Help:Contents

This help page contains a list of guides and single-topic help files for the MediaWiki software compiled at the main page of meta.wikimedia.org . It has been progressively being moved to the www.mediawiki.org website. Wikimedia's Meta-Wiki was formerly where such documents were managed and also where proposals were discussed before MediaWiki was created. There is still content that has yet to be moved or modified.

This help page is only for the MediaWiki wiki software. Many MediaWiki-powered wikis still have a help link that points to this page. If you came here from a wiki based on other software or you are looking for help not related to MediaWiki software, we will not be able to help you.

Introduction

• Detailed Introduction
• Help overview

MediaWiki is a free software wiki engine licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is used by many websites, including this one.

Handbook parts

The help pages are sorted by user type, for readers and editors. Help pages for moderators, system administrators and developers are now available in the respectives specific section.

For readers

Reading

Go button
Searching
Words ignored when searching
Namespaces
Page names
Sections
What links here
Redirects
Categories
Image pages
Special pages
Printable version

Tracking changes

Recent changes (enhanced)
Related changes
Watching pages
Page history
Diff page
Edit summary
User contributions
Minor edit
Patrolled edit

Accounts

Logging in
Preferences
User style
Two-factor authentication

For editors

Editing

Start new pages
Advanced editing
Editing FAQ
Edit toolbar
Renaming (moving) a page
Export
Import
Shortcuts
Edit conflict
Page size

Referencing

Links
URLs
Piped links
Interwiki linking
Footnotes (references, citations)

Formatting

Wikitext examples
Cascading style sheets (CSS)
Reference card
HTML in wikitext
Lists
Tables
Formula
Sorting
Colors
Images and file uploads

Fixing mistakes

Show preview
Testing
Reverting edits

Advanced functioning

Expansion
Templates
Advanced templates
Variables
Parser functions
Parameter defaults
System messages
Substitution
Arrays
Calculation
Transclusion

Other

Characters
Talk page
Signatures
Sandbox
Legal issues for editors (copyright)

For moderators

This part of the handbook is now available in the Administrator section of the MediaWiki.org website.

For system administrators

This part of the handbook is now available in the Sysadmin section of the MediaWiki.org website.

For developers

This part of the handbook is now available in the Developer section of the MediaWiki.org website.

Appendix

• Help:ISBN links
• Help:Keyboard shortcuts
• Page metadata
• Support and contact (on MediaWiki wiki)

Handbook

• Guidelines
• Policy
• Page footers

See also

• Check the privacy policy, if any, of the site you use; for Wikimedia, see Privacy policy
• Glossary of Wikipedia
• Category:Help (on Fandom)
• Category:Help (on MediaWiki wiki)
• Links from the MediaWiki wiki to the Help namespace here on Metahttp://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Linksearch/meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help: – not complete, requires external link style
• Links from the English Wikipedia to the Help namespace here on Meta – not complete, requires external link style