Wikipedia:Reader's index to Wikipedia

Shortcuts

For other basic information for readers of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:About, Wikipedia:FAQ/Readers, and the Reader's guide to Wikipedia. For a topic-based index to Wikipedia articles, see Portal:Contents.

(Note: This index is for readers of Wikipedia. For editors, see the Editor's index to Wikipedia. For other useful directories and indexes, see Wikipedia:Directory.)

A[edit]

Accessibility: (see also Audio)
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility
- JAWS:
- User:Wolfgangbeyer/monobook.css – monobook.css optimized for color blindness
- Category:Wikipedia accessibility
Article message boxes (amboxes): (sometimes called "tags"; these are templates)
- Wikipedia:Template messages#Article-related namespace
Audio: (see also Accessibility)
- Spoken versions of Wikipedia articles:
  - Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia
  - Wikipedia:Spoken articles – articles with audio versions
  - Category:Spoken Wikipedia requests – articles for which spoken versions have been requested
  - Pediaphone – automated creation of spoken versions (MP3 file or read on-screen)

B[edit]

Banners:
- For the Wikipedia project itself: Wikipedia:Banners and buttons
- At the top of articles: see Article message boxes
Books
- ISBN
- Finding a book mentioned in a Wikipedia article:
  - At a local library:
    - Forward to Libraries (Signpost article, March 2013)
    - Wikipedia:Forward to Libraries (information page) - uses templates to allow readers to go to a landing page for their specific information
  - User:Lunchboxhero/monobook.js – when clicking on an ISBN link, go directly to your preferred book-related website
Browser (specialized for Wikipedia): see Mobile access

C[edit]

