[Hint: You can learn a lot just by clicking on the edit this page tab at the top on this or any other page and seeing how the various effects are actually produced. Don't forget to click Cancel— below the window on the right hand side— to make sure you don't inadvertantly change anything. Also, if you have made a planned edit, don't forget to Save page it, or your edits will be lost! Also, it's polite to leave an Edit summary (see above or below window), if you have changed anything, telling what you changed.]
SignYourPosts on talk & discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date; three tildes will produce your name only; five just the date.
Don't forget to use the Show preview button; it saves a lot of wear and tear on the computers, and keeps the various wiki lists clean of lots of unnecessary entries. Also, please don't forget to fill in the Edit summary.
Write to the target audience: A related question, is who should the pages be written for? Most writers are in college or past college. However, there is evidence that most readers are high-school students, or others not too familar with a topic. (Else, why would they be looking it up in an encyclopedia?) What is obvious or of minor relevance to a CS student or grad, may be very unclear or important to a high-school student, someone who is thinking of returning to college, or just someone looking for information (but not a learned treatise). Of course, Wikipedia has yet to define its target audience very well.
[Hint: If, for some reason, you are unable to fix a problem yourself, feel free to ask someone else to do it or show you how. (Check out the Welcoming committee). Wikipedia has a vibrant community of contributors, including many who are specially qualified, who have a wide range of skills and specialties, and many of them would be glad to help. As well as the wiki community pages there are IRC Channels, where you are also more than welcome to ask for assistance.]
IF YOU HAVE REALLY MESSED UP A PAGE, and accidentally saved it, simply click on the history tab (at the top) and then click on the date immediately preceding that of your change, then click on edit this page, then save the resulting page. This will revert the change.
This is clearly not an exhaustive list. It is an eclectic collection intended to include the main features of Wikimedia, especially those not likely to reveal themselves easily to the novice. However, most of the very advanced features are not referenced here.
But, if a question or article has existed on Wikipedia for long enough, you should be able to find it through a Google or Yahoo! search. (See Searching, below on this page).
(Note for Gen X, Y, Z, etc.— Think of Wikipedia, and Wikimedia in general, as a giant adventure game, where there is always something new around the corner...)
Write first for the Educated Layperson (that's hard... But I would suggest using the "New Scientist" as a style example).
...then try to do it better and write for the beginner (that's harder)
If an educated layperson can't figure it out by following the wikilinks, then it's too hard.
Yes, we're experts (more or less) but we're writing for a general audience. We could write a clever, concise, deep sentence to explain something...but it's useless if it isn't easy to understand.
For example, [[Image:Wiki Fairy.gif|thumb|right|160px|[[Wikipedia:WikiFairy|A Wiki fairy in the wild.]]]] Gives you the image on the right, where the caption is a wiki-link.
To have an image deleted, edit its description page and put
{{deletebecause|redundant to image FOO.jpg}} (but of course you would insert the name of the FOO.jpg image. Everything to the right of the | is comment. )
To go (back) to a Redirect Page itself (e.g., to change or delete the redirect), use the link in the (Redirected from Redirect Page) line, which appears at the top of the target page, just below the line 'From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.' (For this line to appear, you must first Go to the Redirect Page.)
