Wikipedia:Reader's index to Wikipedia

For other basic information for readers of Wikipedia, see About, 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 Directory.)

A

 * Accessibility: (see also Audio)
 * Manual of Style/Accessibility
 * WikiProject Accessibility
 * JAWS:
 * JAWS (screen reader)
 * Using JAWS
 * Wikipedia Guide for JAWS Readers
 * User:Wolfgangbeyer/monobook.css – monobook.css optimized for color blindness
 * Category:Wikipedia accessibility
 * Article message boxes (amboxes): (sometimes called "tags"; these are templates)
 * Template messages
 * Audio: (see also Accessibility)
 * Spoken versions of Wikipedia articles:
 * WikiProject Spoken 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

 * Banners:
 * For the Wikipedia project itself: Banners and buttons
 * At the top of articles: see Article message boxes
 * Books
 * ISBN
 * ISBN
 * Book sources
 * Special:Booksources
 * Finding a book mentioned in a Wikipedia article:
 * At a local library:
 * Forward to Libraries (Signpost article, March 2013)
 * 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

 * Categories
 * General:
 * Categorization – (WP:CAT) (guideline)
 * Help:Category
 * FAQ/Categorization
 * 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:
 * Categorization – 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)
 * 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
 * No disclaimers in articles
 * Offensive material (Manual of Style)
 * Should Wikipedia Use Profanity
 * Pornography (essay)
 * Advice for parents (essay)
 * WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship
 * WikiProject Sexology and sexuality
 * MediaWiki:Bad image list
 * Perennial proposals
 * 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):
 * 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
 * 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
 * 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):
 * Moving files to the Commons
 * 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:
 * Controversial articles (Manual of Style)
 * List of controversial issues
 * Copyright:
 * In general:
 * FAQ/Copyright
 * Copyrights (policy)
 * Image use policy
 * Non-U.S. copyrights (guideline)
 * Using Wikipedia content outside of Wikipedia:
 * Reusing Wikipedia content (policy)
 * Commons:Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia
 * Buying Wikipedia articles in print or another form (commercial use)
 * Customization: (see also Quickbar)
 * 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:
 * 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:
 * 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
 * Catalogue of CSS classes
 * Useful styles
 * Customize page layout – should be at Mediawiki; how to rework standard page seen by all non-logged in readers

D

 * Dictionary:
 * Wikipedia is not a dictionary (policy)
 * For Wiktionary, see also 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)
 * 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

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

F

 * Featured content:
 * New featured content
 * Portal:Featured content
 * Articles: (see also Good articles, Main Page)
 * Featured articles (WP:FA)
 * Random Featured article (at the toolserver)
 * Lists:
 * Featured lists
 * List of Wikipedians by featured list nominations
 * Pictures:
 * Featured pictures
 * Sounds:
 * Portal:Featured sounds
 * Fun:
 * Department of Fun
 * List of shortcuts/Project shortcuts
 * April Fool's Main Page
 * Games:
 * Category:Wikipedia games
 * Wikigames at Wikia
 * Wikipedia holidays

G

 * Geocoding:
 * GeoPedia – provides iPhone owners with a Wikipedia feed customized to their current location
 * 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)
 * Good articles – the list
 * Google:
 * Googlepedia
 * 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

 * History (of a page):
 * How to read an article history
 * Help:Page history
 * Copyright violations on history pages
 * Diffs:
 * Help:Diff
 * How-to guides:
 * Simplest diff guide
 * Simple diff and link guide
 * Complete diff and link guide
 * Enhancing the differences in diffs:
 * MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css/Archive 4
 * 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
 * ~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 – 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

 * Images:
 * General:
 * 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

 * Journals:
 * Journal sources

L

 * Library books
 * 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:
 * HTTPS
 * Native HTTPS support enabled for all Wikimedia Foundation wikis - October 2011
 * The future of HTTPS on Wikimedia projects - August 2013
 * User account security (essay)
 * Personal security practices (essay)
 * Secure login
 * Don't leave your fly open (essay)
 * Template:User committed identity – preventive action to enable regaining control of a hijacked account (story)

M

 * Merchandise:
 * [//shop.wikimedia.org/ The Wikimedia Shop]
 * Merchandise giveaways (WP:GIVEAWAY)
 * Missing articles:
 * Requested articles (WP:RA)
 * Red link
 * Mirrors:
 * 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
 * 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
 * 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

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

O

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

P

 * Page views: (see also Counts)
 * Most viewed (English 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")
 * ~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:
 * Portal (WP:P)
 * 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:
 * Privacy policy
 * Privacy policy

