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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual
John Broughton
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Wikipedia: The Missing Manual
by John Broughton
Copyright © 2008 O’Reilly Media. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
are also available for most titles (http://safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/
institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or [email protected].
Editors: Nan Barber and Peter Meyers
Copy Editor: Sohaila Abdulali and Jill Steinberg
Production Editor: Nellie McKesson
Proofreader: Nellie McKesson
Indexer: Dawn Frausto
Cover Designer: David Freedman
Illustrators: Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read
Printing History:
January 2008: First Edition
Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of
O’Reilly Media, Inc. Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, The Missing Manual logo, Pogue Press, and the
Pogue Press logo and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
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trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc. was aware of a
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While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume
no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
TM
This book uses RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding.
[M]
Table of Contents
The Missing Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Part I. Editing, Creating, and Maintaining Articles
1. Editing for the First Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Wikipedia Way of Editing 3
Practicing in the Sandbox 4
Starting, Previewing, and Saving Your Edit 5
Dealing with an Edit Conflict 11
Wiki Markup: From Edit Box to Screen 14
Editing Article Sections 18
Editing the Lead Section 20
Editing for Real 21
2. Documenting Your Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Documentation Guidelines 25
Adding an External Link 30
Citing Sources 31
Creating Footnotes 33
Advanced Citation Techniques 40
3. Setting Up Your Account and Personal Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Why Register? 45
Picking a User Name 48
Registering 50
Setting Up Your User Page 53
Personal Subpages 56
v
4. Creating a New Article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
What Makes a Good Article 62
What Articles Don’t Belong on Wikipedia 67
Tutorial: Creating a New Article 69
Ideas for New Articles 78
Resources for Writing Articles 78
5. Who Did What: Page Histories and Reverting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Understanding Page Histories 81
Reverting Edits 90
Advanced Techniques 96
6. Monitoring Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The User Contributions Page 99
Wikipedia’s Standard Watchlist 101
Multiple Watchlists 115
Real-Time Monitoring Alternatives 117
7. Dealing with Vandalism and Spam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Lines of Defense 122
Reverting Vandalism and Spam 122
Issuing Warnings 130
Requesting Assistance of Administrators 133
Don’t Get into a Revert War 138
Part II. Collaborating with Other Editors
8. Communicating with Your Fellow Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Identifying Yourself 143
Article Talk (Discussion) Pages 145
User Talk Page Postings 156
Communicating via Email and IRC 162
9. WikiProjects and Other Group Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
WikiProjects 165
Collaborations 175
Less Formal Working Groups 177
10. Resolving Content Disputes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Why Editors Disagree 179
Avoiding Content Disputes 181
vi | Table of Contents
Reviewing Content Changes: A General Plan of Action 184
Resolving Content Disputes Informally 188
Resolving Disputes with Assistance 191
11. Handling Incivility and Personal Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Enforcing Norms of Conduct 195
Dealing with Incivility and Personal Attacks 200
When You Get Irritated (or Worse) 210
12. Lending Other Editors a Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Answering Questions 213
Showing Appreciation for Other Editors 218
Reviewing Articles and Images 219
Coaching Other Editors 223
Helping Resolve Disputes 223
For Experienced Editors 227
Choosing Where You Want to Help 228
Part III. Formatting and Illustrating Articles
13. Article Sections and Tables of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Getting Sections Right 233
Getting Headings Right 242
Improving the Table of Contents 245
14. Creating Lists and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Creating and Editing Lists 253
Editing and Creating Tables 262
15. Adding Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Uploading Images 271
Finding Images 284
Placing an Image in an Article 284
Questions or Problems with Images 287
Uploading a Non-free Image 288
Part IV. Building a Stronger Encyclopedia
16. Getting Readers to the Right Article: Naming, Redirects, and Disambiguation . . . 295
Naming and Renaming 295
For Old Names and Bad Spellers: Redirects 303
Table of Contents | vii
