Wikipedia:Instructional material

Contributing to Wikipedia is the main page that provides information, links, videos and other resources on the basics needed to comprehend, comment on, and contribute to Wikipedia. Aside from the "Contributing to Wikipedia" page there are some shorter, topic specify and more comprehensive introduction pages as listed below. See also Help:Getting started for a more comprehensive listing of guides. To browse all "help" and "how to" related pages see the help menu or help directory.

About Wikipedia

• Introduction — What is Wikipedia and how you can contribute.

Short tutorials

• Introduction — Thirteen short modules on all the basics.
• Tutorial — A simplified guide to editing Wikipedia.

Quick introductions

• Policies and guidelines — How does Wikipedia actually work.
• Manual of Style - How do I format Wikipedia articles.
• Talk pages — How do I communicate in Wikipedia.
• Referencing — How do I add sources to articles,
• Uploading images — How do I add and use images.
• Navigating Wikipedia — How do I find my way around.

Comprehensive overviews

• Plain and simple — The basic mechanics of Wikipedia.
• Primer for newcomers — An overview intended for new contributors.

How-to book

• The Missing Manual — A comprehensive how-to guide (book) that explains everything about contributing for novice to expert editors.

Related

• Tutorials and quickstart guides for the WikiEducator wiki - relevant to Wikipedia because that wiki also uses the MediaWiki software.
• A number of tutorials appeared in the weekly internal newsletter, the Signpost. The January 14, 2008 issue had first of these.
• The "Bookshelf" project -- a collection of various instructional materials about the Wikimedia world.

An administrator of a public wiki recorded some MediaWiki training videos, to help people learn how to edit on his wiki. Most of the material in the videos applies to any MediaWiki site, including Wikipedia; many of the examples actually feature Wikipedia. You can view the videos from the wiki page, or download the videos in high resolution (.avi files), or download lower resolution files in Quicktime format.

In addition, there are some screencasts posted to YouTube.

• How to create a Wikipedia article - at Howcast (video 3:36m).
• Wikipedia beneath the surface - from North Carolina State University (video 6:41m).
• "Wikis in Plain English", May 2007. In this case, "plain" may be a bit repetitive, but for those who prefer pictures to words, this is a good, brief introduction to the concept of a wiki. (And no, editing a wiki isn't normally done in rotation, as the video happens to show.)

• Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; Ben Yates (2008). How Wikipedia Works:. No Starch Press. ISBN 978-1-59327-176-3.
• John Broughton (2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0-596-55377-7.
• Andrea Forte; Amy Bruckman (2005). Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? (PDF). Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Computing.
• Dan O'Sullivan (2009). Wikipedia: A New Community of Practice?. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4094-8606-0.
• Joseph Michael Reagle, Jr.; Lawrence Lessig (2010). Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01447-2.

• Henriette Fiebig (ed.). Wikipedia: das Buch.
• Ziko van Dijk. Wikipedia. Wie Sie zur freien Enzyklopädie beitragen. Open Source Press, Munich 2010.
• Nando Stöcklin: Wikipedia clever nutzen – in Schule und Beruf. Orell Füssli, Zürich 2010, 149 S., ISBN 978-3-280-04065-2 (CHF 26.90)

• Esperanto:
  • Ziko van Dijk. Vikipedio por vi. Espero, 2008.

• Swedish:
  • Lennart Guldbrandsson. Så fungerar Wikipedia. October 2008. ISBN 9789197710947.

• Mizanur Rahman. MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial Guide: Install, manage, and customize your MediaWiki installation. Packt Press. Published March 2007. ISBN 978-1904811596
• Daniel Barrett. MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond). O'Reilly. Published October 2008. ISBN 978-0596519797.

• Wikipedia:Coaching
• Wikipedia:Questions