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| Readers' FAQ |
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For other basic information for readers of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:About, Wikipedia:FAQ/Readers, and the Reader's guide to Wikipedia. For a topic-based index to Wikipedia articles, see Portal:Contents.
(Note: This index is for readers of Wikipedia. For editors, see the Editor's index to Wikipedia. For other useful directories and indexes, see Wikipedia:Directory.)
A
- Accessibility: (see also Audio)
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility
- JAWS:
- User:Wolfgangbeyer/monobook.css – monobook.css optimized for color blindness
- Category:Wikipedia accessibility
- Article message boxes (amboxes): (sometimes called "tags"; these are templates)
- Audio: (see also Accessibility)
- Spoken versions of Wikipedia articles:
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia
- Wikipedia:Spoken articles – articles with audio versions
- Category:Spoken Wikipedia requests – articles for which spoken versions have been requested
- Pediaphone – automated creation of spoken versions (MP3 file or read on-screen)
- Spoken versions of Wikipedia articles:
B
- Banners:
- For the Wikipedia project itself: Wikipedia:Banners and buttons
- At the top of articles: see Article message boxes
- Books
- ISBN
- Wikipedia:ISBN
- Wikipedia:Book sources
- Special:Booksources
- Finding a book mentioned in a Wikipedia article:
- At a local library:
- Forward to Libraries (Signpost article, March 2013)
- Wikipedia:Forward to Libraries (information page) - uses templates to allow readers to go to a landing page for their specific information
- User:Lunchboxhero/monobook.js – when clicking on an ISBN link, go directly to your preferred book-related website
- At a local library:
- ISBN
- Browser (specialized for Wikipedia): see Mobile access
C
- Categories
- General:
- Wikipedia:Categorization – (WP:CAT) (guideline)
- Help:Category
- Wikipedia:FAQ/Categorization
- Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates (guideline) – comparing alternative approaches
- Listings of categories:
- Special:Categories – alphabetical category listing
- MediaWiki:Categoriespagetext - scrollable access to the list of all categories
- Category:Main topic classifications – categories for articles
- Special:CategoryTree – can generate a tree of categories, or categories and articles
- User:Chris G Bot 2 – produces, for a given category, a table listing all articles within that category (and all subcategories of that category), and the status of those articles (a clone of User:PockBot, which is disabled)
- CatScan (at the toolserver)
- Intersection of two categories:
- Wikipedia:Categorization#Searching for articles in categories – via the standard search box (doesn't search subcategories)
- CatScan - a tool that can do various types of category scans, including intersection (may or may not be using up-to-date version of database); can search subcategories
- m:User:Duesentrieb/CatScan
- CatScan (at the toolserver)
- Wikipedia:Category intersection – a feature request
- m:Help:DPL – a MediaWiki extension supporting intersections and other set operations of pages belonging to several categories
- Other:
- User:Erwin/CatCount – provides a count of pages in any given category
- In category since – tool to list all articles in a category that have been so since a specified date (at the toolserver)
- User talk:GregU/randomlink.js – this tool can go to a random page in a category
- General:
- Censorship:
- Wikipedia is not censored
- Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles
- Wikipedia:Offensive material (Manual of Style)
- m:Should Wikipedia Use Profanity
- Wikipedia:Pornography (essay)
- Wikipedia:Advice for parents (essay)
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality
- MediaWiki:Bad image list
- Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Content warnings
- Ways to set personal preferences so as to not see some or all images:
- Help:Options to hide an image (alternative to censorship)
- User:Mr.Z-man/badimages
- Commons (Wikimedia Commons):
- Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons – has over three million media files (photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, etc.) available for use in any Wikimedia (community) project, to which anyone can contribute; recommended place to upload free images to, rather than to Wikipedia
- Commons:Welcome
- Wikimedia Commons - manual that provides the essential information for people interested in contributing their own work to Wikimedia Commons
- Mayflower – searching the Commons
- Commons:Commons:Tools
- Manual for new Commons users (at en.flossmanuals.net)
- Uploading:
- Commons:Commons:Tools#Upload media
- Commons:Commons:Tools/Commonplace – Windows/Linux program for drag-and-drop uploading
- Upload image – tool to upload images from Flickr
- Moving images to (from Wikipedia):
- Wikipedia:Moving files to the Commons
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons
- CommonsHelper – tool to generate an image description to copy-and-paste for the commons upload form (formerly called "Move-to-commons assistant")
- User:Fran Rogers/CommonsHelper Helper – user script that adds a button to easily bring up CommonsHelper
- User:MonoBot – fixes (some) problems when an editor doesn't do a move to Commons totally correctly
- Duplicate images – tool to show duplicate files between Wikipedia and Commons
- Push-for-commons – tool to show a set of images from a wikipedia, helping to find license problems, {{NowCommons}} candidates, and images that should be copied/moved to the commons.