Categories
- General:
  - Wikipedia:Categorization – (WP:CAT) (guideline)
  - Help:Category
  - Wikipedia:FAQ/Categorization
  - Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates (guideline) – comparing alternative approaches
- Listings of categories:
  - Special:Categories – alphabetical category listing
  - MediaWiki:Categoriespagetext - scrollable access to the list of all categories
  - Category:Main topic classifications – categories for articles
  - Special:CategoryTree – can generate a tree of categories, or categories and articles
  - User:Chris G Bot 2 – produces, for a given category, a table listing all articles within that category (and all subcategories of that category), and the status of those articles (a clone of User:PockBot, which is disabled)
  - CatScan (at the toolserver)
- Intersection of two categories:
  - Wikipedia:Categorization#Searching for articles in categories – via the standard search box (doesn't search subcategories)
  - CatScan - a tool that can do various types of category scans, including intersection (may or may not be using up-to-date version of database); can search subcategories
    - m:User:Duesentrieb/CatScan
    - CatScan (at the toolserver)
  - Wikipedia:Category intersection – a feature request
  - m:Help:DPL – a MediaWiki extension supporting intersections and other set operations of pages belonging to several categories
- Other:
  - User:Erwin/CatCount – provides a count of pages in any given category
  - In category since – tool to list all articles in a category that have been so since a specified date (at the toolserver)
  - User talk:GregU/randomlink.js – this tool can go to a random page in a category
Censorship:
- Wikipedia is not censored
- Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles
- Wikipedia:Offensive material (Manual of Style)
- m:Should Wikipedia Use Profanity
- Wikipedia:Pornography (essay)
- Wikipedia:Advice for parents (essay)
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality
- MediaWiki:Bad image list
- Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Content warnings
- Ways to set personal preferences so as to not see some or all images:
  - Help:Options to hide an image (alternative to censorship)
  - User:Mr.Z-man/badimages
Commons (Wikimedia Commons):
- Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons – has over three million media files (photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text, video clips, etc.) available for use in any Wikimedia (community) project, to which anyone can contribute; recommended place to upload free images to, rather than to Wikipedia
- Commons:Welcome
- Wikimedia Commons - manual that provides the essential information for people interested in contributing their own work to Wikimedia Commons
- Mayflower – searching the Commons
- Commons:Commons:Tools
- Manual for new Commons users (at en.flossmanuals.net)
- Uploading:
  - Commons:Commons:Tools#Upload media
  - Commons:Commons:Tools/Commonplace – Windows/Linux program for drag-and-drop uploading
  - Upload image – tool to upload images from Flickr
- Moving images to (from Wikipedia):
  - Wikipedia:Moving files to the Commons
  - Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons
  - CommonsHelper – tool to generate an image description to copy-and-paste for the commons upload form (formerly called "Move-to-commons assistant")
  - User:Fran Rogers/CommonsHelper Helper – user script that adds a button to easily bring up CommonsHelper
  - User:MonoBot – fixes (some) problems when an editor doesn't do a move to Commons totally correctly
  - Duplicate images – tool to show duplicate files between Wikipedia and Commons
  - Push-for-commons – tool to show a set of images from a wikipedia, helping to find license problems, {{NowCommons}} candidates, and images that should be copied/moved to the commons.
- RSS feeds:
  - Category-based feed (for newly added images)
  - Media file of the Day
- Other:
  - Category:Wikimedia Commons administrators – English Wikipedia editors who are admins at the Commons
  - m:User:CommonsDelinker – bot that removes links from Wikipedias (all languages) when an image is deleted at Commons
  - Commons interface for the iPhone
  - Flickr-like interface to Commons (no logins or uploads)
  - Commons sum-it-up – tool to generate a summary text for pages on Commons, using Wikipedia articles in different languages
  - Browse Flickr images
Controversial articles:
- Wikipedia:Controversial articles (Manual of Style)
- Wikipedia:List of controversial issues
Copyright:
- In general:
  - Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright
  - Wikipedia:Copyrights (policy)
  - Wikipedia:Image use policy
  - Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights (guideline)
- Using Wikipedia content outside of Wikipedia:
  - Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content (policy)
  - Commons:Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia
  - Wikipedia:Buying Wikipedia articles in print or another form (commercial use)
Customization: (see also Quickbar)
- Wikipedia:Customisation
- Via "my preferences":
  - Special:Preferences
  - Help:Preferences
- Via the Gadgets tab in "my preferences" – see Gadgets
- Via JavaScript: see User scripts
- Via Cascading Style Sheets (CSS):
  - Help:Cascading Style Sheets
  - Skins:
    - Wikipedia:Skin (trivial; probably should be a redirect)
    - m:Customization:Explaining skins
    - MediaWiki talk:Vector.css – place to discuss changes to the Vector skin (standard skin that editors get by default)
    - MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css – place to discuss changes to the Monobook skin (older standard skin)
    - MediaWiki talk:Modern.css – bug reports and other comments for new (January 2008) Modern skin
    - Different customizations of the way Wikipedia pages appear, downloadable from userstyles.org/styles/ (primarily for readers) (Firefox, Thunderbird, Flock, Mozilla Suite, SeaMonkey, and Songbird browsers only)
  - Personal CSS:
    - mw:Gallery of user styles (a mix of MediaWiki-compatible skins, not selectable by editors, and personal css)
    - User:GeorgeMoney/UsefulCSS
    - User:Wolfgangbeyer/monobook.css – monobook.css optimized for color blindness
    - User:Trilobite/Tools – combination of CSS and JavaScript, with a note that "much of this is outdated"
  - Technical:
    - Help:User style
    - m:Help:Cascading style sheets
    - Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes
    - Wikipedia:Useful styles
    - m:Customize page layout – should be at Mediawiki; how to rework standard page seen by all non-logged in readers

D[edit]

Dictionary:
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary (policy)
- For Wiktionary, see also wikt:Main Page
- Another alternative: Urban Dictionary
- WikiLook – Firefox add-on that provides Wiktionary information about any word on a screen, when specially selected (shift or highlight plus mouse move)
Downloading all of Wikipedia: (see also Mobile access; for downloading individual pages, see Exporting (a page))
- Pre-packaged:
  - June 2006 ("official" version)
  - Wikipedia:TomeRaider database
    - Most recent version – £3.00 requested payment; includes £1 donation to the Wikipedia Foundation [sic]
    - Slightly older English version (free)
  - Wikipedia-iphone – complete download for iPhone or iPod Touch
  - Infodisiac downloads (for Windows Mobile/Pocket PC, regular Windows O/S, and Palm)
  - Webaroo – download of all Wikipedia articles as a set of web pages, for off-line reading (horribly out-of-date)

E[edit]

