Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome to Wikipedia
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Welcome to Wikipedia...Welcome aboard! We're glad you wish to help develop Wikipedia, and hope you enjoy participating in its community as much as we do. As a new contributor however, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of this project... but don't worry, it will become easier and clearer as you go, and if you have any problems, there will always be other Wikipedians happy to help. There are some resources set forth below to help you get started. Good luck and have fun! -- The Wikipedia Welcoming Committee
If you do get stuck, the following people have volunteered to give you a helping hand learning the ropes:
Even more volunteers are standing by to answer your questions on the following pages. You can usually expect an answer quickly, often within just a few minutes: We also have an intuitive guide to Wikipedia if you would like to know a bit about how things are done. Finding your way aroundTo understand Wikipedia, it is easiest to think of this website as having two types of pages: pages that are part of the encyclopedia itself, and pages of the community (used by contributors to help build and operate the encyclopedia). To find your way around the encyclopedia, either enter a term into the search box on the left side of the screen, or go to Wikipedia's table of contents. Wikipedia's community pages include instructions, help pages, policies, guidelines, discussion forums, places to make requests, pages to report problems, and user pages. These are all pages which we use to develop the encyclopedia and to communicate with each other in that mission. Some directories to help you find your way around the community are:
Tip of the dayYou 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 Wikpedia'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. Read more: InterWiki Our "Rules"
Be sure to read the above pages! They are very important, and they will help you — even if you're not perfect the If you need help...If you've made a mistake and wish to undo it, revert it. Here's how: click history at the top of the page you made the mistake on. Then click on undo at the end of the first line which is your edit. Then save page. See more detailed instructions at Wikipedia:Reversion. There are two main styles of help on Wikipedia: self-help and assistance... Self-help involves reading the help and instruction pages around Wikipedia. Some very informative self-help pages are: For when you get stuck, confused, or befuddled, assistance is available on Wikipedia's "desk" and "request" pages - use these when self-help hasn't provided you with an answer:
Almost anyone on these lists will help you as well: |