- RSS feeds:
- Category-based feed (for newly added images)
- Media file of the Day
- Other:
- Category:Wikimedia Commons administrators – English Wikipedia editors who are admins at the Commons
- m:User:CommonsDelinker – bot that removes links from Wikipedias (all languages) when an image is deleted at Commons
- Commons interface for the iPhone
- Flickr-like interface to Commons (no logins or uploads)
- Commons sum-it-up – tool to generate a summary text for pages on Commons, using Wikipedia articles in different languages
- Browse Flickr images
- Controversial articles:
- Wikipedia:Controversial articles (Manual of Style)
- Wikipedia:List of controversial issues
- Copyright:
- In general:
- Using Wikipedia content outside of Wikipedia:
- Customization: (see also Quickbar)
- Wikipedia:Customisation
- Via "my preferences":
- Special:Preferences
- Help:Preferences
- Via the Gadgets tab in "my preferences" – see Gadgets
- Via JavaScript: see User scripts
- Via Cascading Style Sheets (CSS):
- Help:Cascading Style Sheets
- Skins:
- Wikipedia:Skin (trivial; probably should be a redirect)
- m:Customization:Explaining skins
- MediaWiki talk:Vector.css – place to discuss changes to the Vector skin (standard skin that editors get by default)
- MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css – place to discuss changes to the Monobook skin (older standard skin)
- MediaWiki talk:Modern.css – bug reports and other comments for new (January 2008) Modern skin
- Different customizations of the way Wikipedia pages appear, downloadable from userstyles.org/styles/ (primarily for readers) (Firefox, Thunderbird, Flock, Mozilla Suite, SeaMonkey, and Songbird browsers only)
- Personal CSS:
- mw:Gallery of user styles (a mix of MediaWiki-compatible skins, not selectable by editors, and personal css)
- User:GeorgeMoney/UsefulCSS
- User:Wolfgangbeyer/monobook.css – monobook.css optimized for color blindness
- User:Trilobite/Tools – combination of CSS and JavaScript, with a note that "much of this is outdated"
- Technical:
- Help:User style
- m:Help:Cascading style sheets
- Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes
- Wikipedia:Useful styles
- m:Customize page layout – should be at Mediawiki; how to rework standard page seen by all non-logged in readers
D
- Dictionary:
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary (policy)
- For Wiktionary, see also wikt:Main Page
- Another alternative: Urban Dictionary
- WikiLook – Firefox add-on that provides Wiktionary information about any word on a screen, when specially selected (shift or highlight plus mouse move)
- Downloading all of Wikipedia: (see also Mobile access; for downloading individual pages, see Exporting (a page))
- Pre-packaged:
- June 2006 ("official" version)
- Wikipedia:TomeRaider database
- Most recent version – £3.00 requested payment; includes £1 donation to the Wikipedia Foundation [sic]
- Slightly older English version (free)
- Wikipedia-iphone – complete download for iPhone or iPod Touch
- Infodisiac downloads (for Windows Mobile/Pocket PC, regular Windows O/S, and Palm)
