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Wikipedia:Tips

Wikipedia:Tips

icon Wikipedia's tips library


icon Welcome!

Here you can digest how to use Wikipedia, in bite-sized morsels. The tips listed below were created for the Tip of the day project, or the Styletips project, but are listed here by title and organized by subject area for your convenience.

See also the Tip of the day talk page where most of the tips are written. Feel free to join in!



Tip of the day...
Fix double redirects

A redirect is a special page that automatically causes the text of another page to be displayed in its place. A redirect that points to another redirect is called a double redirect. These pages are undesirable, because Wikipedia's MediaWiki software will not follow the second redirect, in order to prevent infinite loops. A self-redirect is an article that redirects to itself. These situations create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, waste server resources, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing.

Read more:
Become a Wikipedia tipster
To add this auto-updating template to your user page, use {{totd2}}



Tips about Wikipedia as a whole

Wikipedia in brief
How popular is Wikipedia?
Do not believe everything you read
How reliable is Wikipedia?
What the world knows about us
How does Wikipedia stack up?
Advice for parents
Wikipedia etiquette = Wikiquette
Copyrights? Copyleft
Welcome to Wikipedia!
"Where do I begin?"
Help Wikipedia help you
The Wikipedia Adventure!
Flashback to Wikipedia's past
Spreading the WikiLove
Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia
What did they say?
How to use Wikipedia offline: xowa

Tips on accessing Wikipedia pages

Explore Wikipedia's contents
Digital audio support
Spoken Wikipedia
Screen readers for accessibility
Wikipedia for your mobile...
Mobile view sidebar from the desktop
Browsing Mobile Wikipedia on your big screen
Editing articles for web accessibility
Souping up your Smartphone editing of Wikipedia

Finding your way around Wikipedia and beyond

Introduction to navigating Wikipedia
Wikipedia's Quick directory
To see everything on Wikipedia about a subject area...
The Wikipedia Curriculum
Wikipedia has 34 sections, called namespaces
Namespace entry points
How to see a list of the pages in a namespace
Wikipedia's alphabetical index of articles
When to use subpages
Getting a subpage listing
How to get a list of a page's subpages
Wiki-exploration: beyond Wikipedia...
Wikimedia links and shortcuts
Linking to non-Wikimedia wikis
Wikipedia Database reports
Cannot find what you are looking for?

Tips on searching

How to easily recall a username
Wikipedia industrial-powered search
Highlight text on any website, then search Wikipedia for it with a single click
Power search Wikipedia using AutoWikiBrowser
Searching Wikipedia with regular expressions (regex)
Search Wikipedia from any website
Using Wikipedia's search box:
Wikipedia Search box - basic
Wikipedia Search box - advanced
Jump to the search box ⇧ Shift+Alt+F
To search a specific namespace, include the prefix in searches
Title searches
Searching Wikipedia with Google:
How to search Wikipedia with Google
How to provide a Google search in a link
Wikipedia-specific searching with Google
When and how to exclude Wikipedia from your Google search
Another way to search Wikipedia with Google
Firefox search tips:
Wikipedia-specific searching within Firefox
Wikipedia Search Box for Firefox

Tips on bookmarking, creating access points, etc.

Wikipedia toolbar for Firefox

Getting help

Help for new contributors
Where to look for help
Go to the right desk
Ask for help at Wikipedia's Help Desk
Stop by the Reference Desk
A comprehensive index for editors
Getting real-time help via IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
Come visit the Teahouse
Visit the Village Pump for technical issues
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Ask intelligent questions
Keep track of your questions
Wikipedia's Manual of Style
How to catch admin attention fast
How to request help on your Talk page
Where to post requests
Please return the favor

Tips for contributors on getting started

Create a user account
Why create an account?
The five pillars
A plain & simple introduction
A self-guided tutorial
Please read department instructions
Where to begin?
Use the Article Wizard to easily create new articles
Articles for Creation (AFC) process
Avoiding common mistakes
How to improve Wikipedia's reliability
Speed up your learning curve...
Are you lost?
Now what? (Are you lost, and do not know what to do?)
What is a Talk page?
Article construction stages
Article development
Article quality assessments
Accuracy, quality and peer review
Good article nominations
Featured article candidates
Good article reassessment
Referencing for beginners
Please sign your name on talk pages
How to customize your signature
Custom signatures
Advanced signatures
How to move/rename a page
How to add hidden editor notes in an article
Watching for changes
How to look at the changes to an article
What are page history diffs?
How to review user contributions
Page history
Where to write about current events
What can be included in Wikipedia?
Freedom of speech and profanity

