Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents
Create an account
You do not have to log in to read Wikipedia. You do not have to log in even to edit articles on Wikipedia – just about anyone can edit almost any article at any given time, even without logging in, and many long-time contributors do not log in. Nevertheless, creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive and provides several benefits, as listed at Wikipedia:Why create an account?.
Fix or point out problems
Quite a few people get started on Wikipedia because they are reading an article and they notice an omission, a factual error, or a typo. If you know how to make edits and changes, go ahead, and if you add or change information to an article, please include references, because all unreferenced material is subject to being removed. But if you are not sure what to do, see Wikipedia:How to edit a page; or, go to the talk/discussion page associated with the article, hit the "New section" tab, and make a comment on what you think needs changing. Please remember to end your comment with four tildes like this ~~~~, which will sign and timestamp your comment.
Create new articles
Wikipedia articles contain lots of links to other articles. Blue (or purple, if you have already visited them) links represent pages that do exist. Red links (or tan, if you have already visited them) point to pages that do not yet exist, or have been deleted. Whoever created these links thought that an article on the topic should exist. If this was not a popular idea, the link may have been removed. It is also possible that a spelling error was made, or that they did not know the correct name for an existing page on the same (or a more general) topic. In this case, you could fix the link, and/or create a redirect. If you decide there should be an article at the other end of the link, by all means start writing it!
In addition to looking for red links, you can look at a list of requested articles, and pick one you know something about. (See the section "Where do I start?" below.)
Please read Wikipedia:Starting an article for additional advice about how, why, and when not to create a new article.
For technical help getting started, see Help:Starting a new page.
Merge pages
As said above, many people start editing on Wikipedia because they find an inaccuracy or typo while reading an article. Another problem that readers may encounter is partial and/or duplicated information spread among several similar articles, when all would best be found in a single, unified article. Unlike other websites, this is a Wiki, so if you can fit together some of those parts, go ahead and start merging. Even if you do not want to do a full merge, you can still add a link and comment in the main article where you think each of those parts should be merged in, and let another editor complete the merge if they determine it is beneficial. See also: Articles to merge.
Note: Please use the sandbox if you want to experiment (or just to mess around). Only edit articles where needed.
Make a donation
Wikipedia is in constant need of more server capacity, bandwidth and other technical services to keep it running and fast enough to be useful. Financial contributions to our non-profit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, are greatly appreciated. Please see http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising
Publicize Wikipedia
See Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership for ideas.
Help other users
Even new users can help answer factual questions on the Wikipedia:Reference desk, which serves the same purpose as a reference desk you might find in your local library. (You might also think of it as the Wikipedia version of Yahoo Answers or Windows Live QnA.) You do not have to be an expert on Wikipedia because:
If you already have some experience, your assistance in one of the many Wikipedia help forums, including Wikipedia:Help desk, would be a valuable contribution. You can help Wikipedia grow by helping other people share what they know.
Where do I start?
Start with a list of things that need doing
Here are some tasks you can do:
The tables you see above and to the right contain a wealth of starting points loaded with lists of things to do on Wikipedia.
You may be interested to join in one of the collaborations of the week, or the Wikipedia:Article improvement drive, featured on Wikipedia:Community Portal.
Category:Wikipedia maintenance also lists a variety of tasks.
Category:Incomplete lists is the place to start if you would enjoy making or finishing lists.
Start with what you know
Visit Wikipedia:Pages needing attention to find a list of articles by topic. These often need contributions from people who know something about the subject!
Make a list of everything you know. Strike through the things that are not verifiable or not supposed to be covered by Wikipedia. Then, find the proper places to write about the items remaining on the list. Use the go button, the search, or just navigate by following links. Click the "What links here" link on pages you visit.
Things you might know about...
Start with outside research
Feed your appetite for knowledge. Pick a subject about which you know relatively little but have always been curious or want to remedy a guilty ignorance. If you already know a lot about something, the best references in the field might know more, or might be a helpful reference for other readers or helpful to you in your writing.
Try to find good online and print resources, both books and magazines. Using good references is a way of improving Wikipedia, which will be increasingly important as Wikipedia grows and becomes more and more relevant. Then cite your sources. By citing sources you avoid copyright violations and plagiarism as long as you use only acceptable portions of other works. Doing research also makes it easier to think of material to add and allows you to improve any article, even one you did not know much about.
Write about something you do not know about. Use this as an excuse to research a new topic. As you learn about it, write what you are learning here on Wikipedia. This is actually a good study aid because it forces you to take notes, to organize information, and to put what you have learned into your own words. You can take how to write a great article as a guide.
Find something from a public domain resource, update it, add links to it, and put it here (but make sure it really is not copyrighted – see Wikipedia copyrights).
Things you might want to learn about:
Class assignments wanted
If you are a professor or teacher at a school or university, we encourage you to use Wikipedia in your class to demonstrate how an open content website works. You are not the first person to do so, and many of these projects have resulted in both advancing the students' knowledge and useful content being added to Wikipedia. An advantage of this over regular homework is that students are dealing with real world situations, which is not only educational but also is motivational ("the world gets to see my work"), probably resulting in increased dedication. Besides, it will give students a chance to collaborate on course notes and papers, and their effort might remain online for reference, instead of being discarded and forgotten as is usual with paper coursework, or classroom systems which are routinely reinitialized.
Programmers wanted
Programming skills are especially valuable, to help write useful standalone scripts, or to improve the software that runs Wikipedia.
Thank you very much
Your positive contributions are what make Wikipedia possible.