- Webaroo – download of all Wikipedia articles as a set of web pages, for off-line reading (horribly out-of-date)
- Pre-packaged:
E
- Email:
- Encyclopedia:
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (WP:ENC)
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia (WP:NOT#PAPER)
- Wikipedia:External peer review – information on formal and informal reviews of the overall quality of Wikipedia articles, done by outside experts, not initiated within Wikipedia
- Wikipedia:Size comparisons
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress (WP:WIP) (essay)
- Wikipedia:There is a deadline (essay) - Why it's important to contribute now
- Wikipedia:Fancruft (essay)
- Criticism:
- Criticism of Wikipedia
- Wikipedia:Replies to common objections
- Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is not so great
- User:Ta bu shi da yu/Global Politician – "six sins" of Wikipedia – a rebuttal
- Wikipedia:Evaluating Wikipedia as an encyclopedia (essay)
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is succeeding (essay)
- Alternatives to the English Wikipedia, within the Wikimedia Foundation:
- Simple English Wikipedia
- meta:Concise Wikipedia (proposal as of September 2013)
- Exporting (a page): (see also Downloading all of Wikipedia, Collections (books))
- Help:Export
- Special:Export
- mw:Manual:Parameters to Special:Export
- PDF:
- mw:Extension:PDF Writer
- WikiPDF
- Wikipedia:Books#Resources
- Mediawiki2pdf (shows sample Wikibooks url, but reportedly works for Wikipedia articles as well)
- m:Alternative parsers – programs and projects to translate MediaWiki's text markup syntax into something else, such as HTML
- Wikipedia:Wiki Markup Language (WKML) (historical)
F
- Featured content:
- Wikipedia:New featured content
- Portal:Featured content
- Articles: (see also Good articles, Main Page)
- Wikipedia:Featured articles (WP:FA)
- Random Featured article (at the toolserver)
- Lists:
- Pictures:
- Sounds:
- Fun:
G
- Geocoding:
- GeoPedia – provides iPhone owners with a Wikipedia feed customized to their current location
- mw:Beta Features/Nearby Pages - Adds a button to the top right corner of pages that contain geographical information, to get the reader to "nearby" pages
- Showing existing Wikipedia articles on a map:
- Wikimapia
- Google:
- Google Maps has an option, under "More", to place markers showing Wikipedia articles
- About the Google Earth Geographic Web Layer
- Good articles: (see also Featured articles)
- Wikipedia:Good articles – the list
- Google:
- Googlepedia
- Wikipedia:Purging Google search results (WP:GOOGLEPURGE) - how to remove vandalism, etc., from cached copies of Wikipedia articles in Google search results
- Guestbooks: see User pages
H
- History (of a page):
- Wikipedia:How to read an article history
- Help:Page history
- Wikipedia:Copyright violations on history pages
- Diffs:
- Help:Diff
- How-to guides:
- Enhancing the differences in diffs:
- MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css/Archive 4#Better rendering for .diffchange in diff's...
