How Wikipedia Works

for similar works, see Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

How Wikipedia Works: Heartbreak Edit Conflict is a wiki remix of the 2008 book by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates. It is a guide to understanding and using Wikipedia, for readers with a basic undertanding of the project. It was published in the United States by No Starch Press under the GFDL, so that it would be compatible with Wikimedia projects.

"This book was created by Wikipedians, and as a result, I have never read a better summary of how Wikipedia works. Anyone who wants to understand this miracle of the Internet should buy this book!" --Jimmy Wales

"...resolves Wikipedia's paradox: Anyone can edit it, but to make yoru edits stick, you need to know what you are doing. Editing Wikipedia means navigating a inefield of implicit norms, tacit knowledge, secret lore, suggested policies, and enforceable regulations." - Barry Wellman

"It is probable that the idea of an encyclopaedia may undergo very considerable extension and elaboration in the near future. Its full possibilities have still to be realized. . . . There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements, to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind." - H.G.Wells, 1937, World Brain (from the preface)

Introduction

Content

Ch.1 - What's in Wikipedia?

Ch.2 - The World Gets a Free Encyclopedia

Ch.3 - Finding Wikipedia's Content

Ch.4 - Understanding and Evaluating an Article

Editing

Ch.5 - Basic Editing

Ch.6 - Good Writing and Research

Ch.7 - Cleanup, Projects, Policy, and Processes

Ch.8 - Building Wikipedia's Web

Ch.9 - Images, Media, Templates and Special Characters