Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia
Point out problems
ANYONE CAN DO IT!!!!
A lot of people get started on Wikipedia because they are reading an article and think to themselves "that's not right...". If you know just what to do to fix something that isn't right — great, go for it; but if you aren't sure what to do, here's an approach with which you can never really go wrong. Simply navigate to the talk/discussion page associated with the article, hit the "+" tab, and make a comment on what you think needs changing. Remember to end your comment with four tildes like this ~~~~, which will timestamp your comment.
Create new articles
Creating a new article is often a very useful thing to do, especially if there are lots of articles linking to an empty page.
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 don't yet exist. 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's also possible that a spelling error was made, or that they didn't 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:Your first article for additional advice about how, when, and when not to create a new article.
For technical help getting started, see Help:Starting a new page.
Tip
Don't be surprised if other people edit your pages to adapt them to our policies. It's OK to learn as you go along.
New articles which do not comply with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:No original research, and articles on obscure topics are often quickly nominated for deletion. Please don't take this personally. Sometimes inappropriate material needs to be pruned to allow a short article to grow into a long one in a healthy way, and sometimes it just so happens that an article needs to be pruned all the way to the roots. New articles need a firm seed to get started. If you are having problems of this kind, you may wish to learn about Wikipedia's policies before trying again, or spend some time editing existing articles until you get the hang of things. Wikipedia:Your first article is an excellent introduction.
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:Publicity 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.) You don't have to be an expert on Wikipedia because:
- You can help people find answers in existing Wikipedia articles.
- If you know the answer to a question not answered by Wikipedia, you can assist the questioner and at the same time, add that information to Wikipedia for the benefit of future readers.
- If you don't know the answer to an interesting question, you can research it in non-Wikipedia sources, and then improve Wikipedia for the benefit of the questioner and future readers.
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
You can help improve the articles listed below! This list updates frequently, so check back here for more tasks to try. (See Wikipedia:Maintenance or the Task Center for further information.)
Help counter systemic bias by creating new articles on important women.
Help improve popular pages, especially those of low quality.
| Resources for maintenance and collaboration |
|---|
| Cleanup |
| Categories |
| Create an article |
| Referencing |
| Stubs |
| Deletion |
| Polishing |
| Translation into English |
| Images |
| Controversy |
| To-do lists |
| Disambiguation |
| More |
|
|
For a listing of ongoing discussions, see the dashboard. |
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...
- Things you have already done research on. Have you written a thesis, essay, or school paper? Consider contributing the fruits of your efforts to related Wikipedia articles. You probably don't want to dump the raw text of your essay into the wiki. First of all, there will almost certainly be an existing article which you will want to merge your content into. Secondly, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Articles that are not written in an encyclopedic style should be rewritten that way, or at least tagged {{cleanup-tone}}. Also keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a place to post original research. This means that if you make a new discovery or come up with a new theory, you should find someplace else to post it. What we are about is researching and summarizing ideas and information that have already been publicized elsewhere. Most papers written up to the undergraduate level do exactly this. For technical help, see Wikipedia:How to import articles.
- Current events. Wikipedia articles constantly need to be updated to reflect recent developments. Wikipedia also has an important role to serve in publishing background information that helps people understand current events and issues. If you hear a news story on your favorite news source (check out Google News if you don't have one), check Wikipedia's coverage on the topic! Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; if you want to write your own news stories, use Wikinews.
- Do you know a foreign language? Add interlanguage links to articles! Translate an article or two! Or check out one of the many translation tasks listed under the "Start with a list of things that need doing" section, above.
- Your college or university. Find its article on the list of colleges and universities.
- Specific countries, provinces, counties, cities, and towns. Maybe one you've lived in, maybe one you like to visit. Start with the list of countries to find a place of interest. (But remember Wikipedia is not a travel guide; see Wikitravel for that.)
- What are your favorite subjects in history, entertainment, or sports?
- What are your favorite books (especially non-fiction)?
- Do you know anything about your local political or religious leaders? Find them on one of the lists of office-holders.
- Are you a fan of anyone who should have an encyclopedia article? Find them on one of the lists of people. Are they properly indexed according to birth and death date ?
Start on a random page
Visit a Special:Randompage and jump into the rabbit hole!
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 didn't know much about.
Write about something you don't 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've 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 isn't copyrighted—see Wikipedia copyrights).
Things you might want to learn about:
- What interesting things happened today in history? What interesting things have happened on your birthday? Search on http://www.google.com/search?q=this+day+in+history and then visit the list of historical anniversaries
Programmers wanted
Programming skills are especially valuable, to help write useful standalone scripts, or to improve the software that runs Wikipedia.
Thank you
Your positive contributions are what make Wikipedia possible.