- User:Cacycle/wikEdDiff – user script – additions and deletions are highlighted by color in one continuous text
- User:Js/diffs – another, different user script
- Tools:
- For content:
- Who did what:
- WikiBlame – searches for given text in versions of article
- tools:~tparis/blame/ - Similar
- User:AmiDaniel/WhodunitQuery – Windows application that identifies the edit and user who added a specific word or phrase
- "wikipedia blame": October 2008 blog posting and 1450 articles processed using the code
- Who did what:
- For counts and major contributors:
- WikiDashboard – when going to a new page, puts a count of top editors, and a histogram of edit activity, at the top of the page (Quick Guide)
- Revision counter[dead link] – counts revisions (edits) (at the toolserver)
- WikiSense - Contributors – lists edits, similar to page history, but can be sorted by contributor; easy to exclude different groups (at the toolserver)
- Wikipedia Page History Statistics – builds an edit history overview page
- WikiChecker
- Article Contribution Counter (beta) – tool that identifies major contributors to an article (at the toolserver) (a similar feature request is at Bug# 7988)
- Articleinfo - Article revision statistics
- Other:
- History Flow Visualization Application
- Wikipedia Animate – user script; shows the evolution of a page, like a webcast
- For content:
I
- Images:
- General:
- Ways to set personal preferences so as to not see some or all images:
- Help:Options to hide an image (alternative to censorship)
- User:Mr.Z-man/badimages
J
- Journals:
L
- Library books
- Wikipedia:Forward to Libraries - to find books on an article's subject at a reader's local library
- Logging in: (see also User account and username)
- Help:Logging in
- mw:Extension:OpenID – lets users log in with an OpenID
- Security:
- HTTPS:
- m:HTTPS
- Native HTTPS support enabled for all Wikimedia Foundation wikis - October 2011
- The future of HTTPS on Wikimedia projects - August 2013
- Wikipedia:User account security (essay)
- Wikipedia:Personal security practices (essay)
- Secure login
- m:Don't leave your fly open (essay)
- Template:User committed identity – preventive action to enable regaining control of a hijacked account (story)
- HTTPS:
M
- Merchandise:
- Missing articles:
- Mirrors:
- Mobile access:
- Wikipanion - for iPad and iPhone
- "iPhone Gems: Wikipedia Apps" – review of 16 apps for the iPhone or iPod touch (November 2008)
- Real-time version of Wikipedia:
- Help:Mobile access
- mw:Mobile Beta - experimental staging area for new features that may eventually be added to the official mobile site
- "Accessing Wikipedia via mobile devices", Signpost article, January 2009
- Semi-experimental mobile portal (as of February 2008)
- Wapedia
- m:Mobile subdomain
- Wikipanion – Free iPhone/iPod app; searches using a fast, native interface; includes autosuggest, landscape mode, and large, readable text.
- Downloaded version of Wikipedia:
- Pocket Wikipedia – 24,000 images and 14 million words (for PocketPC, Windows and Linux machines)
- Encyclopodia – complete download, for Apple iPod
- Wikipedia-iphone – complete download for iPhone or iPod Touch
- WikiPock
- Screencast: "How to install Wikipedia on your iPod Touch or iPhone!", February 8, 2008
- Other:
- GeoPedia – provides iPhone owners with a Wikipedia feed customized to their current location
- "Kiwi" client – for iPhone and iPod
N
- Navigation:
- Wikipedia:Back to top - adding a "Back to top" link to every section
- New editors: (see also Questions, User account and username)
- Welcoming:
- Wikipedia:Welcoming committee
- MediaWiki:Welcomecreation – page for automatic welcome message for all new accounts (transitory; is not posted to user talk pages)
- Welcoming:
O
- Obscenity: see Censorship
- Outlines of content (Articles):
P
- Page views: (see also Counts)
- Most viewed (English Wikipedia):
- Wikipedia:Popular pages
- Most accessed pages per day (Wikistics)
- Wikipedia article traffic statistics – the 1000 pages with the most views (for April 2013) [last checked: November 2013]
- For any specific article or other page:
- Monthly chart for any specified page ("Wikipedia article traffic statistics") (for pages that are not articles, include the namespace as a prefix) ("Hendrik's tool")
- tools:~emw/wikistats/ - Wikipedia article traffic statistics (alpha, as of November 2013)
- Raw counts – beginning (24 hourly snapshots per day) December 10, 2007 (announcement)
- Most viewed (English Wikipedia):
- Password: see Logging in
- Portals:
- Wikipedia:Portal (WP:P)
- Wikipedia:Portal/Directory
