Wikipedia:Community portal

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Contents

1 Community bulletin board
2 Help out
3 Collaborations
4 Guidelines, help & resources

Community portal

Welcome to the community portal. This is the place to find out what is happening on Wikipedia. Learn what tasks need to be done and what groups there are to join, and share news about recent events or current activities taking place on Wikipedia.

If you were looking for...

• Help with an aspect of Wikipedia: see the help documentation, or ask a question for assistance.
• Answers for questions about factual topics: please visit Wikipedia's reference desk.
• A place to discuss things with other users: the village pump is Wikipedia's main discussion forum.
• A place to resolve disputes: use the dispute resolution guidelines.

Post your Wikipedia-related news or announcement here » Community bulletin board

2011-12-05 News and notes: Amsterdam gets the GLAM treatment, fundraising marches on, and a flourish of new admins In the news: A Wikistream of real time edits, a call for COI reform, and cracks in the ivory tower of knowledge Discussion report: Trial proposed for tool apprenticeship WikiProject report: This article is about WikiProject Disambiguation. For other uses... Featured content: This week's Signpost is for the birds! Arbitration report: Elections due to finish this week, little activity on Betacommand 3, Abortion case amended Technology report: Incremental dumps help mirrors, full screen search helps mobile visitors, and two MediaWiki releases help external sites About·Archives·Newsroom·Single-page·Suggestions Centralized discussion RfC asking whether Wikipedia should protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act by going on strike. RFC into the display of CentralNotices on Wikipedia Proposal to add a requirement at WP:CFD that category creators be notified RfC to add "mark as read" to watchlist RfC to rename the tab title from "discussion" to "talk" RfC to enable "show changes since last visit" on watchlist RfC about creating binding solutions to intractable content disputes through RfCs RfC about a three-month trial of Tool apprenticeship, a proposed supplement to Requests for adminship RfC about enabling multilingual search results for registered Wikipedians RfC about deprecating or maintaining WP:PORNBIO RfC on the purpose and future of the Portal namespace Proposal to implement block templates that automatically update to reflect when a user is no longer blocked RfC to clarify the purpose of Wikipedia is not censored Notices The 11th annual Wikipedia Day is January 15! You can help celebrate by organizing or joining a local Wikipedia meetup or other wiki-event for January. The December 2011 good article nominations backlog elimination drive has begun! You can help by reviewing some good article nominations. The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for editors to help reform the Article Feedback Tool. The plans for the new version can be found here; all comments, ideas and critiques are welcome on the talkpage. What is a revert? Participants needed for revert assessment in research project partnered by Wikimedia. We need people to help us evaluate what edits are actual reverts. The results are used for improving Wikipedia's quality in the RENDER research. Project pages seeking contributors Consider posting WikiProject, Task Force, and Collaboration news at the Signpost's WikiProject Report page. WikiProjects and Task Forces The Guild of Copy Editors is holding its November drive. Sign up to reduce the backlog and work toward barnstars. Portals The following portals are now up and running and will need some contributors for their maintenance and steady running: Portal:Friends Portal:Moscow Portal:Military of Germany Outlines Outlines that especially need proofreaders and contributors... New outlines Outline of domestic violence Outline of Colorado prehistory Outline of biophysics Outlines in the middle of an expansion or major restructuring Outline of transhumanism Outlines recently overhauled Outline of sociology Outline of cuisines Outline of information technology Discussions Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention: Contents pages navigation Biographies Economy and trade History and geography Language and linguistics Art, architecture, literature, and media Politics, government and law Religion and philosophy Science and mathematics Society, sports and culture Wikipedia policies and guidelines Wikipedia style and naming See also: Dashboard · News · Goings-on · Milestones · Meetups · In the media · Mailing lists · Village pump

