

[[page name (disambiguation)|]] -- the "pipe trick": the part in parentheses will not be displayed.

How do I rename a page?

Registered users can move a page; this moves the page content and edit history to a new title, and creates a redirecting page at the old title. This method is better than just copying the content by hand, as it preserves the article's history. Use the "Move this page" link. If you want to move a page, please click the "What links here" and fix the links to the page in question. See How to rename (move) a page.

How do I edit a redirect page?

The easiest way to edit the redirected page is to click on the link you see at the top of the page after being redirected: "redirected from ...". For example, if you try to go to the William Jefferson Clinton page, you are redirected to the Bill Clinton page. At the very top of that page, you will see a message: "(redirected from William Jefferson Clinton)", Click on the William Jefferson Clinton link, and you will edit the redirect page page. See How to use redirect pages.

How do I figure out how big an article is? See, the advice on when an article should be split is in term of kilobytes, so I'd like to be able to check so that I'm not leaving articles too long and too stubby.

Search results give the size, for example "Knot theory (3220 bytes)"

How do I determine what other users have changed in an article?

Wikipedia's software can produce a list of all the changes between two versions of an article (either between two consecutive versions, or between an old and the current version), laid out in two-columns side by side with changes highlighted (here's an example (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Editing_FAQ&diff=0&oldid=644424). From the Recent Changes page you can click the "diff" link; from an article page itself click "Page history", then "cur" or "last" to see changes.

How do I convert unicode characters to HTML special characters?

1. edit the article just like you do UTF-8'd wiki sites.

2. Then hit preview. You should get broken characters or mojibake but don't delete them because they enable to convert unicode characters.

3. With keeping broken characters, type articles. You probably want to copy the entire article before removing it then paste it after you get broken characters.

(see also Wikipedia:special characters, in particular the section CJK characters)

Q. How can I put pictures on my pages?

A. First, you need the right to publish the picture under the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that either you created the picture and therefore own the copyright, or it is in the public domain. If the picture is located on a server you control, you can refer to that image from your wiki page by simply including its URL, like this: http://my.webserver.com/image.png and it will be included. (Note it will only be linked, not displayed.) If instead you want to upload a picture to wikipedia.org, you can use special:upload as a logged-in user and once it is uploaded, you can refer to it in your wiki pages as above, by including its file name :[[image:NameOfImage.png|Alternate Text]].

See also Image use policy.

Q. How can I delete uploaded items ?

A. You cannot, but you can upload a new item with the same name, thereby replacing the old one.

Q. I can see several files in the upload-log with the label "delete" with the name of different users. How can this with the explanation that is impossible to delete files ?

A. You must have sysop status to delete an uploaded file. Jimbo Wales, the owner of this site's servers, gives sysop status at his discretion to users that have been around awhile.

Q. How do I describe images?

A. Click on the image to get the description page. Also, when you upload the file everything you put in the upload summary is placed into the image's description page. See :Image:Great Horned Owl.USFWS-thumb.jpg for an example of what goes onto one of these pages.

Overview FAQ -- Readers' FAQ -- Contributing FAQ -- Editing FAQ -- Administration FAQ -- Technical FAQ -- Problems FAQ -- Miscellaneous FAQ -- Help page