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or
find
an article
The
Readers' FAQ
and our
about page
contain the most commonly sought information about Wikipedia.
For simple searches, there is a search box at the top of every page. Type what you are looking for in the box. Partial matches will appear in a dropdown list. Select any page in the list to go to that page. Or, select the magnifying glass "Go" button, or press
? Enter
, to go to a full search result. For advanced searches, see
Help:Searching
.
There are other ways to browse and explore Wikipedia articles; many can be found at
Wikipedia:Contents
. Also see our
disclaimer
for cautions about Wikipedia's limitations.
For
mobile access
, press the
mobile view
link at the very bottom of every
desktop view
page.
Edit
an article
Contributing is easy: see
how to edit a page
. For a quick summary on participating, see
contributing to Wikipedia
, and for a friendly tutorial, see
our introduction
. For a listing of introductions and tutorials by topic, see
getting started
. The
Simplified Manual of Style
and
Cheatsheet
can remind you of basic wiki markup.
Be?bold
in improving articles! When adding facts, please
provide references
so others may verify them. If you are affiliated with the article subject, please see our
conflict of interest guideline
.
The
simple guide to vandalism cleanup
can help you undo malicious edits.
If you're looking for places you can help out, the
Task Center
is the place to go, or check out what else is happening at the
community portal
. You can practice editing and experiment in
a
sandbox
your
sandbox
.
Report a problem
with an article
If there is a problem with an article about yourself, a family member, a friend or a colleague, please read
Biographies of living persons/Help
.
If you spot a problem with an article,
you
can fix it directly, by clicking on the "Edit" link at the beginning of that page.
See the "edit an article" section of this page for more information.
If you don't feel ready to fix the article yourself, please post a message on the article's
talk page
. This will bring the matter to the attention of others who work on that article. There is a "Talk" link at the beginning of
every
article page.
Alternatively you can
contact us
. If it's an article about you or your organization, see
Contact us ? Subjects
.
Create a new article
or
upload media
Check
Your first article
to see if your topic is appropriate, then the
Article wizard
will walk you through creating the article.
Once you have created an article, see
Writing better articles
for guidance on how to improve it and what to include (like reference
citations
).
For contributing images, audio or video files, see the
Introduction to uploading images
. Then the
Upload wizard
will guide you through that process.
Stuck?
Answers to common problems can be found at
frequently asked questions
.
Or check out
where to ask questions or make comments
.
New users having problems editing Wikipedia should ask at the
Teahouse
. More complex questions can be posed at the
Help desk
. Volunteers will respond as soon as they're able.
Or
ask for help on your talk page
and a volunteer will visit you there!
You can get live help with editing in the
help chatroom
.
For help with technical issues, ask at the
Village pump
.
Factual questions
If
searching Wikipedia
has not answered your question (
for example, questions like "Which country has the world's largest fishing fleet?"
), try the
Reference Desk
. Volunteers there will attempt to answer your questions on any topic, or point you towards the information you need.
Directories
- Directory
: main list of directories and indexes.
Help related
- Help directory
: for informative, instructional and consultation pages.
- Request directory
: for services and assistance that can be requested on Wikipedia.
Protocols and conventions
- Departments
: for the different divisions of Wikipedia.
- Editor's index
: for everything an editor needs to know to work on Wikipedia.
- Essay directory
: for Wikipedia namespace essays.
- Dashboard
: for current discussions taking place throughout Wikipedia.
- WikiProjects
: for people who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia.
MediaWiki software
- Wikitext
: for the syntax used by Wikipedia to format a page.
- HTML
: for HTML5 elements, or tags and their attribute.
- Templates
: for templates used within Wikipedia.
Tip
of the day
How to insert a picture into an article
The syntax used for displaying an image is:
[[File:{name}|{type}|{location}|{size}|{alt=}|{caption}]]
- Only
[[File:{name}]]
parameter is required.
- Do not put spaces between parameters. The other parameters are optional and can be placed in any order. Some infoboxes do not require the brackets. Keep parameters in lower case. The other parameters are:
- Type
- 'thumb' / 'thumbnail' or 'frame'. This causes image to be displayed with specific formatting. "thumb" is normally preferred.
- Location
- 'right', 'left', 'center' or 'none'. Determines placement of the image on the page. "Left" or "right" is the norm, but large
panoramas
or timelines can be displayed in the center.
- Size
- {width}px or {width}x{height}px (e.g. 50x40px, would limit width to 50
pixels
and height to 40 pixels). Normally only one variable is used. Use common sense when determining the sizes; you can use the "Show preview" button if you need to. If thumb or thumbnail is chosen, size should normally be left out, so that the size defaults to the size set in a user's
preferences
.
- alt=
- (keep it lower case). This is the "alternate image" parameter used to describe the image for
screenreaders
or for people with low-vision. It should be more descriptive than the caption alone. Do not use this for another copy of the caption or of the article title, as the reader will already be aware of these.
- Caption
- Any element which cannot be identified as one of the above is automatically treated as
caption
text. It is traditional to put this last. The caption should identify what the image is, and ideally be a complete sentence that adds to the article by pointing out something a casual reader would not have noticed otherwise, or add information the pertains to the image. Full sentence or multi fragment captions require
full stop punctuation
.
If you have created a picture that is not already in Wikipedia's image collection on the
Commons
that you want to include in an article, you will need to
upload it first
. Bonus tip: Similar formatting is used to insert basic audio or basic video clips into articles.
Read more (includes examples):
To add this auto-updating daily tip to your user page, use
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