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

Revision as of 04:46, 4 March 2020

Revision as of 04:46, 4 March 2020

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=== 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 B-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 Commons, a central repository of pictures and other media.]]

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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.

=== The 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.

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==== Finding pictures on Commons ====

Because the 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.

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-4''' with one interesting difference—the page has a tab labeled CatScan. Yep—that's the category intersection tool mentioned [[#Articles in two different categories|earlier in this chapter]], 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-4''' with one interesting difference—the page has a tab labeled CatScan. Yep—that's the category intersection tool mentioned [[#Articles in two different categories|earlier in this chapter]], and it works for the Commons as well as Wikipedia.]]

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