View source for Wikipedia:Help Project/Overview

There are many different parts to the help system, the purpose of this page is to provide an overview of how they fit together.

==History of the Help Pages==

The original concept was to have main help pages on MediaWiki. Using templates, the MediaWiki content would be transcluded onto the various Wikipedia pages, then content specific to that Wikipedia would be added to the end of the page. Various other extra help pages where created on Wikipedia that had no equivalent on MediaWiki like how-tos and essays, wome of which developed into guidelines.

Unfortunately, the MediaWiki pages were never updated and the different language versions of Wikipedia began to diverge in many ways. This led to the material being regularly copied across and merged into Wikipedia's help, but sometime in 2008, the final merge was performed and this concept was abandoned, with the templates removed and deleted. Help pages have then been updated without regard for the other Wikipedias, but now includes help that is more relevant to en.Wikipedia.

There have been many attempts to bring sense to the Help System, but in isolation and faced with the complexity of the task no general structure has yet been agreed upon. Several areas or set of pages have developed well and there are several projects that work on a subsets of Help effectively.

In September and October 2009, this project added its banner to many of the help pages, with a view to bringing all the relevant discussions and editors into contact with each another.

== Header bars ==

<nowiki>{{Help pages header}}</nowiki>

{{Help pages header}}

== Nav Box ==
===Short Nav Box===
For new users to follow a predefined course, and intermediate editors access to commonly used help pages for reference
{{Wikipedia:Help_Project/Overview/Accessible_Nav_Box}}

===Complete Nav Box===
To see how much info we can get in it for intermediate/experienced editors  without it going BANG! - I.e advanced topics only accessed once in a blue moon

{{Navbox
|name  = Wikipedia Help
|state = {{{state|uncollapsed}}}
|title = [[Help:Contents]]
|style = width:80%;
|listclass = hlist

|group1 = Indexes
|list1 = 
* [[Wikipedia:FAQ Index]]
* [[Wikipedia:Quick directory]]
* [[Wikipedia:Editor's index to Wikipedia|Editor's index]]
* [[Help:Contents]]

|group2 = [[Help:Contents/Getting started|Getting started]] |list2  = 
* [[Wikipedia:Introduction|Introduction]]
* [[Help:Contents/Browsing Wikipedia|Browsing Wikipedia]]
* [[Wikipedia:Glossary|Glossary of Wikipedia terms]]
* [[Wikipedia:Advice for parents|Advice for parents]]
* [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview]]
* [[Wikipedia:Five pillars|The Five Pillars]]

|group3 = Browsing WikiPedia |list3  = 
* [[Wikipedia:Searching|Search for an article]]
* [[Wikipedia:Basic navigation|Find articles and site functions]]
* [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Readers]]

|group4 =  Communicating |list4  = 
* [[Help:Contents/Communication]]
* [[Wikipedia:Questions|Where to ask questions]]
* [[Wikipedia:Contact us|Contact us]]
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump|Village pump]]
* [[Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines|Talk pages]]
* [[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem|Article problem]]
* [[Wikipedia:Help desk|Help desk]]
* [[Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests|Editor assistance/Requests]]
* [[Wikipedia:Reference desk|Reference desk]]
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump|Village pump]]

|group5 = Tutorials |list5  = 
* [[Wikipedia:Picture tutorial]]
* [[Wikipedia:tutorial|Tutorial]]
* [[Wikipedia:Article wizard 2.0]]

|group6 = Editing basics |list6  = 
* [[Help:Contents/Editing Wikipedia|Overview]]
* [[Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia|Contributing to Wikipedia]]
* [[Help:Contents/Policies and guidelines|Policies and guidelines]]
* [[Wikipedia:Consensus|Consensus]]
* [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style|Manual of Style]]
* [[Wikipedia:Cheatsheet|Cheatsheet]]
* [[Help:Contents/Account settings and maintenance|Account settings and maintenance]]
* [[Help:Preferences|Change your preferences]]
* [[Wikipedia:Customisation#User name and signatures|Change your signature]]
* [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing]]
* [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Contributing]]
* [[Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual|The Missing Manual]]
* [[Help:Contents/The Wikipedia community|The Wikipedia community]]

