User:Drew R. Smith/Welcome

Welcome aboard! We're glad you wish to help develop Wikipedia, and hope you enjoy participating in its community as much as we do. As a new contributor, however, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of this project...but don't worry, it will become easier and clearer as you go, and if you have any problems, there will always be other Wikipedians happy to help. Here are some resources below to help you get started. Good luck and have fun!

Rules

The Five Pillars of wikipedia are the most important rules to follow. they are as follows:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references.
Wikipedia must have a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view.
Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit. This means that you do not control any article, even if the article is about you. The only page you control is your userpage.
Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid conflicts of interest, personal attacks and sweeping generalizations.
Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here. Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles. Although it should be the aim, perfection is not required. Do not worry about making mistakes. In most cases, all prior versions of articles are kept, so there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia or irretrievably destroy content.

Policies

Policies are basically the same as rules. However, Wikipedia uses a different term for them, so we will too.
Civility

Being rude, insensitive or petty makes people upset and stops Wikipedia from working well. Try to discourage others from being uncivil, and be careful to avoid offending people unintentionally. Mediation is available if needed.

Consensus

Most editing decisions are made by a continually evolving rough consensus among editors. The first step to resolving any dispute is to talk to those who disagree with you. If that fails, there are more structured forms of discussion available.

Edit warring

If someone challenges your edits, discuss it with them and seek a compromise, or seek dispute resolution. Do not start a fight over competing views and versions.

No personal attacks

Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks damage the community and deter editors. Nobody likes abuse. Aside from being annoying, harrassment is one of the two quickest ways to get your account blocked.

Vandalism

Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. It is inappropriate behavior for an online encyclopedia.

Naming conventions

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers worldwide would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of uncerainty, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature. A good way to determine the appropriate name of an article is to ask yourself, "When searching for my article or subject, what are the majority of people going to search for?" The exception to this rule is if a common name is used to describe multiple, seperate things.

Ex. With an animal article, many animals are known by the same name, so you would instead use the scientific name."

Neutral point of view

Everything that our readers can see, including templates, categories and portals, should be written from a Neutral Point of View. This means do not support any point of view, positive or negative. Hitler may have been a monster, but there are still groups who think of him as a god. So even if it's the point of view of the majority to call him a monster, its still a point of view, and cannot be added to the article.

No original research

Original research is defined as any research that is not published in a reliable publication. A good rule of thumb: If you can't find a source, don't post it. Blogs are not considered reliable.

Copyright violations

Wikipedia has no tolerance for copyright violations in our encyclopedia, and we actively strive to find and remove any violations. If you didn't write it, don't post it.

FAQ's

How do I create a new article?

You need to have a Wikipedia account to create a new article. Search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject, perhaps under a different title. If the article already exists, feel free to make any constructive edits you feel are necessary. Gather references both to use as source(s) of your information and also to demonstrate notability of your article's subject matter. References to blogs, personal websites and MySpace don't count—we need reliable sources. Before saving, click the "show preview" button to view your article as it would show up to a reader. Check over it for spelling errors or anything that looks out of place. Once you are satisfied that your article looks the way you wan it to go ahead and save it. A good next step would be to put your article up for peer-review by asking contributors to similar articles to look it over.

Why has my article been deleted?

First, check the deletion log. When a page is deleted, this is recorded in the deletion log along with a deletion summary supplied by the deleting administrator. To find this information, go to this page and search for the article by its title, if known, or author, if known.

Speedy deletions

Pages and media that satisfy certain criteria are speedy deletion candidates, which means that they can be deleted immediately and without discussion. The criteria include pages that contain nonsense, copyright violations and articles that do not satisfy notability guidelines. When deleting these, administrators often leave short codes in the deletion summary instead of typing out a full reason, such as "A7" for articles that do not satisfy notability, or "G1" for patent nonsense.

Proposed deletions

Articles (but not other pages or media) may be proposed for deletion by any editor. If nobody objects to this within seven days, the article is deleted. If any objections are raised, the article is not deleted, but anyone may still make the matter the subject of an Articles for deletion discussion (see the next section). Proposed deletions will often be labeled as "prod" in the deletion summary.

Deletion debates

A page or media file may also be nominated for consideration in a deletion debate, so that editors can discuss whether it should be deleted. Articles are discussed at Articles for deletion; other pages elsewhere. Such discussions normally last seven days, after which time an administrator will delete the page if there is a consensus to do so. Anyone may participate in such a debate, however these discussions are not "votes". The weight of an argument is more important than the number of people making the argument, so encouraging mass participation in such debates to avoid the deletion of a particular article will not work.

