Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Appendixes/Reader's guide to Wikipedia: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:57, 4 August 2018

Revision as of 04:10, 4 March 2020

Line 17:

=== Wikipedia's sister projects ===

The Wikimedia Foundation has seven projects that are parallel to Wikipedia, plus a project called the Commons, where pictures and other freely usable media are stored for use by all projects in all languages ('''Figure 22B-1''').

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29299.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-1''' The Wikimedia Foundation has eight parallel projects, the oldest of which is Wikipedia, plus the Commons, a central repository of pictures and other media.]]

Several of the projects listed in '''Figure 22B-1''' overlap (or potentially overlap) with Wikipedia:

* '''Wiktionary''' is a free, multilingual dictionary with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms and translations. It's the "lexical companion" to Wikipedia. It's common at Wikipedia to move (''transwiki'') articles to Wiktionary because they're essentially definitions.

Line 45:

None of which is to say that Wikipedia editors are wildly happy about the quality of many, if not most articles. Those most knowledgeable about Wikipedia have repeatedly talked about the need to improve quality, and that quality is now more important than quantity. The challenge is whether Wikipedia can implement a combination of technological and procedural changes that'll make a difference, because so far relatively incremental changes haven't made much of a dent in the problem of accuracy.

So, should you trust Wikipedia? That should depend somewhat on the article. If you see a star in the upper right corner (see '''Figure 22B-12'''), indicating a featured article, you can be virtually certain that what you'll read is correct, and that the cited sources back up what's in the article.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29416.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-2''' Featured articles (articles with the highest assessed quality in Wikipedia) have a star in the upper right corner. You can click the star to learn how articles get their featured status ([[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Name of Part of the Book/Name of the Chapter#Section heading|the section about xx]]).]]

You'll find that each article contains clues to its reliability. If you see a well-written article with at least a reasonable number of footnotes, then you should be reasonably confident that almost all the information in the article is correct. If you see a lot of run-on sentences and templates noting a lack of sources, point of view problems, and so on, then you should be skeptical.

Line 63:

=== Searching Wikipedia ===

On the right side of each Wikipedia page, you'll find a box labeled "search", with two buttons—Go and Search. Wikipedia's search engine is widely acknowledged to be quite poor. Your best bet to find what you want is to type the title you're looking for into the search box, and then click Go (or press Enter). If you're right, and Wikipedia finds an ''exact'' match, you'll be at that article. If it doesn't find an exact match, Wikipedia provides you with a link to "create this page", which you should ignore if you're searching only for reading purposes. It also provides you some search results. '''Figure 22B-13''' shows the result of a failed search for the title ''Institute of Institutional Research'', including the start of some best guess results.

{{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 6th and ''Jane Wyman'' shows up 16th. 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:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29485.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-3''' When Wikipedia can't find an exact match to a Go request, it provides search results, but it also offers a link to create an article with the same name as the word or phrase you entered.]]

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. Wikipedia makes this very easy for you—just change "MediaWiki search" to another menu choice, as shown in '''Figure 22B-14'''.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29497.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-4''' Wikipedia makes it easy to pick another search engine. Here Google's being selected, but other search engines are available. Take advantage of this option if your initial Go attempt doesn't succeed.]]

'''Figure 22B-15''' shows the search done again using Google. To those familiar with the Wikipedia search engine, it's not surprising that the top results are completely different.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29508.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-5''' The same search for "Institute for Institutional Research" as in '''Figure CB-13''', but this time searching with Google. The search results are completely different.]]

{{WTMM-sidebar|Searching from outside Wikipedia|'''Figure 22B-16''' shows how to use an outside search engine to search Wikipedia, once your initial attempt to find an article has failed. You can do the same thing (get the same results as '''Figure 22B-15''', for example) without using a Wikipedia page initially, which may be easier.

To do so, type [http://site:en.wikipedia.org http://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.

Line 87:

=== Navigating from the Main Page ===

You can also navigate Wikipedia via a number of different starting points. The best way to get to them is via the links near the top of the Main Page, as shown in '''Figure 22B-16'''. Every Wikipedia page has a link to the Main Page, on the left side, in the navigation box below the Wikipedia globe. From the Main Page, you can see the vastness of Wikipedia via three different approaches: categories, portals, and the A-Z index.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29561.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-6''' 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, she can fix it. When you click the Categories link shown in '''Figure 22B-1'7'', you'll see the master index (see '''Figure 22-1''').

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29590.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-7''' Here's the top-level list of categories. It's the starting point for drilling down to find all articles in any particular subcategory.]]

