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{{Wikipedia-The Missing Manual - TOC|updated=yes}}
Most of this book is aimed at folks who want to edit Wikipedia articles and become more active in the Wikipedia community. But this appendix is all about appreciating Wikipedia as a ''reader''. It gives you some background on what Wikipedia is and how to get the most out of it even if you have no intention of editing an article.
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=== Wikipedia's sister projects ===
The Wikimedia Foundation has
{{Image frame|width=640|content=
{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Wikipedia's sister projects}}|Wikipedia .-<div|<div|count=1|plain=false}}
|caption='''Figure B-1''' The Wikimedia Foundation has twelve
Several of the projects listed in '''Figure B-1''' overlap (or potentially overlap) with Wikipedia:
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== Navigating within Wikipedia ==
There are two basic ways to find interesting articles in Wikipedia: Do a search, or browse, starting from the
=== Searching Wikipedia ===
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{{WTMM-note|If you click "Search", for curiosity's sake, you'll just get some so-so search results. For example, if you search for ''Reagan wife'', the article ''[[Nancy Reagan]]'' shows up 2nd and ''[[Jane Wyman]]'' shows up 17th. Worse, the context Wikipedia's result page shows is terrible. With a Google search, by contrast, you can get these two names from the context shown for the first result without even having to click a link.}}
[[File:
If you don't arrive at an article page when you click Go, and you don't find what you're looking for in the search results toward the bottom of the page, your next best move is to switch to another search engine. To do so, type ''site:en.wikipedia.org'' into the search engine's search box, along with whatever word or phrase you were looking for. (The "en" prefix restricts results to the English Wikipedia, otherwise you could get results from a version in the other 250 or so languages.) This technique works for the big three: Google, Yahoo, and MSN searches. If you use another search engine, look at the "advanced search" option (often available only after you do a search) for how to specify that the results should come only from one ___domain.
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===
You can also navigate Wikipedia via a number of different starting points. The best way to get to them is via the
[[File:Top of Wikipedia-
▲[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29561.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-5''' Wikipedia's Main Page is accessible via a single click from any other page in Wikipedia. At the top are three links to starting points within Wikipedia that provide different top-down views.]]
==== Categories ====
Any article may belong to one or more categories ([[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Building a Stronger Encyclopedia/Categorizing Articles|Chapter 17: Categorizing articles]]), which you'll find listed at the bottom of the article. Like everything else in an article, editors add the categories, so categories are only as accurate as the people who enter them; like everything else, if someone sees a mistake,
[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29590.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-6''' Here's the top-level list of categories. It's the starting point for drilling down to find all articles in any particular subcategory.]]
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==== Portals ====
From
[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29638.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-8''' Portals are probably one of the least known ways to find articles on Wikipedia. If you're particularly interested in a topic, one of the 500 or so existing portals can be a great page to bookmark.]]
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==== The A-Z index ====
[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29668.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-9''' ''The A-Z index'' (also called the ''Quick Index'') lets you go directly to a list of articles beginning with any two characters: El or Na or Tr or whatever.]]
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==== Other entry points ====
=== Categories ===
You can view Wikipedia's entire hierarchy of categories by clicking the Categories link near the top of the
==== Category links at the bottom of articles ====
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==== Articles in two different categories ====
One of Wikipedia's most requested features is "category intersection"—the ability to get a list of all articles that fall into two or more categories. Wikipedia still lacks that ability, but you can find it at an off-Wikipedia page called
{{WTMM-warning|When using
==== Searching for categories ====
You can search for categories using the standard Wikipedia search engine by modifying the "Search in" box shown in '''Figure B-3''' (see [[#Searching Wikipedia|the section about searching]]). However, external search engines often have additional options, so it may be better to use one.
External search engines often have options that Wikipedia's search feature lacks, as discussed on [[#Searching Wikipedia|earlier in this chapter]]. When you use an external search engine, you simply restrain your search results to Wikipedia pages and apply any other options you like. If you use Google, for example, you can search just Wikipedia category pages by typing ''site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category'' in the search box. '''Figure B-13''' shows how to use this site restriction in Google. This Google search restricts results to category pages, since "site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category" was typed into the search box. It furthermore requires that the title of the category page contain the word "spy"; note "intitle:spy" at the beginning of the search term. There are 16 categories with "spy" in the title. Searching for "spy" instead of "intitle:spy" would turn up category pages with "spy" anywhere on the page (of which there are about 500).[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29765.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-13''' This Google search restricts results to category pages, since "site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category" was typed into the search box. It furthermore requires that the title of the category page contain the word "spy"; note "intitle:spy" at the beginning of the search term. There are 16 categories with "spy" in the title. Searching for "spy" instead of "intitle:spy" would turn up category pages with "spy" anywhere on the page (of which there are about 500).]]▼
▲
You can also use the technique shown in '''Figure B-13'''—finding category pages of interest—before you use the category intersection tool CatScan, to avoid having to guess the exact names of categories that you want to use in CatScan.▼
▲You can also use the technique shown in
=== Other ways of navigating ===
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If you see an image in a Wikipedia article that you'd like to have, just click it. You'll see a new page showing a larger image, as shown in '''Figure B-16'''.
The file Image:Fujisan from Motohakone.jpg is used in the article ''[[Tokyo]]''. Clicking the thumbnail image in the article shows you this larger image, though not necessarily a full-sized image. Click "
The vast majority of images on Wikipedia are free content—they're in the public ___domain or have Creative Commons licenses, for example. If you come across an image labeled as a "fair use" or "non-free" image (a screenshot of a commercial software program, for example), don't treat it as free content. Don't download it unless you're sure you're not infringing a copyright by doing so.
=== Commons ===
A long time ago, the Wikimedia Foundation realized that it didn't make sense to have images stored on language-specific Wikipedias, so it created Commons ([http://commons.wikimedia.org http://commons.wikimedia.org]) as a central storage area available to all language Wikipedias. Think of it as a stock media site for Wikpedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects (it has sounds and other media files as well as images). In fact, the image in '''Figure B-16''' is actually on Commons, not the English Wikipedia.
==== Finding pictures on Commons ====
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Because Commons is a media storage site, you'll find a table of contents right on its Main Page ('''Figure B-17'''). With more than 4 million images, you may find something you really like—and it's all free content.
Commons' Main Page offers a number of ways to view its content—by starting with featured pictures, by drilling down through categories, or by choosing a topic area. If you choose a topic, you'll arrive at a category page similar to '''Figure B-4'''
[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29909.png|frame|right|'''Figure B- The category intersection tool mentioned [[#Articles in two different categories|earlier in this chapter]] ==== Picture of the day ====
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:If so, you don't need to post anything; you're done.
:But if you're looking at something that looks like an error message, which starts, "Wikipedia does not have a talk page with this exact title.
3. Assuming your issue or question is new, click the "
:You're in edit mode, with two boxes where you can type information.
|