Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

is a

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

, meaning anyone can edit nearly any page and improve articles immediately. You do not need to register to do this, and anyone who has edited is known as a ''

Wikipedian The Wikipedia community, collectively and individually known as Wikipedians, is an online community of volunteers who create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Wikipedians may or may not consider themselves part of the Wikimedia m ...

'' or ''editor.'' Small edits add up, and every editor can be proud to have made Wikipedia better for all. There are two editing interfaces: the new

VisualEditor VisualEditor (VE) is an online rich-text editor for MediaWiki-powered wikis that provides a way to edit pages based on the "what you see is what you get" principle. It was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with Fandom. In ...

(VE) and classic

wikitext A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or li ...

editing (wiki markup), which uses the Source Editor.

Editing articles

Content style and policies

An encyclopedic style with a formal tone is important: straightforward, just-the-facts, instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated. The goal of a Wikipedia article is to create a comprehensive and neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about a topic. Wikipedia does not publish

original research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

. An encyclopedia is, by its nature, a

tertiary source A tertiary source is an index or textual consolidation of already published primary and secondary sourcescited A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

and

verifiable Verification or verify may refer to: General * Verification and validation, in engineering or quality management systems, is the act of reviewing, inspecting or testing, in order to establish and document that a product, service or system meets ...

reliable sources A source text is a text (sometimes oral) from which information or ideas are derived. In translation, a source text is the original text that is to be translated into another language. More generally, source material or symbolic sources are ob ...

. Sourcing requirements are significantly stricter in articles on living persons.

Edit screen(s)

Editing most Wikipedia pages is simple. Wikipedia uses two interface methods: classic editing with the Source Editor through

(wiki markup), and a new

(VE). Wikitext editing using the Source Editor is chosen by clicking the Edit source tab at the top of a Wikipedia page (or on a section-edit link). This opens an editable copy of the page, showing all the wikitext used there, and the Source Editor toolbar offers simple menu options to add or change the formatting. Wikitext is used extensively throughout Wikipedia for such things as

hyperlinks In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to data by a user's clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with ...

, tables and

columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

footnotes In publishing, a note is a brief text in which the author comments on the subject and themes of the book and names supporting citations. In the editorial production of books and documents, typographically, a note is usually several lines of t ...

inline citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

special characters As of Unicode version 16.0, there are 292,531 assigned characters with code points, covering 168 modern and historical scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets. As it is not technically possible to list all of these characters in a single Wiki ...

and so on. The Source Editor lets users toggle on "wikitext highlighting", which uses different colours to help differentiate article text from wikitext. The VisualEditor option is intended as a user-friendly, "What You See Is What You Get" (

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for what you see is what you get, refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web ...

) editing aid, allowing one to edit pages without the need to learn wikitext markup. It is available only to registered, logged-in users through an opt-in choice that can be made in personal preferences. See the VisualEditor user guide for more information. File:How to edit a page Edit box.png, alt=Text in a large rectangle below two toolbars and next to a scrollbar., Edit box showing the wikitext markup. You can change the formatting and contents of the page by changing what is written in this box. File:How to edit a page Edit box - 2025 with preview and syntax highlight (cropped).png, Edit box showing the wikitext markup with

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that is used for programming language, programming, scripting language, scripting, or markup language, markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in differe ...

and realtime preview turned on. File:Wikipedia article in VisualEditor 2018-02-12.png, Screenshot showing the same article in

. Unlike the wikitext display, VisualEditor will show the text being edited almost as if it were already published. The Wikipedia community has developed style guidelines to make articles and facts appear in a standardized form, and Wikipedia easier to use as a whole. A basic list of

can be found on the

cheatsheet A cheat sheet (also ''cheatsheet'') or crib sheet or job aid is a concise set of notes used for quick reference. Cheat sheets were historically used by students without an instructor or teacher's knowledge to cheat on a test or exam. In the ...

. An "

edit toolbar Edward Ma, known professionally as edIT, is an American electronic music producer and DJ based in Los Angeles. He is a member of the Glitch Mob. History After growing up in Boston, Edward Ma began his career as a DJ and got into music product ...

" is provided just above the edit box (pictured below), which allows logged-in users (by selecting the option in personal preferences) to automatically place and format various aspects of wiki code. See Help:Wikitext for more information; remember that you can't break Wikipedia; and, although there are many protocols, perfection is not required because Wikipedia is a work in progress. WikiEditor-advanced menu-en

When you have finished editing, you should write a short edit summary in the field underneath those words (pictured below). You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the ...

. To see how the page looks with your edits, press the "Show preview" button. To see the differences between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page, press the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and click on the "Publish changes" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to all Wikipedia users.
Note: Do not sign the edit summary line with your ~~~~ signature, as it does not work there.

Minor edits

A check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo/grammar corrections, fixing a formatting problem, etc. A ''minor edit'' is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Marking a change as minor does not mean that the edit is unimportant. The "minor edit" option is one of several options available only to registered users. Editors are never required to use this button. When in doubt, consider your work to be a normal edit.

Major edits

All editors are encouraged to be bold when improving articles, but there are several things that a user can do to ensure that potentially disruptive edits are performed smoothly. Before engaging in a major edit, a user should consider discussing proposed changes on the article discussion/talk page. During the edit, if doing so over an extended period, the tag can reduce the likelihood of an

edit conflict An edit conflict is a computer problem that may occur when multiple editors edit the same file and cannot merge without losing part or all of their edit. The conflict occurs when an editor gets a copy of a shared document file, changes the copy ...