The text in '''Figure 22B-17''' is hand-crafted, not computer-generated, but once you leave the page via a link on it, the lists you'll see will be computer-generated and thus completely current. For example, when you click Geography at the top of the index, that takes you to a section of the page called "Geography and places", with the main category Geography. Click that word, and you'll see '''Figure 22B-18'''. If you're interested in Geography, you can drill down in whatever subcategory you want until you reach actual links to articles, and then follow them.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29608.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-8''' The category ''Geography'' had 28 subcategories when this screenshot was taken. In the "B" section, you see an expansion of one of those subcategories, Branches of Geography, displaying all the sub-subcategories until there are no further ones, along one line of that subcategory.]]

{{WTMM-note|Not every article in Wikipedia is intricately categorized. For example, at the bottom of the ''Category:Geography'' page, you see articles in that category which are ''not'' in any subcategory (you can't see them in '''Figure 22B-18'''). Those may be truly unique articles, or articles just waiting for further categorization work.}}

==== Portals ====

From the Main Page, you can also follow the bolded link "All portals" to the main page for portals ('''Figure 22B-19'''). Like categories, portals can be a great way to narrow down the number of articles you're particularly interested in reading, or to lead you to articles that you otherwise might never have known existed.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29638.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-9''' 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.]]

==== The A-Z index ====

The third entry point link on the Main Page is the A-Z index. It's equivalent to browsing the shelves of a library, with the books in alphabetical order on the shelves. '''Figure 22B-110''' shows what you'll see if you click the "A-Z index" link at the top of the Main Page.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29668.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-10''' ''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.]]

If you were trying, for example, to find the name of an article that began with an unusual pair of letters (say, ''Cg''), then the A-Z index may be helpful (see '''Figure 22B-110''').

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29688.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-11''' If you pick a two-letter starting pair, in '''Figure 22B-110''', and click that link, here's what you see. The links in regular text are articles; the links in italics (the majority) are ''redirects'', which take you to an article with a different name. Redirects are used for misspellings, for less common variants of a particular name, and for subjects that don't (yet) have their own articles, and are related to an existing article to which the reader will be directed.]]

The alphabetical index to articles is actually more useful after you've drilled down one level. Now you have the option of searching for articles that start with three or four or even more characters.

Line 123:

==== Other entry points ====

You may have noticed, in '''Figure 22B-17''' and '''Figure 22B-19''', a top-level row of links: Contents, Overviews, Academia, Topics, Basic Topics, and so on. Three of these (Overviews, Topics, Basic Topics) are also high-level entry points into Wikipedia that you might want to check out to see if one or more are interesting.

=== Categories ===

You can view Wikipedia's entire hierarchy of categories by clicking the Categories link near the top of the Main Page, as shown in '''Figure B-7'''. But you can also use the category system to browse Wikipedia in a number of other ways, using tools both inside and outside of Wikipedia. For example, there are links at the bottom of each article that let you find articles in related categories. You can also find articles that fall into two different categories. You can even narrow your search by category when you're using an external search engine.

==== Category links at the bottom of articles ====

At the bottom of virtually every article, you'll find the categories that Wikipedia editors have assigned to that article. '''Figure B-12''' shows an example.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29721.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-12''' The article on major league baseball player Lee Smith has, at the bottom, a larger than usual number of categories. In this case, it's mostly because Smith was a member of eight different teams.]]

Click any of these categories, and you'll be on a category page similar to '''Figure B-8'''. With a click, you can jump to another article in the same category.

==== 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 CatScan at http://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/catscan2.php. '''Figure B-13''' shows how to use it to find, for example, baseball players that have been members of both the Seattle Mariners and the Washington Nationals. When you search for articles by category using CatScan, you can choose how many levels of sub- and sub-sub-categories you want to search. This search shows a depth of 3, but since there were no subcategories, the results are only for a depth of 1. But if you were using the category ''Architects'', you'd see results in subcategories such as ''American Architects'' (level 2) and ''Architects from Cincinnati''(level 3).[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29745.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-13''' When you search for articles by category using CatScan, you can choose how many levels of sub- and sub-sub-categories you want to search. This search shows a depth of 3, but since there were no subcategories, the results are only for a depth of 1. But if you were using the category ''Architects'', you'd see results in subcategories such as ''American Architects'' (level 2) and ''Architects from Cincinnati''(level 3).]]

{{WTMM-warning|When using CatScan, capitalization—except for the very first letter—is critical. For example, in '''Figure B-13''', if you had search on the category "Seattle Mariners Players" instead of "Seattle Mariners players," you'd have gotten no matches.}}

==== Searching for categories ====

External search engines often have options that Wikipedia's search feature lacks, as discussed on [[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Name of Part of the Book/Name of the Chapter#Section heading|the section about xx]]. 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-14''' 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-14''' 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-14—finding14'''—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.