Help out

Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you are not ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration. Things to do General tasks Patrol new pages and help improve new articles. Category:Wikipedia backlog always needs attention. Assess articles by quality or by importance—pick a topic of interest and grade according to that WikiProject's scale. (See links from article talk pages.) Adopt an Outline, to help develop and maintain a table of contents to a major subject on Wikipedia. Let SuggestBot suggest pages for you to improve. Update pages with old (ref or note template) citations to the new references format. Do you have a historical perspective? Articles slanted towards recent events might need to be looked at with a new eye. Commenting Respond to a request for comment or Wikiquette alert, or provide a third opinion. Give a requested editor review. Peer review or give feedback on some articles. Comment at Featured portal candidates and Portals at peer review. Make recommendations on articles listed at Good article reassessment. Respond to the Reward board or Bounty board. Discuss which articles should be deleted and review proposed deletions. Special skills Can you draw or take pictures? Make a requested image. Are you good at photo editing? Then try cleaning up some of these images, or helping out at the Graphics Lab. Can you use GIS tools? Help make requested maps. Can you communicate in another language? There are articles that need translation into English. You can also proofread a translation. Are you a budding journalist? Summarise Wikipedia-related news and events for the Signpost. Fix-up projects Article categorization Articles to be split Articles written by a single editor Bad category names Category needs checking Core topics needing cleanup Dead-end pages Disambig pages with links Elements of Style External links Articles needing copy edit Wikitext syntax cleanup Linkrot Notability Missing articles Most wanted articles Name disambiguation Stub sorting Transwiki log cleanup Typos Unreferenced articles List of syntax errors

Open tasks Here are some tasks you can do: Wikify: Specific-information, Eastside High School (Lancaster, California), James A. Foshay Learning Center, J.B. Morrison Elementary, Carmen Reid, More... Orphans: Pyrénées-Atlantiques' 2nd constituency, Cape Westbrook, Cape Wheeler, Cape Well-met, Cape Roux, More... Copyedit: Music for Montserrat, Ettore Ovazza, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ministry of Labor and Immigration (Spain), Royal Asturias Football Federation, More... Update: Drummer, South Sudan Liberation Movement, HFStival, Cairo Metro, PokerStars Big Game, More... Style: Indonesian popular music recordings, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Islamic revival, Bore Track, Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, More... Translation: Battle of Pirajá, 9th Tank Division, Jaime Ramírez, Vissani, Learn How to Read and Write, Son, More... Cleanup: Zwaanendael Colony, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, Elder-Beerman, Boston Store, Venture Stores, More... Verify: Platypezidae, Alan Gilbert (academic), Jonathan Larson, Vokes Theatre, Cambrian substrate revolution, More... Neutrality: Iranian national heroes, Other Losses, International Republican Institute, Anti-corporate activism, Royal Malaysia Police, More... Original research: Ron Malo, Miami Ink, Domestication, History of the New York Rangers, P-Funk mythology, More... Merge: Centre for Theoretical Studies, Octetra, In re Sealed Case, Friedman doctrine, Access time, More... Split: Cheating, The Color of Money, History of Poland (1569–1795), Tigist Shibabaw, October Yushin, More... Stubs: Voiced labiodental affricate, Bellevue (Macon, Georgia), First Congregational Church of Cuyahoga Falls, Restinga da Marambaia, Opheylissem Castle, More... Expand: Gymea Technology High School, Thoroughbred horse racing, P-Funk, Extensible Embeddable Language, Porsche 962, More... Article Incubator: Economic pluralism, Redback (film), Parting gift, List of programs and machines in the Matrix series, Elena Siegman, More... Article deletion discussions: Spain, Francisco Sanchis Cortes, Barbados, Washington, Barbados–Japan relations, More... Article Requests: Banking in Colombia, Geology of Germany, Poverty in Japan, Oslam syndrome, Johanna Dohnal, More... Image Requests: Austrobaileya, Umba River (Tanzania), Utsul, North American Lutheran Church, Corydoras geoffroy, More... Mediation Cabal: Murder of Meredith Kercher (two sentences), or Help mediate an open case! Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it is probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.