- Portal:Contents/Portals – introductory page that organizes and lists all portals
- Featured:
- Preview of a link: Navigation popups [NEED LINK]
- Printing: Help:Printable
- Privacy:
Q
- Quality of articles
- Assessments
- By editors (from "stub" (worst) to "featured article" (best)):
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ
- Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment (guideline) – an assessment scale in use to give "grades" to articles
- Category:WikiProject assessments – separate pages within WikiProjects that show assessments done and still needed for pages within that WikiProject
- By readers (viewers)
- By editors (from "stub" (worst) to "featured article" (best)):
- Assessments
- Queries (of article content)
- Wikidata queries:
- Wikipedia:Wikidata
- meta:Wikidata
- d:Wikidata:Main Page
- d:Wikidata:Introduction
- d:Help:FAQ
- Wikidata Query: (Wikimedia Labs)
- Wikidata queries:
- Questions:
- Quickbar: (the set of links on the left side of the page, often called the "left sidebar")
- User:Equazcion/SidebarTranslate - translates inter-language links into English
R
- Random article:
- Reading:
- Any page within a specified namespace:
- Special:Random (in the standard navigation box on the left) (adding a suffix – /Category, /Help, /Image, /Portal, /Template, /User, or /Wikipedia) will take you to a random page in those namespaces)
- Wikipedia:Random
- Any article within a category:
- Special:RandomInCategory
- Random article in a category (at the toolserver)
- Random Featured article (at the toolserver)
- Random Good article (at the toolserver)
- User talk:GregU/randomlink.js – Adds a "Random link" option to the sidebar menu; can be used to go to a random page in a category or a list
- Portal:Middle-earth/Random-article – example of how to generate a random article from a specified set of articles
- Any page within a specified namespace:
- Reading:
- Recent changes (recent edits): (see also Vandalism)
- Special:Recentchanges
- Help:Recent changes
S
- Screen (options):
- Wide screen (minimum of 1400 pixels)
- Special:Preferences:
- "Appearance" tab:
- Skin
- Images (files): maximum size, default size for "thumbnail" images
- "Gadgets" tab:
- "Browsing" section
- "Appearance" section
- "Compatibility" section
- "Appearance" tab:
- Searching Wikipedia: (see also
- In general: Help:Searching
- Across language Wikipedias: Global Wikipedia Article Search
- From within Wikipedia:
- Search engine:
- "MediaWiki search engine improved" (Signpost article, November 2008)
- Special:Search – regular search with a wider box to enter text
- Test web interface for lucene-search 2.1
- User:Zocky/Auto Complete – auto-completes the titles of articles in the search box (JavaScript) (no longer required as of May 2008; this is built into the search function now)
- Invoking search:
- Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page#Why doesn't the cursor appear in the search box, like with Google? – provides JavaScript so that the page focus is automatically in the search box
- Other:
- Special:Prefixindex – lists articles that begin with any chosen initial character string
- Search engine:
- From outside Wikipedia:
- Firefox:
- Using Wikipedia for the search box provides an autocomplete feature
- Creating a smart keyword – can replace "site:en.wikipedia.org" in searches
- Similpedia – uses a URL or a chunk of text to find similar articles in Wikipedia
- AskWiki – semantic search engine developed in partnership between AskMeNow and the Wikimedia Foundation (beta)
- Powerset – natural language search of Wikipedia
- Yahoo's Wikipedia SearchMonkey App
- Seariki – search engine specifically designed for Wikipedia [(http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-December/088027.html December 2007 announcement])
- Powerset – semantic search (May 2008)
- Googlepedia – Firefox add-on; shows a relevant Wikipedia article along with Google search results
- Preventing search engines from searching pages:
- Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing (WP:NOINDEX)
- Robots.txt file – specifies search engines that are not allowed to crawl all or part of Wikipedia, as well as pages/namespaces that are not to be indexed by any search engine
- MediaWiki:Robots.txt – direct editing of robots.txt
- Wikipedia:Talk pages not indexed by Google (feature request)
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/NOINDEX
- Firefox:
- Tools:
- Wikipedia:Tools#Searching (may eventually merge into Help:Searching)
- Wikipedia:User scripts#Searching
- Social networking:
