Wikipedia - The Missing Manual (pdf)

Wikipedia - the Missing Manual

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is divided into six parts, each containing several chapters.

• Part 1, Editing, Creating, and Maintaining Articles, covers the basics. These chapters explain the right way to edit, why you want to be a registered editor, how to become one, and everything you need to know about figuring out, tracking, and reversing changes to articles when appropriate. It also discusses all the things to do when creating a new article.

• Part 2, Collaborating with Other Editors, discusses the rules of engagement, how normal conversations occur, the standard Wikipedia processes for disagreements over content, and dealing with incivility and personal attacks. This section also covers what Wikipedia calls WikiProjects—groups of editors working on articles of common interest, plus the wide range of activities that go into expanding and maintaining a huge encyclopedia: answering questions, tutoring and mentoring, joint reviews of articles, and more.

• Part 3, Formatting and Illustrating Articles, introduces you to some parts of articles that aren't text or links: the table of contents, lists and tables, and images and other media. Much of this can be confusing when you first encounter it, but each topic has a logic that makes it easy to understand once you've worked with it for a bit. (And you always have this book as a reference!)

• Part 4, Building a Stronger Encyclopedia, looks at the larger picture. It shows you that an article isn't locked in stone—you can rename it, split it up, merge it with other articles, or even ask for it to be deleted. Naming and merging are ways of getting readers to the information that they want. Another way, covered in this part, is Wikipedia's system of categories, one of several ways to find and navigate between articles.

• Part 5, Customizing Wikipedia, discusses every option that you have to customize Wikipedia to suit yourself, using choices you find when you click My Preferences. You'll also learn how to implement JavaScript user scripts (which you'll see mentioned in the "Power Users' Clinic" boxes in this book).

• Part 6, Appendices, provides you with resources to make the most of Wikipedia, as a reader, editor, and member of the Wikipedia community. Appendix A, A Tour of the Wikipedia Page is an explanation of every link and tab for standard Wikipedia pages (in both reading and editing mode). Appendix B, Reader's Guide to Wikipedia, provides some insider tips for those who simply want to read Wikipedia, and want to know what's available besides Wikipedia's search feature and following links in articles. Appendix C, Learning More, provides good starting points to get you as an editor to exactly the reference page you're looking for, lists the places in Wikipedia where you can get personalized help, and shows you where you can find out about Wikipedia as a community.