Q

 * Quality of articles
 * Assessments
 * By editors (from "stub" (worst) to "featured article" (best)):
 * WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ
 * 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)
 * Article validation feature (was supposed to begin in late 2005)
 * Article feedback
 * Feedback walkthrough
 * Feedback guidelines
 * Article Feedback/Noticeboard
 * Article feedback/Version 5
 * m:R:Article Feedback - research
 * Queries (of article content)
 * Wikidata queries:
 * Wikidata
 * Wikidata
 * d:Wikidata:Main Page
 * d:Wikidata:Introduction
 * d:Help:FAQ
 * Wikidata Query: (Wikimedia Labs)
 * Description
 * API documentation
 * Questions:
 * Help desk
 * 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

 * 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)
 * 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

 * 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:
 * FAQ/Main Page – 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:
 * 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
 * Talk pages not indexed by Google (feature request)
 * Requests for comment/NOINDEX
 * Tools:
 * Tools (may eventually merge into Help:Searching)
 * User scripts
 * Social networking:
 * What Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT)
 * User pages (WP:USER)
 * Sharing pages:
 * Perennial proposals - 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:
 * Manual of Style/Proper names
 * U.S. and Commonwealth differences:
 * Manual of Style/Spelling
 * Manual of Style/Capital letters
 * List of spelling variants
 * Articles using British English titles
 * Articles using American English titles
 * Manual of Style/National varieties of English (failed proposal)
 * Perennial proposals
 * Spoiler: Spoiler (WP:SPOIL) (guideline)

T

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

U

 * User account and username (also called "useraccount", "login", and "user login") (see also Logging in, Privacy, User pages)
 * Registered versus unregistered editing:
 * Why create an account? – benefits to a person who decides to register
 * The benefits of requiring account creation on Wikipedia (essay) – arguments against allowing IP editors
 * The benefits of not requiring account creation on Wikipedia (essay) – arguments in favor of IP editors
 * IPs are human too (essay) - arguments on not assuming IP editors do not make positive contributions
 * Starting out:
 * Username policy (WP:U)
 * Tutorial/Registration
 * Special:Userlogin – to request an account
 * Request an account – for those who wish to create an account but cannot read the CAPTCHA image that is part of the standard registration process as of February 2007
 * mw:Extension:SignupAPI
 * mw:API:Account creation
 * Help:Email confirmation
 * Inappropriate usernames:
 * Usernames for administrator attention – blatantly inappropriate usernames
 * Removing accounts without any edits:
 * Privacy policy
 * Single signon ("single login", "single user login", "SUL"):
 * Bug# 57 – request for this feature
 * Signpost articles: August 2006, August 2007
 * m:Help:Unified login and Single signon transition – moving to a single username (signon) across all Wikipedia domains
 * mw:Extension:CentralAuth – "allows global/shared accounts between projects"
 * User pages: (see also User account and username)
 * User pages (WP:USER) (guideline)
 * Subpages (guideline)
 * User scripts
 * User scripts

V

 * Vandalism
 * Vandalism (WP:VAN) (policy)
 * Cleaning up vandalism
 * Tutorial: Reporting and dealing with vandals – Wikipedia Signpost/2008-01-28/Tutorial
 * Video:
 * Wikitube - Videos are automatically added when viewing a Wikipedia article pages
 * http://www.ghacks.net/2013/09/01/wikitube-adds-youtube-videos-wikipedia-articles/
 * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikitube/aneddidibfifdpbeppmpoackniodpekj - Chrome extension

W

 * Wikipedia basic information:
 * Wikipedia – what it is, history, hardware and software, funding, authorship and management, and much more
 * About
 * [[Media:Wikipedia-leaflet-en.pdf|What is Wikipedia? (pdf)]] – two page flyer
 * History of Wikipedian processes and people
 * Historic debates
 * Role of Jimmy Wales
 * Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia (essay)
 * Late 2001 version of Wikipedia (nostalgia.wikipedia.org)
 * Why Wikipedia is so great (essay)
 * Wikipediology/library/essays/Merovingian-1 (essay) – "The Fluid Encyclopedia" – 2001 to 2005
 * Wikipedia Fundraising Central Online Reporting Engine
 * Category:Wikipedia history
 * General reading list
 * Instructional material
 * Learning the ropes
 * WordPress: PhotoCommons - a plug-in that provides easy searching, inserting, and maintaining of files from Wikimedia Commons into a blog [alpha]