For Multiple Meanings: Disambiguation 313
17. Categorizing Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Fundamentals of Categorization 323
Category Links in Articles 324
Category Pages 331
Building Out Categories 335
Discussing Categories 336
Categories, Lists, and Series Boxes 336
18. Better Articles: A Systematic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Avoid Surprises 339
Don’t Suppress or Separate Controversy 342
Reorganize and Edit Existing Content 343
Don’t Take Article Scope as a Given 346
Improve the Citation of Sources 348
Build the Web 351
Look for Guidance and Examples 352
Add Sourced Content 353
Remove Cruft and Duplication 355
Get the Wording Right 356
Make the Article Look Appealing 357
19. Deleting Existing Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Responding to Problem Articles 359
Alternatives to Deletion 362
Three Ways to Delete an Article 363
After an Article is Deleted 379
Part V. Customizing Wikipedia
20. Customizing with Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
User Profile 383
Skin 388
Math 390
Files 391
Date and Time 391
Editing 393
Recent Changes 395
Watchlist 395
Search 396
Misc 397
viii | Table of Contents
Gadgets 399
21. Easier Editing with JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Setting Up Your Browser 401
Adding and Deleting Scripts 402
Fixing Problems 409
Resources 410
Part VI. Appendixes
A. A Tour of the Wikipedia Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
B. Reader’s Guide to Wikipedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
C. Learning More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Table of Contents | ix
The Missing Credits
About the Author
John Broughton John Broughton has been a registered editor at Wikipedia since August 2005, with more than 15,000 edits by the time
he wrote this book. His biggest Wikipedia endeavor has been the Editor’s index to Wikipedia (just type that in the “search” box at the left
of any Wikipedia page). This index lists every important reference page
on Wikipedia, as well as hundreds of off-Wikipedia Web pages with
useful information and tools for Wikipedia editors.
John’s first experience with programming computers was in a 1969 National Science
Foundation program. Since then, he’s held various computer-related management positions in the headquarters of a U.S. Army Reserve division, worked in internal audit
departments as a Certified Information Systems Auditor, and was the Campus Y2K
Coordinator at U.C. Berkeley.
A Certified Management Accountant, John has B.S. in Mathematical Sciences from
Johns Hopkins University; an M.B.A. from Golden Gate University; an M.S. in Education from the University of Southern California; and a Masters in Public Policy from
the University of California at Berkeley.
About the Creative Team
Nan Barber (editor) has worked with the Missing Manual series since its inception.
She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and G4 Macintosh. Email:
Dawn Frausto (editor) is assistant editor for the Missing Manual series. When not
working, she rock climbs, plays soccer, and causes trouble. Email: [email protected].
Nellie McKesson (production editor) is a graduate of St. John's College in Santa Fe,
New Mexico. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where her favorite places to eat
are Punjabi Dhaba and Tacos Lupita. Email: [email protected].
xi
Sohaila Abdulali (copy editor) is a freelance writer and editor. She has published a
novel, several children's books, and numerous short stories and articles. She recently
finished an ethnography of an aboriginal Indian woman. She lives in New York City
with her husband Tom and their small but larger-than-life daughter, Samara. She can
be reached through her Web site at http://www.sohailaink.com.
Jill Steinberg (copy editor) is a freelance writer and editor based in Seattle, and has
produced content for O'Reilly, Intel, Microsoft, and the University of Washington.
When she's not working with words, Jill takes Italian classes, practices opera singing,
and helps create urban parks. Email: [email protected].
Daniel Mocsny (tech reviewer) discovered Wikipedia editing in April, 2006. He edits
as an ordinary user, and as of late 2007 had the second-highest edit count on the Wikipedia Help desk. In addition, he is an administrator on two other public wikis and
three corporate wikis, with a real-life involvement in software development, documenting, and technical support. You can contact Daniel via his Wikipedia user talk
page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Teratornis.
Godmund Schick (technical reviewer) is an avid coffee drinker who periodically
spends time baking, quilting, running, reading, and experiencing new things. Email:
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the encouragement, support, and
assistance of my wife Joan. I want to thank Pete Meyers, who responded so positively
to my proposal for the book; Nan Barber, my editor, whose help and patience made
the writing process much easier and the words in this book so much better; and the
technical reviewers, Daniel Mocsny and Godmund Schick, whose comments on the
first draft I found invaluable.