Collaborations
To improve the quality of articles that are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.
Collaborations by topic Birds (Jackdaw) China (none currently (collaboration inactive)) Dinosaurs (Apatosaurus) Mammals (Slow loris) Medicine (Diabetes mellitus) Novels (Improvement Drive) United States (Hope Diamond) Universities (Université Laval) Video games (Dnd (video game))	Other collaborations Active improvement teams Countering systemic bias Version 1.0 Spam fighting team Categorization projects Spotlight WikiProjects WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist — examine the master list to find one that interests you. Language translation Wikipedia is not just in English. Versions exist in many different languages. To fill in some of the English Wikipedia's gaps, we translate articles from other languages into English. You can view a list of articles that need translation, organized by language.

Guidelines, help & resources
Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.
Help Wikipedia help contents – Browse help pages Help desk Where to ask questions Editing The Manual of Style guidelines and tutorial How to edit a page Contributing How to write a great article A list of free online resources for research A list of template messages What special pages are Tools for editing Request newspapers or magazines Policies and guidelines Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply to both articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed. Article standards Be bold! WP:BOLD Citing sources WP:CITE • WP:REF Copyrights WP:C Editing WP:EP External links WP:EL Image use WP:IUP Include only verifiable information WP:V Manual of Style WP:MOS • WP:STYLE Neutral point of view WP:NPOV What Wikipedia is not WP:NOT Working with others Assume good faith WP:AGF Avoid instruction creep WP:CREEP Civility and etiquette WP:CIV • WP:EQ Consensus WP:CON IPs are human too WP:HUMAN Do not bite the newcomers WP:BITE Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point WP:POINT No personal attacks WP:NPA • WP:ATTACK Resolving disputes WP:DR Vandalism WP:VAND	Resources New user information Introduction · Tutorial · Sandbox · Help · Adoption · What Wikipedia is not · Glossary · Account benefits · Planning school assignments · New contributors' help page · FAQ Ways to communicate Contact (overview) · Discussion pages · Mailing lists · IRC chat · Meetups · User pages · Requests for comment · Public watchlists · Regional notice boards · Administrators' noticeboard · Requests for article feedback · Local Embassy Community support groups and programs Welcoming committee · Editor assistance · Wiki-adoption · Birthday Committee · Harmonious editing club · Wikipedia awards program · Dept. of Fun · Missing encyclopedic articles Common procedures Featured content · Good articles · Requests for feedback · Deleting a page (full policy) · Moving a page (naming policies) · Protecting a page (full policy) · Reverting a page · Administrator nominations (summaries) · Category-based access How to resolve conflicts Stay cool! · Be nice to newcomers · Alert others · Dispute resolution · Arbitration policy Community information About Wikipedia · Goings-on · About Wikimedia · Wikipedians · Wiki-adoption · Donations · Merchandise · Administrators · Babel · Culture · Games · Humor · Mottoes Related communities The links below lead to the main community pages of the projects. All of these projects are multilingual and open-content. Meta-Wiki – Coordination of all Wikimedia projects. Wiktionary – A collaborative multilingual dictionary. Wikinews – News stories written by readers. Wikibooks – A collection of collaborative non-fiction books. Wikiquote – A compendium of referenced quotations. Wikisource – A repository for free source texts. Wikispecies – A directory of species. Wikiversity – Where teachers learn, and learners teach. Commons – Repository for free images and other media files.
Tip of the day Section editing If you have created an account, you might notice little "[edit]" links on some pages. An [edit] link is shown for every heading on a page. You can create a level 2 heading by typing ==Headline==, a level 3 heading by typing ===Headline===, and so on. The [edit] link lets you edit only the text that is below this heading and above the next one. This is especially useful for long talk (discussion) pages. If you don't like the [edit] links, you can turn them off in your preferences. If you use a modern browser, you also can enable the option "Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles" instead of, or in addition to, "Enable section editing via [edit] links". If you want to create a new section at the bottom of a talk page or other article, click the New Section link in the navigation links under the heading "This Page". Read more: Wikipedia:Section Prior tip - Next tip Read all tips