Wikipedia:Wikipedia guide

Wikipedia and Its Relatives Wikipedia and its relatives (you must log in separately for each one) are:

• Wikipedia - the user-built, online encyclopedia
• Wiktionary [1] (http://www.wiktionary.org/) - the user-built, online dictionary
• Meta-Wikipedia [2] (http://meta.wikipedia.org/) - A place for more in-depth discussion and argumentation

Each Wikipedia and Wiktionary entry has its own talk page. If the page is empty, then it's only because nobody has entered anything yet.

New Users New users should check out these resources:

• Wikipedia:About - A general guide to Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers - A general guide for newbies
• Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines - A general guide to policy
• Login (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=Special:Userlogon) - You can not only log in here, you can register for the first time
• User Preferences - Where you can set your preferences after registering, including your "skin", or how you want your Wikipedia formatted on your monitor screen
• /wiki/User:Yourusername - This is a dead link because you must insert your user name

Editing

• Sandbox - You can experiment with article editing in an environment that's not intrusive to Wikipedia articles
• Wikipedia help - A general list of helpful topics
• Editing Help - Lots of editing help, including info on markup, symbols, formatting, and so forth
• Wikipedia:Guide to Layout - A layout guide to writing Wikipedia articles
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style - A style guide to writing Wikipedia articles
• Wikipedia:Talk page - How to use the talk pages

What's Been Done Lately You can see recent changes via three principle avenues:

• Recent Changes - Gives the full list of the most recent changes
• New Pages - Just gives a list of the most recently- initiated pages
• My watchlist - Once you're registered, you can maintain a list of articles that you want to keep an eye on. Either click on the link on the page, or allow it to stay checked when editing a page.

Discussion and Procedure You can argue about how it's all done via these avenues:

• Wikipedia:Village Pump - A place to ask questions about it all.
• Meta-Wikipedia [3] (http://meta.wikipedia.org/) - A place for more in-depth discussion and argumentation
• Wikipedia:Announcements - A place to make announcements
• Wikipedia:FAQ - An archive of Wikipedia FAQs (Frequently-Asked Questions) and their answers
• Wikipedia:Reference desk - NOT for asking questions about Wikipedia, but for asking general reference questions that Wikipedia hasn't answered for you

The Wikipedian Community

• Wikipedia:Wikipedians - A list of Wikipedians; you must insert yourself to be on it; you may also list yourself by specific location
• Wikipedians/History - A list of Wikipedians by when they began; you must insert yourself to be on this list, too
• Wikipedians by number of edits - A list of Wikipedians who have made the most edits; you can't insert yourself
• Wikipedia:Wikipedians by fields of interest - A list of Wikipedians by what they're interested in; you must insert yourself to be on this list
• Wikipedians categorized by sub-cultural affiliation (http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_categorized_by_sub-cultural_affiliation) - A list of Wikipedians by self-identified cultural orientation; you must insert yourself to be on this list

Wikipedian Communication

• Wikipedia:Instant Messaging Wikipedians - A clearinghouse for instant messaging
• Wikipedia:IRC channel - For Wikipedians who want to use the Internet Relay Chat network
• Wikipedia-L (/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l) - The general Wikipedia listserv for the comprehensive project
• WikiEn-L (/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l) - The general Wikipedia listserv for the English-language version only
• Wikipedia:Mailing lists - The above two mailing lists plus several others