Wikipedia:Wikipedia guide

This is a general guide to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a project that was started in 2001, as a child of Nupedia.

Wikipedia and Its Relatives

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

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 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 - 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
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yourusername - This is a dead link because you must insert your user name

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

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.

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] - 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

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 - A list of Wikipedians by self-identified cultural orientation; you must insert yourself to be on this list

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 - The general Wikipedia listserv for the comprehensive project
WikiEn-L - The general Wikipedia listserv for the English-language version only
Wikipedia:Mailing lists - The above two mailing lists plus several others