Email:
- Help:Email confirmation
- Wikipedia:Emailing users
Encyclopedia:
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (WP:ENC)
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia (WP:NOT#PAPER)
- Wikipedia:External peer review – information on formal and informal reviews of the overall quality of Wikipedia articles, done by outside experts, not initiated within Wikipedia
- Wikipedia:Size comparisons
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress (WP:WIP) (essay)
- Wikipedia:There is a deadline (essay) - Why it's important to contribute now
- Wikipedia:Fancruft (essay)
- Criticism:
  - Criticism of Wikipedia
  - Wikipedia:Replies to common objections
  - Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is not so great
  - User:Ta bu shi da yu/Global Politician – "six sins" of Wikipedia – a rebuttal
  - Wikipedia:Evaluating Wikipedia as an encyclopedia (essay)
  - Wikipedia:Wikipedia is succeeding (essay)
- Alternatives to the English Wikipedia, within the Wikimedia Foundation:
  - Simple English Wikipedia
  - meta:Concise Wikipedia (proposal as of September 2013)
Exporting (a page): (see also Downloading all of Wikipedia, Collections (books))
- Help:Export
- Special:Export
- mw:Manual:Parameters to Special:Export
- PDF:
  - mw:Extension:PDF Writer
  - WikiPDF
  - Wikipedia:Books#Resources
  - Mediawiki2pdf (shows sample Wikibooks url, but reportedly works for Wikipedia articles as well)
- m:Alternative parsers – programs and projects to translate MediaWiki's text markup syntax into something else, such as HTML
- Wikipedia:Wiki Markup Language (WKML) (historical)

F[edit]

Featured content:
- Wikipedia:New featured content
- Portal:Featured content
- Articles: (see also Good articles, Main Page)
  - Wikipedia:Featured articles (WP:FA)
  - Random Featured article (at the toolserver)
  - Lists:
    - Wikipedia:Featured lists
    - Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured list nominations
  - Pictures:
    - Wikipedia:Featured pictures
  - Sounds:
    - Portal:Featured sounds
Fun:

G[edit]

Geocoding:
- GeoPedia – provides iPhone owners with a Wikipedia feed customized to their current location
- mw:Beta Features/Nearby Pages - Adds a button to the top right corner of pages that contain geographical information, to get the reader to "nearby" pages
- Showing existing Wikipedia articles on a map:
  - Wikimapia
  - Google:
    - Google Maps has an option, under "More", to place markers showing Wikipedia articles
    - About the Google Earth Geographic Web Layer
Good articles: (see also Featured articles)
- Wikipedia:Good articles – the list
Google:
- Googlepedia
- Wikipedia:Purging Google search results (WP:GOOGLEPURGE) - how to remove vandalism, etc., from cached copies of Wikipedia articles in Google search results
Guestbooks: see User pages

H[edit]

History (of a page):
- Wikipedia:How to read an article history
- Help:Page history
- Wikipedia:Copyright violations on history pages
- Diffs:
  - Help:Diff
  - How-to guides:
  - Enhancing the differences in diffs:
    - MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css/Archive 4#Better rendering for .diffchange in diff's...
    - User:Cacycle/wikEdDiff – user script – additions and deletions are highlighted by color in one continuous text
    - User:Js/diffs – another, different user script
- Tools:
  - For content:
    - Who did what:
      - WikiBlame – searches for given text in versions of article
      - tools:~tparis/blame/ - Similar
      - User:AmiDaniel/WhodunitQuery – Windows application that identifies the edit and user who added a specific word or phrase
        "wikipedia blame": October 2008 blog posting and 1450 articles processed using the code
  - For counts and major contributors:
    - WikiDashboard – when going to a new page, puts a count of top editors, and a histogram of edit activity, at the top of the page (Quick Guide)
    - Revision counter^{[dead link]} – counts revisions (edits) (at the toolserver)
    - WikiSense - Contributors – lists edits, similar to page history, but can be sorted by contributor; easy to exclude different groups (at the toolserver)
    - Wikipedia Page History Statistics – builds an edit history overview page
    - WikiChecker
    - Article Contribution Counter (beta) – tool that identifies major contributors to an article (at the toolserver) (a similar feature request is at Bug# 7988)
    - Articleinfo - Article revision statistics
  - Other:
    - History Flow Visualization Application
    - Wikipedia Animate – user script; shows the evolution of a page, like a webcast

I[edit]

Images:
- General:
  - Wikipedia:Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia
- Ways to set personal preferences so as to not see some or all images:
  - Help:Options to hide an image (alternative to censorship)
  - User:Mr.Z-man/badimages

J[edit]

Journals:
- Wikipedia:Journal sources

L[edit]

