5. It's Everyone's Encyclopedia: Be Bold!

As you read this book, any time you're curious about a point, we very much encourage you to follow up by exploring and editing the live site at the same time. Wikipedia is open and welcoming to newcomers who make positive contributions, and you should be able to make a good start armed with the information we give.

Be bold is an old saying on the site. Be bold means that Wikipedia editors should update or change the encyclopedia whenever they see a problem and shouldn't feel inhibited by the editing process, which is forgiving. As you learn about Wikipedia, we encourage you to be bold in improving the site, and we hope you find it as exciting as we do.

If you want to get started right away and are unfamiliar with wiki editing, here are the basic concepts for how Wikipedia works:

Open and instantaneous editing Wikipedia does not require that you register for an account to edit or create articles. Anyone who has a web browser and an Internet connection can add to or change content on the site. All changes are made instantaneously and are immediately visible online. (See Chapter 5, Basic Editing.)
A full record of edits Wikipedia keeps a complete record of all changes that are made to any page. This page history is viewable by everyone. Each time a page is changed, a new version is saved, but the old versions are not lost. (See Chapter 4, Understanding and Evaluating an Article.)
Special editing syntax All content written on Wikipedia is formatted using a markup language, or wikisyntax. This special language is considerably easier to learn than HTML, the source language of web pages. (See Chapters Chapter 5, Basic Editing, Chapter 8, Make and Mend Wikipedia's Web, and Chapter 9, Images, Templates, and Special Characters.)
Linked pages All pages on Wikipedia are linked to other Wikipedia pages to form a web of hypertext or interlinked pages. (See Chapters Chapter 3, Finding Wikipedia's Content and Chapter 8, Make and Mend Wikipedia's Web.)
Multimedia content Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of images, sounds, and videos. (See Chapters Chapter 9, Images, Templates, and Special Characters and Chapter 16, Wikimedia Commons and Other Sister Projects.)
Content standards Wikipedia doesn't take everything; all articles must be encyclopedic, neutral, and verifiable. (See Chapters Chapter 1, What's in Wikipedia? and Chapter 6, Good Writing and Research.)
Content up for discussion Each wiki page and article has an associated discussion or talk page. Interested editors can discuss any changes to an article. (See Chapters Chapter 4, Understanding and Evaluating an Article and Chapter 12, Community and Communication.)
Incremental improvements to articles You may see warning or cleanup messages on articles as you browse; these alert you to problems and let other editors know that work needs to be done to that article. Wikipedia is a work in progress. (See Chapters Chapter 4, Understanding and Evaluating an Article and Chapter 7, Cleanup, Projects, and Processes.)
Collaborative decision-making Decisions are made through discussion and achieving consensus and through processes in which anyone can take part. Disputes are resolved the same way. (See Chapters Chapter 7, Cleanup, Projects, and Processes, Chapter 12, Community and Communication, Chapter 13, Policy and Your Input, and Chapter 14, Disputes, Blocks, and Bans.)
Community A dedicated and complex volunteer community is behind Wikipedia, developing content, policies, and practices. Interactions with other editors should be civil and productive. (See Chapters Chapter 2, The World Gets a Free Encyclopedia, Chapter 11, Becoming a Wikipedian, Chapter 12, Community and Communication, and Chapter 13, Policy and Your Input.)
Not just the English-language Wikipedia Wikipedias exist in many languages, and several other wiki reference projects with different types of content are all part of the Wikimedia Foundation. (See Chapters Chapter 15, 200 Languages and Counting, Chapter 16, Wikimedia Commons and Other Sister Projects, and Chapter 17, The Foundation and Project Coordination.)
Totally free All Wikipedia content is free to use and access; anyone is free to contribute; and all of the site's content is released under a free license, which means anyone may reuse it elsewhere. Wikipedia is a noncommercial project and has no advertisements. (See Chapters Chapter 1, What's in Wikipedia?, Chapter 2, The World Gets a Free Encyclopedia, and Appendix A, Reusing Wikimedia Content.)

Everyone can contribute to Wikipedia. This is possible because Wikipedia is a wiki: Simply click Edit This Page at the top of an article and start writing. Here's a syntax cheatsheet to get you started. Happy editing!

Table 1. Wikisyntax Cheatsheet

Wiki Syntax

Result

''italic''

italic

'''bold'''

bold

'''''bold and italic'''''

bold and italic

==heading==
===level 2===
====level 3====
=====level 4=====

Section headings in different sizes

[[article title]]

Internal link to another article on the wiki (links to pages that don't exist will show up in red)

[[article title|description]]

Internal link with description

[[Wikipedia:Help|Help pages]]

Internal link to Wikipedia namespace page with description

http://www.example.org

External link

[http://www.example.org description]

External link with description

----

Horizontal line

* one
* two
* three

Bulleted list:

  • one

  • two

  • three

# one
# two
# three

Numbered list:

  1. one

  2. two

  3. three

<nowiki>Ignore wiki formatting; displays
[[syntax]] as entered </nowiki>

Ignore wiki formatting; displays [[syntax]] as entered

<s>struck text</s>

struck text

~~~~

User signature with timestamp (date and time); for use on discussion pages only

<code>computer code</code>

Produces code formatting

[[Image:File.jpg|Text]]

Image with alternate Text

[[Image:File.jpg|thumb|Caption]]

Thumbnail image with Caption

[[Image:wiki.png|thumb|right|Caption]]

Thumbnail image aligned right, with Caption

[[Image:wiki.png|thumb|right|300px|Caption]]

Thumbnail image aligned right, 300 pixels wide, with Caption

[[Media:File.ogg]]

Link to audio file named File.ogg

{{Cleanup}}

Include Cleanup template in a page (see [[Template:Cleanup]] for template text)

{{Cleanup|date=June 2008}}

Cleanup template with date parameter

[[fr:Page en français]]

Interwiki link to the French-language Wikipedia (appears under Languages on the left-hand sidebar)

[[Category:Example]]

When placed on an article, will add article to category Example

[[:Category:Example]]

Link directly to Category:Example without categorizing the page

#REDIRECT [[Other article]]

Redirect one page title to another page

<ref>Reference goes here</ref> within the
article text

The <ref> tag for producing footnotes

<references/>

Place this tag where you want footnotes to appear, typically under ==References==

&radic;(1&minus;''e''&sup2;)

HTML-formatted math:

<math>\sqrt{1-e^2}</math>

TeX-formatted math:

<!-- hidden comment in wikitext -->

Produces hidden comment in wikitext, only visible to other editors