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a blog, Web hosting service, social networking service, or memorial site (WP:NOT)
- Wikipedia:User pages (WP:USER)
- Sharing pages:
- Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Share pages on Facebook, Twitter etc. - add "Like" buttons and "Share" widgets
- User:TheDJ/Sharebox - script that adds new buttons that make it easier to mail, print or share an article on Facebook or another linksharing service
- Spelling:
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names
- U.S. and Commonwealth differences:
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Spelling
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters
- Wikipedia:List of spelling variants
- Wikipedia:Articles using British English titles
- Wikipedia:Articles using American English titles
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/National varieties of English (failed proposal)
- Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Enforce American or British spelling
- Spoiler: Wikipedia:Spoiler (WP:SPOIL) (guideline)
T
- Table of contents:
- Help:Section – covers several aspects of TOCs
- Tables:
- Translations:
- Wikipedia in different languages – overview:
- Information about languages, and translation aids:
- mw:Extension:Live Translate
- m:List of Wikipedias
- Help:Multilingual support (guide to fonts)
- Moving information from other language Wikipedias to the English Wikipedia
- Wikipedia:Translation
- Wikipedia Bilingual – side-by-side display of an article in any two languages in which it is available (Firefox browser extension)
U
- User account and username (also called "useraccount", "login", and "user login") (see also Logging in, Privacy, User pages)
- Registered versus unregistered editing:
- Wikipedia:Why create an account? – benefits to a person who decides to register
- Wikipedia:The benefits of requiring account creation on Wikipedia (essay) – arguments against allowing IP editors
- Wikipedia:The benefits of not requiring account creation on Wikipedia (essay) – arguments in favor of IP editors
- Wikipedia:IPs are human too (essay) - arguments on not assuming IP editors do not make positive contributions
- Starting out:
- Wikipedia:Username policy (WP:U)
- Wikipedia:Tutorial/Registration
- Special:Userlogin – to request an account
- Wikipedia:Request an account – for those who wish to create an account but cannot read the CAPTCHA image that is part of the standard registration process as of February 2007
- mw:Extension:SignupAPI
- mw:API:Account creation
- Help:Email confirmation
- Inappropriate usernames:
- Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention – blatantly inappropriate usernames
- Removing accounts without any edits:
- Single signon ("single login", "single user login", "SUL"):
- Bug# 57 – request for this feature
- Signpost articles: August 2006, August 2007
- m:Help:Unified login and m:Single signon transition – moving to a single username (signon) across all Wikipedia domains
- mw:Extension:CentralAuth – "allows global/shared accounts between projects"
- Registered versus unregistered editing:
- User pages: (see also User account and username)
- Wikipedia:User pages (WP:USER) (guideline)
- Wikipedia:Subpages (guideline)
- User scripts
V
- Vandalism
- Wikipedia:Vandalism (WP:VAN) (policy)
- Wikipedia:Cleaning up vandalism
- Tutorial: Reporting and dealing with vandals – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-01-28/Tutorial
- Video:
- Wikitube - Videos are automatically added when viewing a Wikipedia article pages
W
- Wikipedia basic information:
- Wikipedia – what it is, history, hardware and software, funding, authorship and management, and much more
- Wikipedia:About
- What is Wikipedia? (pdf) – two page flyer
- Wikipedia:History of Wikipedian processes and people
- Wikipedia:Historic debates
- Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales
- Wikipedia:Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia (essay)
- Late 2001 version of Wikipedia (nostalgia.wikipedia.org)
- Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is so great (essay)
- Wikipedia:Wikipediology/library/essays/Merovingian-1 (essay) – "The Fluid Encyclopedia" – 2001 to 2005
- Wikipedia Fundraising Central Online Reporting Engine
- Category:Wikipedia history
- Wikipedia:General reading list
- Wikipedia:Instructional material
- Wikipedia:Learning the ropes
- WordPress: mw:PhotoCommons - a plug-in that provides easy searching, inserting, and maintaining of files from Wikimedia Commons into a blog [alpha]
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