Library books
- Wikipedia:Forward to Libraries - to find books on an article's subject at a reader's local library
Logging in: (see also User account and username)
- Help:Logging in
- mw:Extension:OpenID – lets users log in with an OpenID
- Security:
  - HTTPS:
    - m:HTTPS
    - Native HTTPS support enabled for all Wikimedia Foundation wikis - October 2011
    - The future of HTTPS on Wikimedia projects - August 2013
  - Wikipedia:User account security (essay)
  - Wikipedia:Personal security practices (essay)
  - Secure login
  - m:Don't leave your fly open (essay)
  - Template:User committed identity – preventive action to enable regaining control of a hijacked account (story)

M[edit]

Merchandise:
- The Wikimedia Shop
- Wikipedia:Merchandise giveaways (WP:GIVEAWAY)
Missing articles:
- Wikipedia:Requested articles (WP:RA)
- Wikipedia:Red link
Mirrors:
- Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks
Mobile access:
- Wikipanion - for iPad and iPhone
- "iPhone Gems: Wikipedia Apps" – review of 16 apps for the iPhone or iPod touch (November 2008)
- Real-time version of Wikipedia:
  - Help:Mobile access
  - mw:Mobile Beta - experimental staging area for new features that may eventually be added to the official mobile site
  - "Accessing Wikipedia via mobile devices", Signpost article, January 2009
  - Semi-experimental mobile portal (as of February 2008)
  - Wapedia
  - m:Mobile subdomain
  - Wikipanion – Free iPhone/iPod app; searches using a fast, native interface; includes autosuggest, landscape mode, and large, readable text.
- Downloaded version of Wikipedia:
  - Pocket Wikipedia – 24,000 images and 14 million words (for PocketPC, Windows and Linux machines)
  - Encyclopodia – complete download, for Apple iPod
  - Wikipedia-iphone – complete download for iPhone or iPod Touch
  - WikiPock
  - Screencast: "How to install Wikipedia on your iPod Touch or iPhone!", February 8, 2008
- Other:
  - GeoPedia – provides iPhone owners with a Wikipedia feed customized to their current location
  - "Kiwi" client – for iPhone and iPod

N[edit]

Navigation:
- Wikipedia:Back to top - adding a "Back to top" link to every section
New editors: (see also Questions, User account and username)
- Welcoming:
  - Wikipedia:Welcoming committee
  - MediaWiki:Welcomecreation – page for automatic welcome message for all new accounts (transitory; is not posted to user talk pages)

O[edit]

Obscenity: see Censorship
Outlines of content (Articles):
- Portal:Contents/Outlines

P[edit]

Page views: (see also Counts)
- Most viewed (English Wikipedia):
  - Wikipedia:Popular pages
  - Most accessed pages per day (Wikistics)
  - Wikipedia article traffic statistics – the 1000 pages with the most views (for April 2013) [last checked: November 2013]
- For any specific article or other page:
  - Monthly chart for any specified page ("Wikipedia article traffic statistics") (for pages that are not articles, include the namespace as a prefix) ("Hendrik's tool")
  - tools:~emw/wikistats/ - Wikipedia article traffic statistics (alpha, as of November 2013)
  - Raw counts – beginning (24 hourly snapshots per day) December 10, 2007 (announcement)
Password: see Logging in
Portals:
- Wikipedia:Portal (WP:P)
- Wikipedia:Portal/Directory
- Portal:Contents/Portals – introductory page that organizes and lists all portals
- Featured:
  - Portal:Featured portals
Preview of a link: Navigation popups [NEED LINK]
Printing: Help:Printable
Privacy:
- Wikipedia:Privacy policy
- m:Privacy policy

Q[edit]

Quality of articles
- Assessments
  - By editors (from "stub" (worst) to "featured article" (best)):
    - Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ
    - Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment (guideline) – an assessment scale in use to give "grades" to articles
    - Category:WikiProject assessments – separate pages within WikiProjects that show assessments done and still needed for pages within that WikiProject
  - By readers (viewers)
Queries (of article content)
- Wikidata queries:
  - Wikipedia:Wikidata
  - meta:Wikidata
  - d:Wikidata:Main Page
  - d:Wikidata:Introduction
  - d:Help:FAQ
  - Wikidata Query: (Wikimedia Labs)
    - Description
    - API documentation
Questions:
- Wikipedia:Help desk
- Wikipedia:Contact us
Quickbar: (the set of links on the left side of the page, often called the "left sidebar")
- User:Equazcion/SidebarTranslate - translates inter-language links into English

