Read
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
. 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 top 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, 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.
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 should seek help at the
Teahouse
if they're having problems editing Wikipedia.
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 toward 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
Setting Wikipedia time to your time zone
Wikipedia's servers record activity based on
Coordinated Universal Time
(UTC for short).
You can set your user preferences to display time for the time zone you are in
.
If you do this, Wikipedia will show all times in
Recent changes
, page histories, and contribution histories based on your local time zone. However, when you sign a
talk page
with ~~~~, the timestamp is created in text, so it has to be displayed in UTC. Automated logs such as
image file uploads
are also shown in server time (UTC).
To show other users what time zone you are in, you could even add a
time userbox
to your own user page.
To add this auto-updating daily tip to your user page, use
{{
totd
}}