Protected titles

If a particular page has been recreated and deleted multiple times, administrators may decide to protect it so that it stays deleted. If you try to edit a protected title, a message box will inform you about it.

Tips, Tricks, and commonly used coding

On wikipedia we use html tags to help with the formatting of pages. For example, in the editing window the headings would appear as == Tips, Tricks, and commonly used coding ==.

Fonts

To make a section of text bigger use these tags. <big>Text here</big>. This will show as Text here. You can add more of the <big> tags to make it bigger.
To make a section of text smaller use these tags. Text here. This will show as Text here. You can use more of the tags to make it smaller.
To make a section of text italicised use these tags. ''Text here''. This will show as Text here. Note that these are not qoutation marks, but two apostrophes.
To make a section of text bold use these tags. '''Text here'''. This will show as Text here. Again, apostrophes, not quotes.
To make a section of text bold and italicised use five apostrophes, like this '''''Text here'''''. This will show as Text here.

Most, if not all tags can be used in conjunction with each other. If your tags aren't working the way you want, check to make sure you closed them all out with a / in the second set of tags. This is what all the tags together would look like using big as an example. Text here

Inserting Files or pictures

To insert a file use this format [[File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png]] replace Wikipedia logo with your own file. This will show up as
. To upload a file use Special:upload. This is most often used for images, but can be used for any file type. Remember to follow the copyright rules.
Using the tags [[image:File name here]] can give you greater control over your picture. For example, [[image:Sow with piglet.jpg|thumb|right|200x100px|A Pig]] would show up like this. Notice the caption matches the caption at the end of the tag.
A Pig

General Article editing

For an internal link, a link to another article use the tags [[Wikipedia]]. This will sow up as Wikipedia. You can also change the tex shown while keeping the link going to the same place using [[Wikipedia|Alternate Text]]. This will show as Alternate Text
For external links use [http://www.example.com link title]. For our example we will use wikipedia. It will show up as Wikipedia
To cite your references use <ref>http://www.example.com</ref>. You can substitute the URL for a book title, author, and page number. Again for our example we will use Wikipedia. It will show up as ^[1].
To make your references show on the bottom, put this tag {{Reflist}}. Usually you would put these tags at the bottom of the article. It will show up like this.

^ en.wikipedia.com

As you add more inline references, your reference list will automatically show the new references.

To make a new section or heading use these tags == Heading here ==. This will show up as seen above.

To make subheadings use more of the = tags. For example, ===== Subheading here =====, would show up as

Subheading here

The more ='s you use the smaller the heading.

To make a numbered list use the tags

#First line

#Second line.

This will show as

First line
Second line

Note that the tag is a line break. this will be covered later on.

Bullets are exactly the same, except you subsitute a * for the #.

Other

Many times you will see a string of text such as this {{template:Userbox Swine Flu}}. This is a quick way to link to a page containg alot of code. Using this particular one will appear like this.

A Pig

This user has NOT contracted Swine Flu.

If you type in the contents of the {{}}, in our example it would be template:Userbox Swine Flu, into the search bar, it will take you directly to the page where the coding is stored. While everything on wikipedia is editable by anyone, most templates like this are made by one person, for entertainement purposes and should not be displayed in articles, and editing of these templates without the authors consent is generally discouraged. You can make your own however by searching for template:Text here. If the name you want isn't already taken, you can create it much the same way as you create an artice. Generally this involves more advanced coding. To learn how to do this see WP:Userbox.

Other Important Information

If you don't know where to start, join a wikiproject. Wikiprojects are a group of people who share a common interest in a narrow subject matter. At these project pages you will find a list of members who also like to read, and contribute to, articles of the projects subject. Most, if not all, would be happy to help you with your first article. To find an appropriate wikiproject, read an article that interests you. After reading, check the talk page of the article. Most articles talk pages have one tag or another saying how the article falls under the scope of such and such wikiproject. An example of these tags shows here.

Aquarium Fishes Unassessed

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Aquarium Fishes, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Aquarium Fish articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Aquarium FishesWikipedia:WikiProject Aquarium FishesTemplate:WikiProject Aquarium FishesAquarium Fishes articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Wikirojects can have a very broad scope, such as Wikiproject Science, or a very narrow scope, such as the one portrayed above.