—John Broughton
The Missing Manual Series
Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t
come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a
handcrafted index; cross-references to specific pages (not just chapters); and RepKover,
a detached-spine binding that lets the book lie perfectly flat without the assistance of
weights or cinder blocks. Recent and upcoming titles include:
Access 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
AppleScript: The Missing Manual by Adam Goldstein
AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink and David Reynolds
xii | The Missing Credits
CSS: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Digital Photography: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover and Barbara Brundage
Dreamweaver 8: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
eBay: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
Excel 2003: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2007: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Facebook: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
FileMaker Pro 8: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser
FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual by Geoff Coffey and Susan Prosser
Flash 8: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
Flash CS3: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer and Chris Grover
FrontPage 2003: The Missing Manual by Jessica Mantaro
GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Google: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by Sarah Milstein, J.D. Biersdorfer, and
Matthew MacDonald
The Internet: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and J.D. Biersdorfer
iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iMovie ’08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPhone: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPhoto ’08: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPod: The Missing Manual, Sixth Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer
JavaScript: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition by David Pogue
Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition by David Pogue
Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Mark H. Walker and Franklin
Tessler
Office 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover, Matthew MacDonald, and E.A.
Vander Veer
The Missing Credits | xiii
Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink
PCs: The Missing Manual by Andy Rathbone
Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
QuickBase: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
QuickBooks 2008: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition by David Pogue
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition by David Pogue and Adam
Goldstein
Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual by Sharon Crawford
Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue, Craig Zacker,
and Linda Zacker
Word 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
The “For Starters” books contain only the most essential information from their larger
counterparts—in larger type, with a more spacious layout, and none of the more advanced sidebars. Recent titles include:
Access 2003 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Kate Chase and Scott Palmer
Access 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2003 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
PowerPoint 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
Quicken 2006 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Windows XP for Starters: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
Word 2007 for Starters: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
xiv | The Missing Credits
Introduction
Wikipedia formally began in January 2001, as a project to produce a free content encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute. Seven years later, Wikipedia pages seem
to turn up near the top of almost every Google search. Wikipedia has become the first
place millions of people go to get a quick fact or to launch extensive research.
Editions of Wikipedia exist in more than 250 languages, with a combined total of more
than nine million articles. All the editions use the same underlying software, MediaWiki. All are owned and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit
organization that also operates a number of other online collaborative projects, including Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, and
Wikiversity.
Each language edition of Wikipedia operates separately, almost entirely through the
efforts of tens of thousands of unpaid volunteers. The Foundation has only about a
dozen employees, including a couple of programmers. It buys hardware, designs and
implements the core software, and pays for the network bandwidth that makes Wikipedia and its sister projects possible, but it doesn’t have the resources to do any of the
writing for those projects. All the writing and editing are done by people who get no
money for their efforts, although plenty of intrinsic satisfaction.
Wikipedia has never lacked skeptics. Why expect quality articles if everyone—the university professor and the 12-year-old middle school student—has equal editing rights?
Won’t cultists and fringe theorists and partisans take control of controversial articles?
Won’t vandalism become rampant, driving away good editors? How can tens of thousands of people work together when there is no hierarchy to provide direction and
resolve disputes?
These questions point out the inevitable disadvantages of the “anyone can edit” approach to creating an online encyclopedia. Wikipedia will always be a work in progress,
not a finished product. What the skeptics overlook, however, is that letting anyone edit
has proved to be an incredible strength. In a world where a billion or so people have
access to the Internet, millions of people have contributed to Wikipedia, and their
numbers are increasing every day.
As a result, the vast majority of the millions of articles in all the different Wikipedias
are of at least reasonable quality although many are quite short. The Wikipedia.org
xv
domain is among the most visited on the Internet, because there’s no free alternative
for most of the information in Wikipedia. The critics’ predictions that Wikipedia’s
limitations will cripple it have not come true.
What makes Wikipedia so successful? Here are some of the reasons it works:
• An overwhelming percentage of the edits to Wikipedia are done in good faith—
that is, by people trying to improve articles, not vandalize them. When vandalism
occurs, it tends to remain very briefly, because there are so many constructive
editors around to fix it.
• Wikipedia has a large number of rules about its process that encourage collaboration and build consensus around what information goes into articles. When people
follow these rules, quality articles are the result.
• An overwhelming percentage of editors do follow the rules, and when others point
out their mistakes, they’re willing to self-correct. Those editors who do find Wikipedia rules to be problematical typically leave on their own.
• Finally, there are a few editors with special authority to enforce the rules. This
authority is granted by the community of users, through agreed-upon processes.
So far, the enforcers have been adequate for the job, helped by increasing automation of many routine administrative tasks.
As Wikipedia grows and the number of editors, edits per day, and total articles increases, its focus has changed, and will continue to change. Wikipedia already has articles
about the most important topics, so the focus is shifting away from quantity and towards quality—improving articles rather than creating new ones. As the definition for
success shifts, Wikipedia’s processes will adjust as well. The consensus approach has
proven flexible enough, so far, to deal with problems as they arise. Emphasizing quality
—in ways that affect most editors’ everyday editing—will be one of Wikipedia’s biggest
challenges.
About This Book
This book is about the English edition of Wikipedia—the oldest, largest, and most
complicated edition of Wikipedia, but not (since March 2001) the only edition. In other
words, this book is about the en.wikipedia.org domain, not the entire Wikipedia.org
domain. For simplicity, when you see the term “Wikipedia,” it refers to the English
edition of Wikipedia. Just remember that other language versions exist.
Why do you need a book about editing Wikipedia? Wikipedia certainly doesn’t lack
for pages that document policies, technical matters, instructions, and agreed-on processes. Wikipedia depends on volunteer editors to write and update virtually all the
documentation for Wikipedia and its underlying software, and plenty of editors enjoy
doing this valuable work. If printed out, Wikipedia’s online reference pages would
make a multivolume set of books that might be titled Everything you might possibly
xvi | Introduction
want to tell million of volunteers from around the world about how to write an encyclopedia, together, including how to organize and govern themselves, and how to change the
software that underlies the encyclopedia, avoid legal pitfalls, and enjoy themselves.
What’s missing, however, is structured guidance for people who want to learn the “core
curriculum,” the information you absolutely need to avoid running afoul of the rules,
and a structured process for learning all about editing, including all the tips and tools
that can make editing easier. Wikipedia doesn’t offer anything that charts the path from
novice to expert, with step by step illustrations for every topic along the way.
For example, there are dozens of pages in Wikipedia that describe the three different
processes for getting an article deleted. There are no designated pages for novices and
experienced editors, and there’s no editorial board responsible for maintaining consistency and deciding how much duplication is appropriate. Newcomers to Wikipedia
often find the large collection of massively hyperlinked online reference pages intimidating. With so many entry points, it’s hard to know where to start.
This book provides a clear path to all the essentials, with numerous additions to choose
among. Tens of thousands of Wikipedians have gotten off to rough starts, yet persevered, going on to become solid contributors. This book helps you learn from those
mistakes without having to personally live through them.
Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is designed to accommodate editors at every level of
experience. If you’re just starting out, that’s fine: The early chapters will make your
editing experience more productive as well as enjoyable. Nor do you have to be a computer whiz. The really great editors are good at one or more of several things, including
research, editing and writing, organizing, and working with other editors; technical
matters are simply one realm of specializing as a Wikipedia editor.
If you’ve already done quite a bit of editing of Wikipedia, and learned—by trial and
error as well as reading documentation—what to do and not to do, even the earlier
chapters are likely to offer you useful tips and tricks. In the later chapters, you’ll learn
about things you’ve never run across before, simply because you’ve never had time to
read through all the Wikipedia documentation. Check out the table of contents to spot
unfamiliar aspects of Wikipedia, so you can turn immediately to the parts of the book
most likely to help you work better and faster.
About the Outline
Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is divided into five parts, each containing several chapters.
• Part 1, Editing, Creating, and Maintaining Articles, covers the basics. These
chapters explain the right way to edit, why you want to be a registered editor, how
to become one, and everything you need to know about figuring out, tracking, and
reversing changes to articles when appropriate. It also discusses all the things to
do when creating a new article.
Introduction | xvii