Wikipedia:Directories and indexes

The following is a list of Wikipedia's directories and indexes. New to Wikipedia? See the contributing to Wikipedia page or our tutorial for everything you need to know to get started.

Administrative namespaces are intended for use by editors or by automated tools for the administration and governance of the encyclopedia.

List of policies

A descriptive list of official policies for "English Wikipedia". (Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow.)

List of guidelines

A descriptive list of official guidelines for "English Wikipedia". (Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.)

Manual of Style contents

A descriptive list of the pages which make up the style manual for "English Wikipedia". (The MoS outlines Wikipedia's house style for articles.)

FAQs index

An index of Frequently Asked Questions by topics.

Help directory

A massive descriptive list of almost all of Wikipedia's informative, instructional and "how to" pages.

Help menu site map

An index of the pages that make up the help menu.

Reader's index

An index for readers of Wikipedia.

Requests directory

A descriptive list of the interactive services and assistance that can be requested on Wikipedia. (Pages where editors can ask questions and request assistance from people who are familiar with the policies and guidelines covered by each individual forum.)

Tips library

Wikipedia's tips directory, where you can digest how to use Wikipedia in bite-sized morsels. See also Styletips, for bite-size chunks from the Manual of Style.

Tools index

A listing of Wiki-tools intended to simplify, make more efficient, or provide additional functionality to Wikipedians.

Community portal

The main directory for information on collaborations, on-going tasks, and news about English Wikipedia.

Dashboard

An index of the current discussions and requests taking place throughout English Wikipedia.

Department directory

A directory of all the different divisions of Wikipedia.

Maintenance

A directory of maintenance departments alongside open tasks and backlogs.

Essay directory

A colossal descriptive list of Wikipedia namespace essays. (Essays contain information, advice or opinions of one or more editors to aid or comment on the encyclopedia.)

Editor's index

An enormous index of the Wikipedia community, intended to help find anything not in the encyclopedia itself. (list hundreds of essays, guidelines, policies, help pages, and more.)

Noticeboards directory

A descriptive list of Wikipedia's interactive noticeboards.

Open letters

An index of open letters written by the Wikipedia community on matters pertinent to Wikipedia community or Wikimedia Foundation.

WikiProjects directory

An index of WikiProjects by topics. (WikiProjects are groups of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia.)

Wiki markup

A list of wiki markup – alongside implantation tips. (Also known as wikitext or wikicode, is the syntax and keywords used by Wikipedia to format a page.)

Templates

An index of templates used within Wikipedia.

HTML in wikitext

A list of HTML elements, tags and their attributes used in Wikipedia.

Abbreviations

A list of abbreviations commonly used on Wikipedia.

Edit summary legend

A list of commonly used edit summary abbreviations. (An edit summary is a brief explanation of an edit to a Wikipedia page.)

Glossary

A list of terms (slang) commonly used by editors during discussions. See also Reader's glossary.

List of shortcuts

A gigantic list of pages and their "abbreviated redirects". (A shortcut is a specialized type of redirect that provides an abbreviated wikilink to a page or one of its sections.)

Content namespaces are intended for use by readers as part of the encyclopedia.

The vast content (articles) of the encyclopedia has been organized into several different "table of contents" as seen below.