Wikipedia:FAQ/Contributing

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

See also the Wikipedia:Editing FAQ for the nuts and bolts of editing pages.

Overview

Getting started
Terminology
General
Links: External and International
Copyrights

Getting started

How can I contribute?

By editing pages, creating new pages, publicizing Wikipedia, and many other ways.

Why would I want to contribute?

See why on Earth would I want to contribute to a wiki, and why Wikipedia is so great.

Do I have to register to edit pages?

No. Anyone can edit without any kind of registration.

What's the point of getting a user ID?

Visit the special:Userlogin page to create your user ID. Practical reasons for doing this:

It allows you to set and save Wikipedia preferences.
It credits you in the article history, as well as on the Recent Changes page, with changes you make.
You get a personal Wikipedia page in the User: namespace. You can use this as a spot to tell people about yourself, list the articles you've worked on, or your personal sandbox for Wikipedia work.

Finally, it is much easier for your fellow Wikipedians to interact with you if you have a name. Changes made by IP numbers must be checked for vandalism -- having recognisable names on the Recent Changes list means we all save time.

Once you have an ID, you are invited to add yourself to the list of Wikipedians.

Do I have to use my real name?

Real names are not required; many Wikipedians use pseudonyms.

How do I change my username?

The only way is to create a new user account.

Terminology

See also Wikipedia:Glossary

What's the difference between a page and an article?

The term "page" encompasses all the material on Wikipedia, including encyclopedia topics, talk pages, documentation, and special pages such as Recent Changes. "Article" is a narrower term refering to a page containing an encyclopedia entry. Thus, all articles are pages, but not all pages are articles. See Wikipedia:What is an article for more.

What is an orphan?

An orphan is an article that no other article links to. These can still be found by searching the Wikipedia, but it is preferable to find another article where a link can be added. You can find a list of orphan articles here.

What is a stub?

A stub on Wikipedia is a very short article, generally of one paragraph or less. Most people hate stubs, even though they are a probably a necessary evil. Many excellent articles started out as short stubs. Existing stubs should be expanded into proper articles: there is a hand-made list at Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub, and a generated list at special:Shortpages. If you want to write a stub article, there are some helpful suggestions on Wikipedia:The perfect stub article

What is disambiguation?

See Wikipedia:Disambiguation.

What is a minor edit? When should I use it?

When editing a page, one has the option of flagging the edit as a "minor edit". When to use this is somewhat a matter of personal preference. The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that is spelling corrections, formatting, and simple rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit". A major edit is basically something that makes the entry worth relooking at--either through substantial additions or reorganisation--or fixes a major error

General

Where do I find more information beyond this FAQ?'

Huge list at Wikipedia:Utilities.

Are there any rules or guidelines I should be aware of?

See Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. That includes:

standard forms for page names: Wikipedia:Naming conventions
dealing with different things with the same name: Wikipedia:Disambiguation

Are there any standard formats, for things like dates for example?

See the Wikipedia:Manual of Style

What do I do if I find two articles on the same subject in the Wikipedia?

Well, you could merge them yourself if you are feeling bold. Pick the most suitable page name (which may not necessarily be one of the existing ones!). If you're not sure which name to use, or whether the two articles should really be merged, mention it on the talk page of one of them (and put a quick note with a link on the talk page of the other), and see what other Wikipedians think. You can also make a mention of the problem on the list of Wikipedia:Duplicate articles.

Can we debate or talk about the subjects here?

This is an encyclopedia that strives to present subjects from the neutral point of view. Debate intended to convince someone else of your point of view on a certain subject may take place on Meta-Wikipedia. Discussion intended to improve articles is welcome here, however; it takes place in the Talk: pages attached to every article.

I've found vandalism, or I've damaged a page by mistake! How can I restore it?

Click on the "Older versions" link. Find the last good version of the page (it helps to use a browser with multiple tabs). Edit this old version (you'll get a warning that you're editing an old version at the top of the edit box). Save this text -- it will become the new current version.

Which languages can I use?

On the English Wikipedia, English! We have also set up Wikipedias in many other languages; see Wikipedia:International Wikipedia for more details, but please note that the information needs to be updated. If your language is not active yet, and you would like to change that, please sign up for the Intlwiki-L mailing list and make your desire known.

