User:Titodutta/Answer to almost everything you wanted to know about Wikipedia

Very often I get questions related to Wikipedia such as what is notability, who edits Wikipedia, who reviews, who deletes articles, what type of references can be added etc.

Here is an attempt to answer to almost everything you wanted to know about Wikipedia. Most of the article will be actually is an index list, where you'll get links to read more.

I don't expect you to read all the pages and references, however this page may serve as your one-stop destination to learn almost everything you wanted to know about Wikipedia.

This page may often be revised, and there is huge possibility, being dynamic in nature, the list will never be complete.

What is Wikipedia
A: Please refer to Wikipedia:Introduction, or Wikipedia's article on Wikipedia itself, or a BBC article answering the question. Of course you have a good friend to give you more details.

Who are Wikipedians
Learn who are Wikipedians here. You may also be interested to know more about Wikipedia community (or Wikimedia community).

Who are admins
Who are administrators, what do they do: Administrators Also: Who are bureaucrats, Bureaucrats

Pre-starters: FAQ
Q: Is Wikipedia reliable? A: Please read Reliability of Wikipedia.

Q: I do not have references (or I am a scholar/researcher myself) can I create pages or add information? A: Please do not. Please see No original research, and Verifiability. Please read more in the section below.

Creating an account
A: So, you want to create an account? Excellent. Perhaps you want to create a Wikipedia account? Before that, here let me tell you why creating an account is important (or you may also read why not create an account. Anyway, let's consider you want to create an account now. So here it is, please go here and create your account. Remember your username, and passsword. Although email id in the form is optional, I suggest you to add it, as in future it might help you to recover account, in case you forget password.

Sign in
Once the account is created, you may sign in to your Wikipedia account here.

I have signed in, now what
That's an excellent question. Thanks for signing in and here a few things you can do:
 * Let's get started with GettingStarted. This page has really a lot of information on how to give a good start
 * You may write something about you (and specially your Wiki-work) on your userpage. If you want to know what is a userpage and wat to write there, this help page will help you.
 * You may spend sometime on your sandbox. Sandbox is like a draft or testing place, where you can prepare article drafts or just test Wikicode. You can access your sandbox page here. There is a central project sandbox also where you can test edits. Learn more about this sandbox.
 * If you are thinking to create an article, this will help you Your first article.
 * Interested to learn how to code in Wiki-format? this cheatsheet is an excellent place to start.

Official welcome
Finally let me allow to officially welcome. I hope, an editor will add a welcome message on your talk page very soon after you start editing. Meanwhile let's check this, there are a lot of things to do and study here. I am completely surely these will be helpful

 Hello and Welcome to Wikipedia!  Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me at my talk page – I'm happy to help. Or, you can ask your question at the New contributors' help page.

--- Here are some more resources to help you as you explore and contribute to the world's largest encyclopedia...

Finding your way around:


 * Table of contents / Department directory


 * The Wikipedia Adventure (a tutorial orienting you with Wikipedia)
 * The Signpost, our newspaper

Need help?


 * Questions – a guide on where to ask questions
 * Cheatsheet – quick reference on Wikipedia's mark-up codes
 * Wikipedia's 5 pillars – an overview of Wikipedia's foundations


 * Article wizard – a Wizard to help you create articles
 * The simplified ruleset – a summary of Wikipedia's most important rules
 * Guide to Wikipedia – a thorough step-by-step guide to Wikipedia

How you can help:


 * Contributing to Wikipedia – a guide on how you can help


 * Community portal – Wikipedia's hub of activity

Additional tips...


 * Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes ( ~ ). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The [[File:Button sig.png]] or [[File:Insert-signature.png]] button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
 * If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills without changing the mainspace, the Sandbox is for you.

Good luck, and have fun.''

Five pillars
Five pillars are sacred and you'll need in every step here. Let's read it 5.

What Wikipedia is NOT
Is Wikipedia a newspaper? Is Wikipedia a directory? Is Wikipedia a soapbox? Is Wikipedia a propaganda or advocacy site? You'll get these answers here.

Notability
A topic must be notable to have an article on Wikipedia. We can't really have content pages on anything and everything. Let's start to explore this area:
 * Notability, main page to understand about Notability policy

Neutral point of view
Articles should be written from a neutral point of view. Learn more about the policy here, or check Neutral point of view.

Conflict of Interests
We should not write about ourselves, our friends, relatives, or the organisation or company we are working for. It might a Conflict of interests.

Let's talk and engage
Wikpedians discuss Wikipedia-related topics on talk pages. Every article has a talk page. You need to sign your post when you write something on a talk page.

The central place to get help is WP:Help desk and the Teahouse.

We have village pumps. Well, village pumps are the primary places to discuss on Wikipedia, please see Village pump and its subpages.

We have WikiProjects such WikiProject India. A WikiProject has its own noticeboard to discuss the topic-related questions. For WikiProject India, the noticeboard may be seen here.

Types of articles
You might want to know about
 * Assessment, what are start, stub, C, B, A class articles
 * Good articles, what is a good article
 * Featured articles, what is a featured article
 * Featured lists, what is a featured list
 * Did you know

Manual of Style
Manual of Style is the standard style of writing we follow on Wikipedia.