Yates Ben Ayers Phoebe Matthews Charles - How Wikipedia works: and how you can be a part of it

For John and Sally Ayers, who taught me to always look things up [PSA]

For my wife Clare, in recognition for her support over many years [CRM]

For Susan Shore and Matthew Cobbs [BLY]

Special thanks to:

Bill Pollock for supporting a Wikipedia book and a free license, Tyler Ortman for his patience and hundreds of suggestions, Megan Dunchak for her care with the manuscript, Riley Hoffman for layout, and the entire No Starch staff for their support; Samuel Klein for helping develop this book and for teaching Phoebe how Wikipedia (should) work; Benjamin Mako Hill for providing technical support, advice on free culture and licensing, and writing about free software; our reviewers (any mistakes are entirely our own): John Glover, Corprew Reed, Diane Schiano, and Richard Stallman; Eben Moglen for advice on the GFDL; the contributors to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe/book: AaronSw, Sj, Clayoquot, Peterblaise, MER-C, Graham87, Jeandr du Toit, Llywrch, BanyanTree, and Kim Bruning; and our many friends who offered advice and support, especially James Forrester, Austin Hair, Lauren Manes, Sasha Wait, and Sarah Wait Zaranek.

And thanks to the thousands of dedicated Wikipedians who make Wikipedia, and this project, possible.

This book is divided into four parts, starting with the basics and working through all aspects of Wikipedia.

Part I looks at Wikipedia from the reader's point of view. covers the structure of an individual article and methods for evaluating article quality.

Part II turns to editing the site. A basic explanation of how to edit a page and an introduction to wikisyntax are in steps through the life cycle of a newly created article.

Part III covers Wikipedia's elaborate social side. We begin with how to sign up as an editor, including setting up an account, setting preferences, and using your personal user and talk pages in discusses how the dispute resolution process worksand how to avoid disagreement in the first place.

Part IV steps back from the English-language Wikipedia to cover other Wikimedia Foundation projects, including editions of Wikipedia in other languages in .

is an index of Wikipedia pages quoted in the book.

The basic principles we describe for reading articles, editing pages, and collaborating with others will provide a good foundation for working on any Wikimedia wiki project. But although the Wikimedia projects all share the same general philosophy, any specific policy or custom mentioned here might not apply outside the English-language Wikipedia. If you're interested in exploring another project, remember that each wiki website represents a unique collaborative community, which may have its own rules.

You don't need any prior experience with wikis or any knowledge of programming to use this book. But you should know how to access web pages on the Internet in the following ways:

You should also know how to search the Web using Google or another search engine and have an active email account.

All references in this book to Wikipedia's interface assume that you're using a standard web browser on a personal computer, have logged into the English-language Wikipedia, and are using the default (Monobook) skin without modifications. If you use Wikipedia without logging in, not all tabs and sidebar links will display, but most other functions should be the same.

If you intend to view Wikipedia on a mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA), visit http://en.wap.wikipedia.org/. This official mobile version was introduced in mid-2007; see [[Wikipedia:WAP access]] for unofficial versions.