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

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=== NavigatingTop-down from the Main Pagenavigation ===

You can also navigate Wikipedia via a number of different starting points. The best way to get to them is via the links"[[Wikipedia:Contents|Contents]]" near the top of the Main Pagepage, as shown in '''Figure B-5'''. Every Wikipedia page has a link to thethis Main Pagepage, on the left side, in the navigation box below the Wikipedia globe. From the Main Pagethere, you can see the vastness of Wikipedia via threemany different approaches:, such as categories, portals, and the A-Z index.

[[File:Top of Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29561.pngContents|frame|center|'''Figure B-5''' Wikipedia'sThe Mainpage Page[[Wikipedia:Contents]] is accessible via a single click from any other page in Wikipedia. AtIt theprovides top are threemany links to starting points within Wikipedia that provide different top-down views, some of which are discussed later in this appendix.]]

==== 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 B-65''', you'll see the master index (see '''Figure 22B-16''').

[[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 the Main Page[[Wikipedia:Contents]], you can alsoinstead followclick the bolded[[Wikipedia:Contents/Portals|Portals" link]] "Alland portals"go to the main page for portals ('''Figure B-8'''). 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-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 ====

The third entry pointAnother link onshown thein Main'''Figure PageB-5'' is the A-Z[[Wikipedia:Contents/A–Z index|A–Z index]]. It's equivalent to browsing the shelves of a library, with the books in alphabetical order on the shelves. '''Figure B-9''' 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-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 ====

YouSeveral mayother havelinks noticed,shown in '''Figure B-65''' and '''Figure B-8''', a top-level row of links: Contents, Overviews, Academia, Topics, Basic Topics, and so on. Three of these (Overviews, TopicsOutlines, Basic TopicsLists) are also high-level entry points into Wikipedia that you might want to check out to see if one or more are interesting.

=== Categories ===