Community portal

Welcome to the community portal. This is the place to find out what is happening on Wikipedia. Learn what tasks need to be done, what groups there are to join, and get or post news about recent events or current activities taking place on Wikipedia.

Community bulletin board

Post your Wikipedia-related news and announcements here!

One on one with Sue Gardner Covering her take on the state of the community, board/staff relations, the role of chapters, the budget and much more besides. Daily shows - July 16-20 Pre-conf., Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Post-conf. + Jimbo Onsite · Offsite Subscription · Feedback Talk to us on skype! Volume 4, Issue 31 — 2008-07-28 Wikimania 2008 wrap-up WikiWorld: "Terry Gross" News and notes: Unblocked in China Dispatches: Find reliable sources online WikiProject Report: Military history Features and admins Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News The Report on Lengthy Litigation Archives·Newsroom·Tip line·Single-page·Subscribe not|the|wikipedia|weekly Next Skypecast: coming soon.... Sign Up!! (details/sign up) Latest: Episode 29 30th July 2008 - What can Skype do, featured content, and other stuff Radio Wikipedia Series 2, Episode 1: Welcome Back Radio Wikipedia! By StewieGriffin! (Declare Your "Listenership") WikiUpdate Episode 3: WikiMania 2010 preparations Note: this episode has Ironholds standing in for RedThunder Reviewing current bids for WM2010

Notices

• The 2008 Summer Olympics are finally upon us! Please help populate our pages with results over the next few weeks, but be sure to reference past games and go to the Olympics WikiProject if in doubt of your edits!
• Radio Wikipedia is 'back on the air' with Series 2.
• Portal:Arts, which is linked to from the Main Page (!), is in a sorry state and urgently needs repair and updates.
• WikiUpdate, the new Wikipedia news podcast, is looking for listeners and contributors.
• The Main Page redesign project has slowed to a crawl, and needs your input to break the ice. Some great designs have been submitted, but how should we proceed?
• The WikiProject Lists of basic topics in collaboration with the WikiProject Geography is building a profile for each country of the world, and is seeking editors interested in finding and placing maps and images from around the world onto these pages. Please contact The Transhumanist.
• Where people use a pseudonym to hide their identity should we include their real name in Wikipedia articles? There's a vote on this at Wikipedia:Biographies of living_persons/Noticeboard/Ongoing BLP concerns#Proposal for a vote.
• There is a straw poll taking place regarding a proposed devolution of the Arbitration Committee's powers.

New project pages seeking contributors

Discussions

Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention:

See also

Wikizine · In the media · News · Announcements · Mailing lists · Meetups

Help out

Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you aren't ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration.

Things to do

• Respond to a request for comment, Wikiquette alert or provide a third opinion.
• Adopt a basic topic list, to help develop and maintain a table of contents to a major subject on Wikipedia.
• Give a requested editor review.
• Can you draw or take pictures? Make a requested image.
• Peer review or give feedback on some articles.
• Make recommendations on articles listed at Good article review.
• Respond to the Reward board or Bounty board.
• Are you good at photo editing? Then try cleaning up some of these images, or helping out at the Graphics Lab.
• Can you use GIS tools? Help make requested maps.
• Can you communicate in another language? There are articles that need translation into English. You can also proofread a translation.
• Let SuggestBot suggest pages for you to improve.
• Update pages with old (ref or note template) citations to the new references format.
• Patrol new pages and help improving new articles.
• Frequent IRC user, or a wikignome? Visit WikiProject Spotlight to join in on their latest collaboration.

Fix-up projects

Here are some tasks you can do:

• Wikify: MTV NEWS: UnFiltered, Practising Law Institute, Chotto Ookii Theatre Company, St. Elizabeth Technical High School, E-OCVM, More..
• Cleanup: Towle Silversmiths, Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, Willowbrook Shopping Centre, Liberal Catholic Church of Ontario, Bexley Cricket Club, More...
• Stubs: Scoopy, RSBot, Zora Fair, Spin Records, The Jewish Internet Defense Force, More...
• Verify: Economy of Chile, Cryptocephalus, Haţeg Island, Athanas, Moringa, More..
• Update: Foreign relations of Estonia, Foreign relations of Afghanistan, Foreign relations of Tajikistan, Scottish U-19 cricket team, USA U-19 cricket team, More...
• Neutrality: Pakistan Press International, Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques, Ann Saunderson, Male rape research, Barnsdall Art Park, More...
• Copyedit: Vampire Earth, Pfaffenhofen an der Roth, Skygazing, Timeline of Earth Liberation Front actions, United Nations Special Commission, More...
• Merge: Annales School, Ansible, Accidental property, Aedicula, Cause of action, More...
• Style: Mass spectrometry software, BlueDragon, Software Engineering Institute, Victoria University, Australia, San Juan Islands, More...
• Expand: Toyota Canada Inc., Auburn Lull, Gabriel Barletta, Literary adaptation, Ophiel, Mrs. Fields, Bagatelles, Opus 119 (Beethoven), Maoricrater explorata, Akasen, Muhammad Ayyub, Edward T. Begay, Military of Malawi, Religion in Poland, More...
• Requests: Taisei, Panzano Observatory, Kerry Harris, Hydrolethalus syndrome, Abgar VI bar Ma'nu, Cyclosporosis, Tsugaru Line, Erophylla bombifrons, Frederick T. Haneman, Zebes, More...
• Articles to be split: Laodamia, Character-cell and block-oriented terminals, List of people with Hong Kong SAR honours since 1997, LMS diesel shunters, Softmod, More...
• Mediation Cabal: Children of Joseph Smith, Manual of Style, Negev Bedouins, or Help mediate an open case!

Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it's probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.

Collaborations

To improve the quality of articles that are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.

Core Topics Collaboration

The Core Topics Collaboration of the Fortnight works to improve essential Wikipedia topics. The current collaboration is Flight.

Flight is the process by which an object achieves sustained movement either through the air (or movement beyond earth's atmosphere, in the case of spaceflight) by aerodynamically generating lift, propulsive thrust or aerostatically using buoyancy.

The most successful groups of living things that fly are insects, birds, and bats. The extinct Pterosaurs, an order of reptiles contemporaneous with the dinosaurs, were also very successful flying animals. Each of these groups' wings evolved independently.

Mechanical flight is the use of a machine to fly. These machines include airplanes, gliders, helicopters, autogyros, airships, balloons, ornithopters, and spacecraft. Gliders provide unpowered flight. Another form of mechanical flight is parasailing where a parachute-like object is pulled by a boat.

You can help pick the next Core Topic collaboration article.

Collaborations by topic

Other collaborations

Active improvement teams

Maintenance

Help clear up the backlog of articles to be merged! Merging is the process combining two (or sometimes more) articles into a new article, or adding the content of one article to another. You'll need to be familiar with the associated templates. Before you begin, you need to know the details of merging and moving pages. After you read that, you're ready to begin consolidating and improving articles!

WikiProjects

WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist—examine the master list to find one that interests you. They are separate from, though may work with, Collaborations.

Language translation

Wikipedia is not just in English. Versions exist in many different languages. To fill in some of the English Wikipedia's gaps, we translate articles from other languages into English. You can view a list of articles that need translation from any language, or, in a few cases, by only one language (this is only available for the more popular languages).

Guidelines, help, and resources

Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.

Help

• Wikipedia help – Browse help pages
• Where to ask questions

Editing

• The Manual of Style guidelines and tutorial
• How to edit a page
• Contributing
• How to write a great article
• Where to find information for articles
• A list of template messages
• What special pages are
• Tools for editing
• Request newspapers or magazines

Policies and guidelines

Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply both to articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed.

Article standards

Working with others

Resources

New user information

Introduction · Sandbox · Help · Adoption · What Wikipedia is not · Glossary · Account benefits · Planning school assignments

Ways to communicate

Contact (overview) · Discussion pages · Mailing lists · IRC chat · Meetups · User pages · Requests for comment · Public watchlists · Regional notice boards · Administrators' noticeboard · Requests for article feedback · Local Embassy

Community support groups and programs

Welcoming committee · Editor assistance · Wiki-adoption · Birthday Committee · Harmonious editing club · Kindness Campaign · Reach out · Stress alerts · Wikipedia awards program · Dept. of Fun · One featured article per quarter · Missing encyclopedic articles

Common procedures

Featured content · Good articles · Requests for feedback · Deleting a page (full policy) · Moving a page (naming policies) · Protecting a page (full policy) · Reverting a page · Administrator nominations (summaries) · Category-based access

How to resolve conflicts

Stay cool! · Be nice to newcomers · Alert others · Dispute resolution · Arbitration policy

Community information

About Wikipedia · Goings-on · About Wikimedia · Wikipedians · Wiki-adoption · Donations · Administrators · Babel · Culture · Games · Humor · Mottoes

Related communities

Tip of the day...

Wikipedia has an index system called Categories, in which links to articles are provided based on category tags included in each article.

To add an article to a particular category, add [[Category:Category name]] to the article's text (preferably at the bottom). The assigned category should now show up at the bottom of the article, and a link to the page should show up on the indicated category page in Wikipedia's category system.

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