R[edit]

Random article:
- Reading:
  - Any page within a specified namespace:
    - Special:Random (in the standard navigation box on the left) (adding a suffix – /Category, /Help, /Image, /Portal, /Template, /User, or /Wikipedia) will take you to a random page in those namespaces)
    - Wikipedia:Random
  - Any article within a category:
    - Special:RandomInCategory
    - Random article in a category (at the toolserver)
  - Random Featured article (at the toolserver)
  - Random Good article (at the toolserver)
  - User talk:GregU/randomlink.js – Adds a "Random link" option to the sidebar menu; can be used to go to a random page in a category or a list
  - Portal:Middle-earth/Random-article – example of how to generate a random article from a specified set of articles
Recent changes (recent edits): (see also Vandalism)
- Special:Recentchanges
- Help:Recent changes

S[edit]

Screen (options):
- Wide screen (minimum of 1400 pixels)
- Special:Preferences:
  - "Appearance" tab:
    - Skin
    - Images (files): maximum size, default size for "thumbnail" images
  - "Gadgets" tab:
    - "Browsing" section
    - "Appearance" section
    - "Compatibility" section
Searching Wikipedia: (see also
- In general: Help:Searching
- Across language Wikipedias: Global Wikipedia Article Search
- From within Wikipedia:
  - Search engine:
    - "MediaWiki search engine improved" (Signpost article, November 2008)
    - Special:Search – regular search with a wider box to enter text
    - Test web interface for lucene-search 2.1
    - User:Zocky/Auto Complete – auto-completes the titles of articles in the search box (JavaScript) (no longer required as of May 2008; this is built into the search function now)
    - Invoking search:
      - Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page#Why doesn't the cursor appear in the search box, like with Google? – provides JavaScript so that the page focus is automatically in the search box
  - Other:
    - Special:Prefixindex – lists articles that begin with any chosen initial character string
- From outside Wikipedia:
  - Firefox:
    - Using Wikipedia for the search box provides an autocomplete feature
    - Creating a smart keyword – can replace "site:en.wikipedia.org" in searches
  - Similpedia – uses a URL or a chunk of text to find similar articles in Wikipedia
  - AskWiki – semantic search engine developed in partnership between AskMeNow and the Wikimedia Foundation (beta)
  - Powerset – natural language search of Wikipedia
  - Yahoo's Wikipedia SearchMonkey App
  - Seariki – search engine specifically designed for Wikipedia [(http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-December/088027.html December 2007 announcement])
  - Powerset – semantic search (May 2008)
  - Googlepedia – Firefox add-on; shows a relevant Wikipedia article along with Google search results
  - Preventing search engines from searching pages:
    - Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing (WP:NOINDEX)
    - Robots.txt file – specifies search engines that are not allowed to crawl all or part of Wikipedia, as well as pages/namespaces that are not to be indexed by any search engine
    - MediaWiki:Robots.txt – direct editing of robots.txt
    - Wikipedia:Talk pages not indexed by Google (feature request)
    - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/NOINDEX
- Tools:
  - Wikipedia:Tools#Searching (may eventually merge into Help:Searching)
  - Wikipedia:User scripts#Searching
Social networking:
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a blog, Web hosting service, social networking service, or memorial site (WP:NOT)
- Wikipedia:User pages (WP:USER)
- Sharing pages:
  - Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Share pages on Facebook, Twitter etc. - add "Like" buttons and "Share" widgets
  - User:TheDJ/Sharebox - script that adds new buttons that make it easier to mail, print or share an article on Facebook or another linksharing service
Spelling:
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names
- U.S. and Commonwealth differences:
Spoiler: Wikipedia:Spoiler (WP:SPOIL) (guideline)

T[edit]

Table of contents:
- Help:Section – covers several aspects of TOCs
Tables:
- Help:Sorting
Translations:
- Wikipedia in different languages – overview:
  - Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination
- Information about languages, and translation aids:
  - mw:Extension:Live Translate
  - m:List of Wikipedias
  - Help:Multilingual support (guide to fonts)
- Moving information from other language Wikipedias to the English Wikipedia
  - Wikipedia:Translation
  - Wikipedia Bilingual – side-by-side display of an article in any two languages in which it is available (Firefox browser extension)