American English, I presume, not British English?

Why presume that? People are writing in all sorts of English. This isn't necessarily a bad situation, either. Of course, the Americans aren't going to adjust their usage for the British, and God knows the British won't adjust theirs for the Americans. :-)

How do I spell-check a page?

A spell checker has been requested for Wikipedia, but has not been implemented yet. When editing a larger article, it is in any event much more convenient to paste the text into your favorite text editor or word processor first, edit and spell check there, and then paste back into your browser to preview.

There is a list of common misspellings, which you can use to check if a listed misspelling is on any page in the database. Unlike a spell checker, an unrecognized word is considered correct.

Why are some links red? What are the ? links?

They both indicate that a page with that name has not yet been started. Which one you see depends on your Special:Preferences. If you have "Highlight links to empty topics" checked, you'll see red links. Otherwise, you get the little blue question marks.

Either way, you can click on that link and start a page with that name. But be careful -- there may already be articles on similar topics, or an article on the same topic under a different name. It's pretty important to hunt around for similar topics first. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions for information on naming pages.

Ok, what about the green links?

Those are external links; i.e. those that link to pages outside Wikipedia.

What happens when two users edit a page at the same time?

This is called an "edit conflict". You'll get a conflict screen that displays both versions in separate windows, along with a summary highlighting the differences, and instructions on how you should proceed. It's virtually impossible to lose any data. The Wikipedia software developers have suggested that there may be a more advanced system that automagically merges in the future.

How do I learn about changes to certain topics without having to go there from time to time?

If you are a logged-in user, on every page you will see a link that says "Watch this article". If you click on it, the article will be added to your personal watchlist. You watchlist will show you the latest changes on your watched articles.

One of the contributors is being unreasonable. Help!

See Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot.

Links: External and International

Is translating pages from other Wikipedias that have more information than ours a good way to add to the project in general?

Yes, it's a good idea to cross-pollinate.

What about using machine translation?

Machine translation is useful for obtaining the general idea of a text in an unfamiliar language, but it produces poor translations and should not be used on its own. If you want to use machine translation as a translation aid and intend to edit the result, please go ahead if you think it would be helpful.

How can I tell if an article exists in another language wikipedia?

We try and build links between different language pages -- that's one way of seeing if an article exists elsewhere. If you don't see the language links at the top of a page, go looking for the corresponding article(s) on foreign wikipedias. If you find them, make a link both ways; if not, you can translate. Bear in mind that article may not be in one-to-one correspondance between Wikipedias. See:

Is it OK to link to other sites, as long as the material is not copied onto Wikipedia?

External links are just fine. Arguably, they increase the usability of Wikipedia. Keep in mind, however, that Wikipedia is not a web directory; external links should support the content of the article, not replace it. The current convention is to place external links in a separate section at the bottom of the article. However, sometimes they are placed within the article as a footnote. See Wikipedia:How does one edit a page for different ways to create external links.

How do I link from book articles to the online text at Project Gutenberg?

See Wilfred Owen for an example. Further discussion: Wikipedia:WikiBiblion, Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources.

Copyrights

I have, or can get, special permission to copy an image or article to Wikipedia. Is it OK to do that?

The text and images of Wikipedia are covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. Unless an item is covered by the same or a similar license, or is in the public domain, it cannot be used on Wikipedia. So you have to ask the copyright holder of the material to license it under GFDL.

I have an out-of-copyright image (or text) that is reproduced in an in-copyright book. Can I scan / type it into Wikipedia?

Providing they haven't altered the image then they can't claim a copyright on it. If it was in the public domain before they used it, it's still in the public domain afterward.

Does using a GIF image in Wikipedia violate the GFDL because of its patent?

The LZW compression algorithm used with the GIF format is patented. It is nevertheless legally permissable to produce gif's and release them under GFDL, just like it is legal to produce a CD-ROM with GFDL material even though the CD-ROM format is patented. People who write or use gif creation programs are bound by the patent. That is why free software generally does not support the format anymore. However, we encourage Wikipedians to use the technically superior and patent-free PNG format instead of GIF.

Miscellaneous

Wikipedia is great but I no longer have a life. I feel the urge to spread this affliction to my fellow human beings. How do I spread the word?

See Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership