Good places to find answers
You can find the answers to many of your questions at the following places:
- Search — for many questions it's fastest and easiest to use the search box. e.g. To find the capital of South Africa, fill in south africa in the box on the left and click Search.
- FAQ- Frequently Asked Questions
- Reference Desk — for general questions (not about Wikipedia) you can ask our volunteers. e.g."What kept Hitler from invading Switzerland and Sweden?"
- Help:Contents — information about using Wikipedia. e.g. "How do I add an image to an article?".
Help Desk — for questions about using Wikipedia you can ask our volunteers.
- Newcomers help page, a range of help services directed to new Wikipedia users
Other places to ask questions
You are also welcome to ask questions in one of Wikipedia's IRC channels. If you have an IRC client installed you can join a channel by connecting to #wikipedia-bootcamp (a help channel for new Wikipedians) or #wikipedia (for general chat).
Please do not post your question here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
See below to get all the facts, or rather FAQs, about Wikipedia. Answers for these Frequently Asked Questions refer primarily to the English Wikipedia; the Wikipedias in other languages may have their own FAQs. If you can't find the answer to your question here, there are several other options:
- If you are new to Wikipedia, you may want to read the Welcome page which provides information and links to get you started. The Help page, which is available at all times on the navigation menu (usually on the left-hand side of your screen), has links for explaining almost everything about Wikipedia.
- Or, you can just try things out. There are over one million (1,000,000) Wikipedians who can set things right, so be bold. We invite you to participate. Type in your subject in the "search" box on the left, then click Go.
General and particular FAQs
- Overview FAQ – General questions about the Wikipedia project.
- Readers' FAQ – Finding, reading and using Wikipedia material.
- Schools' and Teachers' FAQ – Using Wikipedia in the classroom.
- Contributing FAQ – Why you might want to contribute to the Wikipedia project, and how you can do it.
- Editing FAQ – The ins and outs of creating and editing Wikipedia pages.
- Administration FAQ – What an administrator (or "sysop") is, sysop status, and server administration.
- Technical FAQ – Questions about Wikipedia software and hardware and their limitations.
- Forking FAQ – How to download Wikipedia content and/or software and/or create derivative works of Wikipedia.
- Copyright FAQ – Questions pertaining to copyright issues.
- Problems FAQ – Questions relating to past or present difficulties and criticism.
- Miscellaneous FAQ – Everything else.
- Citing Wikipedia – Detailed information about how to cite Wikipedia when you use it as a reference.
- Who writes Wikipedia – An easy-to-read explanation of how to assess article quality.
- Wikipedia:What is an article – What constitutes an article.
- Glossary – Learn some Wikipedia jargon.
- PHP script FAQ – Covers the major difference in the PHP script from UseModWiki.
- Rambot FAQ – The much discussed rambot.
- Categorization FAQ – About the Category feature introduced in June 2004.
- Template FAQ – About the Template feature.
- Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, simpler version of this page
- Help pages – Help with editing articles, starting new articles, and more.
- The Wikipedia Help Desk – very helpful to newcomers
- Troubleshooting – Help with various technical difficulties with accessing or editing Wikipedia pages.
- Editing the main page – Help editing the main page.
- The Wikipedia Style Guide main page – Stylistic goals to help keep Wikipedia's appearance self-consistent.
- Replies to common objections – Responses to common criticisms leveled at Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:Press Kit – Resources for media inquiries, and corrections to common misconceptions about Wikipedia
What not to do
Please do not overload any of our contact addressees. Our in-box is overloaded. We do not have staffers capable of answering your questions, whatever the topic (medicine, history, law, etc.). All emails concerning such questions will be returned with a message to see the Reference Desk.