Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome to Wikipedia
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Welcome aboard! We're glad you wish to help develop Wikipedia, and hope you enjoy participating in its community as much as we do. As a new contributor however, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of this project... but don't worry, it will become easier and clearer as you go, and if you have any problems, there will always be other Wikipedians happy to help. There are some resources set forth below to help you get started. Good luck and have fun! -- The Wikipedia Welcoming Committee
If you do get stuck, the following people have volunteered to give you a helping hand learning the ropes:
Even more volunteers are standing by to answer your questions on the following pages. You can usually expect an answer quickly, often within just a few minutes: We also have an intuitive guide to Wikipedia if you would like to know a bit about how things are done. To understand Wikipedia, it is easiest to think of this website as having two types of pages: pages that are part of the encyclopedia itself, and pages of the community (used by contributors to help build and operate the encyclopedia). To find your way around the encyclopedia, either enter a term into the search box on the left side of the screen, or go to Wikipedia's table of contents. Wikipedia's community pages include instructions, help pages, policies, guidelines, discussion forums, places to make requests, pages to report problems, and user pages. These are all pages which we use to develop the encyclopedia and to communicate with each other in that mission. Some directories to help you find your way around the community are:
Being the gateway to the encyclopedia - The Main Page is our most frequently visited page. The main page is always protected and can only be edited by admins, but most of the content is piped in each day from various departments, via templates. Anybody can edit the pages that feed into the templates (up until the day they are displayed on the Main Page), and we encourage you to help. Just remember to follow the guidelines, as the procedure for each template works differently. Read more: Wikipedia:Editing the main page
Be sure to read the above pages! They are very important, and they will help you — even if you're not perfect the If you've made a mistake and wish to undo it, revert it. Here's how: click history at the top of the page you made the mistake on. Then click on undo at the end of the first line which is your edit. Then save page. See more detailed instructions at Wikipedia:Reversion. There are two main styles of help on Wikipedia: self-help and assistance... Self-help involves reading the help and instruction pages around Wikipedia. Some very informative self-help pages are: For when you get stuck, confused, or befuddled, assistance is available on Wikipedia's "desk" and "request" pages - use these when self-help hasn't provided you with an answer:
Almost anyone on these lists will help you as well: |