Tips on working with articles

Be neutral, like Wikipedia
Be neutral when editing Wikipedia
Look before you leap
What writing style to use
No copies of primary sources
Not everything that is true is verifiable
Avoid trademarks
Avoid using neologisms
Preventing markup glitches
How to start a new article
How to create a new page
Article deletion process
Tagging pages for problems
Find articles for cleanup
Copyright Cleanup
CopyPatrol tool
Basic copyediting
SuggestBot is a fun way to pick pages to edit
What is BRD? the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle
The three revert rule
List the things to do for an article
Table of contents
Article size
Lead section size
Cite your sources
Where did that fact come from?
Fixing bare URLs to prevent link rot
Do not use forums or emails as sources
Forums and emails are not acceptable sources
If you have privileged access to web pages...
Citation Requests
Acronyms and initialisms
S.W.A.T., T.I.M, & the U.S.D.A
How do you pronounce that?
Link to Wiktionary word definitions using Wikt:
Introduction to tables
How to make a table on a page
Pretty tables
Using Math
Footnotes
Please fill in edit summaries
Please summarize your work using the Edit summary box
Abbreviating edit summaries
Automatic edit summary reminder
Spell Checkers
Fix double redirects
Collaborations

Tips on editing

Check your work before you save, using Preview
Undoing edits
Search and replace while editing an article
Test-drive your edits using a sandbox
Dates in Wikipedia articles
Section editing
Section edit button
How to enable right-click section editing
Double click editing
Edit Wikipedia faster with AutoWikiBrowser
Power-editing with AutoWikiBrowser
Search & replace in thousands of articles with AWB
A better wiki editor: WikEd
Counting your edits
Getting your edit count
Editcountitis
How to reduce or enlarge font sizes

Style tips

From Wikipedia:Styletips:

Ampersand
Block quotes
Case in expanded abbreviations
Circa
Currency symbols
Current
Dashes in article titles
Dates (I)
Dates (II)
Downcase the generics
Emphasizing a word
Formatting titles of literature and art
Gender-neutral language
Hanging hyphens
Hyphens can avoid ambiguity
Including
Instructional and presumptuous language
Italics for emphasis
No hyphen after -ly adverbs
No initial the or a in article and section titles
Number signs
Overlinking
Percentage ranges
Pluralizing abbreviations
Points and spaces in abbreviations
Quotations within quotations
Quotations: allowable typographical changes
Seasons
Subset terms
The year 1995
Unit symbols: figures
Unit symbols: spacing
US or U.S.?
Within-text attribution
How to make links to articles
How to create a link to another article
Linking articles: the internal link
When not to use links
How to make links look the way you want
Create links faster using tricks
Short link pipe trick
Time-saving links: the "pipe trick"
Time-saving links II
How to use red links
My link disappeared!
Linking to a section of an article
How to link to a section of an article
Using Special:MyPage to make private links
External links
When to use external links
Placing "External links" sections
How to link to a category
How to link to a category without categorizing the page
Interwiki links and shortcuts
Google search link
How to provide a link to a specific Google Search
Sister projects & interwiki linking
How to link to word definitions
Wikimedia links and shortcuts
Placing interlanguage links
Link articles to their foreign-language counterparts
Linking to non-Wikimedia wikis

Category tips

Category tips
How to add an article to a category
Placing category tags
Sorting entries in the categories
Find uncategorized articles
How to create a category
How to create a subcategory
How to plant a CategoryTree!
Find stubs and expand them

Tips on working with specific types of pages

Biographies
Biography articles needing attention
Portals
Difference between wikiprojects and portals?
Subject bar template
Working on the Main Page
Main page - Did you know
Featured content
Featured world of Wikipedia
Articles about notable books
Another way to read or share Wikipedia: Books
World of fiction
Using the Authority control template
Beware of instruction creep
Redirects
Redirect synonymous topic names
Fansites, forums, & other web page articles
Band articles
Editing projects for school and university classes

List tips

General topics lists
The topic list
Why have lists when there are categories?
List building
Alphabetical list of articles

Disambiguation page tips

Same titles, different meanings
Formatting disambiguation pages

Tips on working with images

Image processing tools
Graphics Lab
How to find legal photographs and graphics
Permission requests
Where to upload images and media files
Uploading Free Images
Tag your image uploads
Cite the source on all image uploads
Where on the page to put images
How to insert a picture into an article
How to add a picture to an article
Captions
Brilliant pictures