. Once the edit has been completed, the inclusion of an edit summary will assist in documenting the changes. These steps will help all to ensure that major edits are well received by the Wikipedia community. A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the ''meaning'' of an article is major (not minor), even if the edit is a single word. There are no necessary terms to which you have to agree when doing major edits, but the preceding recommendations have become best practice. If you do it your own way, the likelihood of your edits being re-edited may be higher. When making particularly large or complex changes, you may want to copy the article to your sandbox so you can make changes without being interrupted by other editors. It is also a good idea to publish changes frequently, so that a browser crash or electrical failure will not result in the loss of all your work.

Adding references

Generally, sources are added directly after the facts they support at the end of the sentence and after any punctuation. Wikipedia permits editors to use any citation system that allows the reader to understand where the information came from, and strongly encourages the use of inline citations to do so. Common methods of placing inline citations include

, shortened footnotes and parenthetical references. Inline citations are most commonly placed by inserting a reference between tags, directly in the text of an article. The reference is a footnote, appearing as an inline link (e.g. ^2]) to a particular item in a collated, numbered list of footnotes, found wherever a template or tag is present, usually in a section titled "References" or "Notes". If you are creating a new page or adding references to a page that didn't previously have any, don't forget to add a references section with this display markup. There are a number of tools available to help with citation placement and formatting, some of which are internal tools and scripts, whereas others are available from external sites. For an example of the former, Wikipedia:RefToolbar, RefToolbar is a

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

toolbar displayed above the edit box that provides the ability to automatically fill out various

citation templates A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

and insert them in the text already formatted inside ... tags. For an example of the latter, th
Citer
converts a

digital object identifier A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; th ...

(DOI) or

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

address (URL) into a filled-out or template ready to be pasted into an article. See Help:Citation tools for many others.

Adding images, sounds, and videos

A file that is already hosted on Wikipedia or the

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons, or simply Commons, is a wiki-based Digital library, media repository of Open content, free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used ...

can be inserted with the basic code . (Image: can be substituted for File: with no change in effect; the choice between the two is purely a matter of editorial preference.) Using thumb generates a

thumbnail Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search engines and image-o ...

of an image (the most common placement option), which is typically sized differently from the original image. The Wikimedia Commons' File Upload Wizard and Wikipedia's File Upload Wizard will guide you through the process of submitting media. There are various file formats available.

Article creation

Before

starting a new article Start can refer to multiple topics: * Takeoff, the phase of flight where an aircraft transitions from moving along the ground to flying through the air * Starting lineup in sports * Track and field#Starts use in race, Starts use in sport race * S ...

, please understand Wikipedia's notability requirements. In short, the topic of an article must have already been the subject of publication in

, such as books published by major publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed scholarly journals and websites that meet the same requirements as reputable print-based sources. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable

third-party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a veh ...

sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. An Article Wizard is available to help you create articles — it is not required but will help you construct better articles. Note: The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is restricted to autoconfirmed users, though non-confirmed users and non-registered users can submit a proposed article through the

Articles for Creation Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing) An article or piece is a written work published in a Publishing, print or electronic media, electronic m ...

process, where it will be reviewed and considered for publication. Before creating an article, please

search Searching may refer to: Music * "Searchin', Searchin", a 1957 song originally performed by The Coasters * Searching (China Black song), "Searching" (China Black song), a 1991 song by China Black * Searchin' (CeCe Peniston song), "Searchin" (C ...

Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject, and also review the article titling policy for guidance on what to name the article.

Talk pages

Every article on Wikipedia has a

talk page MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker, Magnus Manske's announcement of "PHP Wikipedia", wikipedia-l, August 24 ...

, reached by clicking the "Talk" tab just above the title (for example, Talk:Alexander the Great). There, editors can discuss improvements to the content of an article. If you ever make a change that gets reverted by another editor, discuss the change on the talk page! The BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is a popular method of reaching consensus. It is very important that you conduct yourself with

civility Civility may denote orderly behavior and politeness. Historically, civility also meant training in the humanities. Developmental model Adolf G. Gundersen and Suzanne Goodney Lea developed a civility model grounded in empirical data that "stresse ...

and

assume good faith In human interactions, good faith () is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case with , which is ...

on the part of others.

Edit warring A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or li ...

(repeatedly overriding or reimplementing contributions) is highly discouraged. Most other types of pages on Wikipedia also have associated talk pages, including the

User page A user profile is a collection of settings and information associated with a user. It contains critical information that is used to identify an individual, such as their name, age, portrait photograph and individual characteristics such as kn ...

each editor is assigned once they sign up. When other editors need to contact you, they will usually do this by leaving a message on your talk page. When someone has left you a message that way, you will see a notice the next time you log in or view a page on Wikipedia. :Sign your contributions to a Talk page by using four tildes (~~~~), which produces your username and a time/date stamp.

Protected pages and source code

Some pages are protected from editing. These pages have a "View source" tab instead of an "Edit" tab. You can still edit these pages indirectly by submitting an edit request and an editor with permission to edit the protected page will respond to it. To submit an edit request, click on the protected page's "View source" tab and then the "Submit an edit request" button at the bottom right.

Policies and conventions

Policies Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an orga ...

guidelines A guideline is a statement by which to determine a course of action. It aims to streamline particular processes according to a set routine or sound practice. They may be issued by and used by any organization (governmental or private) to make ...

, and formatting norms are developed by the community to describe the best practices, to clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goals. Make sure that you submit information that is relevant to Wikipedia's specific purpose, or your content might be deleted. You can always use the

talk pages MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...

to ask questions or check to see if your idea will be accepted. Please make note of which license will cover your contributions.

Notes

Some pages are protected from editing and marked by a lock icon at the top right. If you are not allowed to edit the page, it will have a "View source" instead of an "Edit" tab. You can still edit these pages indirectly by submitting an edit request: click "View source", then "Submit an edit request" at the bottom right, and an editor who is authorized to edit the page will respond to your request. {{Wikipedia community Editing, Help Editing, Help