Help:Introduction to Wikipedia

Introduction to contributing to Wikipedia

Wikipedia is afreeencyclopedia,writtencollaborativelyby thepeople who use it.Since 2001, it has grown rapidly to become the world's largest reference website, with 6.9million articles in English attractingbillionsof views every month. For a more detailed account of the project, seeAbout Wikipedia.

How you can contribute

Don't be afraid to edit–Anyonecan editalmostevery page; just find something that can be improved and make it better! You can addcontent(usingreferencesto support your claims), upload free-to-useimages,correct spelling and grammar mistakes, improve prose to make it more readable, or help withany number of other tasks.It's normal for new contributors to feel a little overwhelmed by all of ourpolicies,but don't worry if you don't understand everything at first; it's fine to use common sense as you edit, and if you accidentally make a mistake, another editor can always fix or improve it later. So go ahead, edit an article and help make Wikipedia the world's best information source!

Suggest improvements– Each article also has a"Talk" page,where you can suggest improvements and corrections to the article.

Get to know some members of Wikipedia's diverse, enthusiastic community.

Sign up for an account

You're welcome to edit without creating an account, but there are manybenefits of registering an account.It's quick and free.

Sign up

Want to try editing?

You can test out how editing feels by editing one of the "sandbox" test pages below:

Edit page visuallyorEdit using wiki markup Edit page visuallyorEdit using wiki markup

Just type some text and clickPublish pagewhen you're happy with the way it looks. Don't worry about breaking anything; these pages are open areas just for experimentation!

There's plenty more behind the scenes

Wikipedia has many community pages in addition to its articles.

Task Center– List of tasks with which you can help
Help pages– Support and advice
Community portal– The hub for editors

<< Back to tutorials menu

Policies and guidelines >>