Boilerplate/template tips

How to create reusable boilerplate
What are templates used for?
Using templates
Placing templates
Displaying one page within another = Transclusion
How to transclude a page into the page you are editing
Transclusion caveat
Transclusion vs. Substitution
Pick from a list of template parameter choices

User page tips

Your user page
Are you jealous of others' user pages? (WP:UPDG)
Calendar date display for your user pages
Displaying Tip of the day on your user page
Displaying tips on your user page
Motto of the day...
Your very own Wikipedia bookmark page
User Sub Pages
Userboxes

Other ways to contribute

Help reduce the Wikipedia backlog
Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement
Translating content
Join a WikiProject
When is a Wikipedia project a WikiProject?
Welcoming Committee
Wikipedia needs pictures. How you can help...
Wikipedia banners and buttons
How to help prepare the Main page
Giving editor awards
Help test the MediaWiki software
Running MediaWiki on your own computer
Becoming an Administrator
Writing articles for The Signpost

Communicating with other editors

Be forgiving to new users
Love thy neighbor
Talking to Wikipedians
Explaining Wiki markup to other users
How to send a message to other editors
How to fix unsigned comments
Thanks - send a notification
Guestbooks
Screenshots
Posting on the Wikipedia Community Bulletin Board
How to catch admin attention fast
Try to see it my way!
The fastest way to end a conflict: walk away
Report problems on noticeboards
In conflicts, reach consensus
Mediation
Centralizing project discussion
Wikimedia-wide issues
Wikimedia has mailing lists

Watchdogging (monitoring) Wikipedia

Use your watchlist
How to make your watchlist easier to read
How to watch for pages that do not exist yet
Preview tomorrow's Featured Article
Join the Recent Changes Patrol
How to enhance Recent changes
What is Page curation?
Intruder alert! Intruder alert! (Vandalism-level warning)
Join the fight against vandalism

Configuring and customizing your account

How to change your username
Customize appearance of dates
Setting Wikipedia time to your time zone
Super-customize your account with gadgets
Troubleshooting Wikipedia's look and feel with skins
How to adjust the height of your edit window
How to enhance Recent changes
Upgrade Recent Changes in my preferences
User scripts
User scripts examples
Prove it with ProveIt
Install your first javascript

Tips on working faster

Speed up your learning curve...
Automating tasks on Wikipedia
Automatic page loader
The semi-automated article peer-reviewer
What are dummy edits good for?
Breaking the 500-edit limit in "View History"
Making the editbox more visually pleasing
Shortcut for minor edit box
Supercharge your browser
Toolbar links to access the WP pages you use the most
Article banner templates
Templates for Age and Dates
Archives for lengthy pages
Search box bookmarklet for your browser
Wikipedia search box focus
Are your hands full? (Use search box as a small but convenient clipboard)

Shortcuts

Shortcuts
Navigate faster using Wikipedia shortcuts
Work faster with keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts

Navigation

Use your browser's toolbar to navigate Wikipedia
Your very own Wikipedia bookmark page
Navigation popups
Power tool: Navigation Popups
Become clairvoyant with Navigation Popups
How to skip scrolling and clicking
How to turn links to disambiguation pages orange so you can see them
How to turn redirects green

MetaTips

Wikipedia's dozen most essential tips
Wikipedia's top ten essential tips
Wikipedia's top ten power tips
Wikipedia's ten most powerful tips
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other

These need sorting into the above categories

Be sure to check for duplication - do not include them if they are already there!
Note: this section is currently empty.

Tip of the moment...
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other

Six essential tips:

  1. Starting an article
  2. How to add an article to a category
  3. Please sign your name on talk pages
  4. Edit summary reminder setting
  5. Moving pages
  6. Redirects

Half-a-dozen power tips:

  1. Create links faster with link tricks
  2. Power-editing with AutoWikiBrowser
  3. Navigate faster using Wikipedia shortcuts
  4. Wikipedia industrial-powered search
  5. Work faster using keyboard shortcuts
  6. Install your first javascript (Watchlist Sorter).

If you know even better tips than these, drop on by the Tip of the day project and show off a little. Strut your wikistuff!

Read more:
Become a Wikipedia tipster
To add this auto-randomizing template to your user page, use {{totd-random}}

See also

Tip of the day related
Manual of Style related
General formatting