=== Other ways of navigating ===

Line 155:

==== Random article ====

If you want to get a sense of the more than two million articles in the English language, a good way is to use the ''Random article'' feature. On any page on the [http://en.wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org] Web site, you find this link at upper-left ('''Figure 22B-115''') that you can click to ask the Wikipedia software to select one of those two million articles for you.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29812.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-15''' On the left side of any Wikipedia page, the navigation box has a "Random article" link. Click again to go elsewhere. Click it 20 or 30 times, and you have a pretty good idea of Wikipedia's wide range of articles.]]

==== What links here ====

When you're on an article page, you may find that another link on the left side of the screen, the first in the box labeled ''toolbox'' (see '''Figure 22B-116''') can also be fun to play with. Click ''What links here'', and you're now looking at a list of incoming links to the article you were just reading.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29837.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-16''' The toolbox on the left of the screen includes a "What links here" link. Click it to see all the Wikipedia pages that link into the page you're on.]]

The list of links may seem random, but it's not—the oldest page (based on when the page was created) is listed first, the youngest page is listed last (and may very well not show on the screen, which normally lists just 50).

Line 177:

=== Images in Wikipedia articles ===

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-17'''.

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 "full resolution" to see the full-sized version. Right-click the full-sized image to save it to your computer. You can also save the image as your new desktop background image.[['''Figure B-17''' File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29885.png|frame|right|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 "full resolution" to see the full-sized version. Right-click the full-sized image to save it to your computer. You can also save the image as your new desktop background image.]]

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" 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.

Line 185:

=== The Commons ===

Several years ago, the Wikimedia Foundation realized that it didn't make sense to have images stored on language-specific Wikipedias, so it created the 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-17'' is actually in theon Commons, not the English Wikipedia.

==== Finding pictures in the Commons ====

Because the Commons is a media storage site, you'll find a table of contents right on its Main Page ('''Figure B-18'''). With more than 4 million images, you may find something you really like—and it's all free content.

The 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-5''' with one interesting difference—the page has a tab labeled CatScan. Yep—that's the category intersection tool mentioned on [[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Name of Part of the Book/Name of the Chapter#Section heading|the section about xx]], and it works for the Commons as well as Wikipedia.[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29909.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-18''' The 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-5''' with one interesting difference—the page has a tab labeled CatScan. Yep—that's the category intersection tool mentioned on [[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Name of Part of the Book/Name of the Chapter#Section heading|the section about xx]], and it works for the Commons as well as Wikipedia.]]

==== Picture of the day ====

Line 201:

Wikipedia calls itself "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." If you don't think you have anything to add to it, you're wrong—Wikipedia is still far from complete. But you as a reader can help when you see an article with a problem, or if you search for an article and don't find it.

{{WTMM-tip|When you're thinking about fixing or adding to a Wikipedia article, make sure you have reliable sources at your fingertips first, as described onin [[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/NameEditing, ofcreating, Partand ofmaintaining the Bookarticles/NameDocumenting of theyour sources|Chapter#Section heading|the section about xx2]].}}

=== Articles with problems ===

Line 220:

:You're in edit mode, with two boxes where you can type information.

4. Type a brief summary of the issue or question into the "Subject/headline" box at the top of the screen ('''Figure 22B-119''').

:Up to 10 words should be enough.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29984.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-19''' Here's what the page should look like after step 3: It's ready for you to enter a brief summary ("Possible vandalism" or "Birthplace seems wrong" or whatever) and then, below the summary line, to type in your full comment or question.]]

5. In the main edit box (see '''Figure 22B-119''' again), explain the issue/question. At the end of the last line of your comment, add a couple of spaces and then put four tildes, next to each other (like this: -- <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>).

:The four tildes tell the Wikipedia software to put a signature and date-stamp there. '''Figure 22B-120''' shows an example of a comment after being typed in.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e30001.png|frame|right|'''Figure B-20''' Here's what the input screen shown in '''Figure CB-1419''' looks like after someone has entered a section heading (summary) and a comment. It's now ready to be published.]]

{{WTMM-note|The Wikipedia software records, in the page history, exactly the same information that displays when you add four tildes. So you're not revealing anything by "signing" your comment. If you don't, an automated editor (a ''bot'') does it for you, and that may make it harder for other editors to notice your comment. See [[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/NameCollaborating ofwith Partother ofeditors/Communicating thewith Book/Nameyour offellow the Chaptereditors#SectionIdentifying headingyourself|the section about xxsignatures]] for more on signatures.}}

6. Click the "Publish changes" button (you may have to tab down or scroll down or page down to see it).