|group7 = Editing reference |list7  = 
* [[Help:Link|How to make links]]
* [[Help:Contents/Links|Links and references]]
* [[Wikipedia:External links|External links]]
* [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|Citing sources]]
* [[Help:Contents/Resources and lists|Resources and lists]]
* [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types|Types of stub]]
* [[Wikipedia:Template messages|Common Templates]]
* [[Wikipedia:Cleanup resources|Cleanup resources]]
* [[Wikipedia:Deletion discussions|Deleting pages]]
* [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution|Dispute resolution]]
* [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_feedback]]
* [[Wikipedia:Peer_review]]
* [[Wikipedia:Featured_article_review]]

|group8 = Images and files |list8  = 
* [[Wikipedia:Picture tutorial]]
* [[Help:Contents/Images and media|Images and media]]
* [[Wikipedia:Uploading images|Upload images]]
* [[Help:Files]]
* [[Wikipedia:Image copyright tags|Copyright tags]]
* [[Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files|Other media]]

|group9 = Tracking changes |list9  = 
* [[Help:Contents/Tracking changes|Keeping track of changes]]
* [[Help:Page history|Page history]]
* [[Help:User contributions|User contributions]]
* [[Wikipedia:Vandalism|Vandalism]]

|group10 = Technical information  |list10  = 
* [[Help:Contents/Technical information|Technical information]]
* [[Wikipedia:Tools|Tools]]
* [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Technical]]
* [[MediaWiki]] software
* [[Wikipedia:Text editor support]]
* [[Wikipedia:Media help|Media files on Wikipedia]]
* [[Wikipedia:Media help (Ogg)|Audio and video]]
* [[Wikipedia:Media help (MIDI)|MIDI]]

}}

==Historical==
A list of help links created by previous project: [[Wikipedia:Help Project/Link repository]].

Found on a users page:
{| border="2" style="background:#efefef;" 
|-
|'''[[Help:Contents|Help contents]]''' -  all pages in the Help namespace: [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 Meta] [http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 b:] [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 c:] [http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 n:] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 w:] [http://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 q:] [http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Allpages&from=&namespace=12 wikisource] [http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=12 wiktionary]<BR>
<BR>
'''Reading:'''
[[Help:Reader|Overview]] | 
[[Help:Go button|Go]] | 
[[Help:Searching|Search]] | 
[[Help:URL|URL]] | 
[[Help:Namespace|Namespace]] |
[[Help:Page name|Page name]] | 
[[Help:Section |Section]] | 
[[Help:Link|Link]] |
[[Help:What links here|Backlinks]] |
[[Help:Piped link|Piped link]] | 
[[Help:Interwiki linking|Interwiki link]] | 
[[Help:redirect|Redirect]] |
[[Help:Variable|Variable]] | 
[[Help:category|Category]] 
<br>
'''Tracking changes:''' 
[[Help:Recent changes|Recent]] | 
[[Help:Enhanced recent changes|(enhanced)]] | 
[[Help:Related changes|Related]] | 
[[Help:Watching pages|Watching pages]] | 
[[Help:Page history|Page history]] | 
[[Help:Diff|Diff]] | 
[[Help:User contributions|User contributions]] | [[help:Edit summary|Edit summary]] | [[Help:Minor edit|Minor edit]]
<br>
'''Logging in and preferences:''' [[Help:Logging in|Logging in]] | [[help:Preferences|Preferences]] | 
[[Help:User style|User style]]<br>
'''Editing:''' [[help:editing|Overview]]''' | 
[[Help:Starting a new page|New page]] | 
[[Help:Images and other uploaded files|Images/files]] | 
[[Help:Image description page|Image description page]] | 
[[Help:Special characters|Special characters]] | 
[[Help:Formula|Formula]] | 
[[Help:Table|Table]] | 
[[Help:EasyTimeline syntax|EasyTimeline]] | [[Help:A quick guide to templates|Template intro]] |
[[Help:Renaming (moving) a page|Renaming (moving) a page]] | 
[[Help:Automatic conversion of wikitext|Automatic conversion of wikitext]] | 
[[Help:Talk page|Talk page]] | 
[[Help:Testing|Testing]] | [{{SERVER}}{{localurl:Special:Recentchangeslinked|target=Template:H:f}} rlc]<br>
'''Projects:''' 
'''[[m:Help:Contents|Meta (master page)]]''' | 
[[b:Help:Contents|Wikibooks]] | 
[[commons:Help:Contents|Wikicommons]] | 
[[n:Help:Contents|Wikinews]] | 
[[Help:Contents|Wikipedia]] | 
[[q:Help:Contents|Wikiquote]] | 
[[s:Help:Contents|Wikisource]] | 
[[wikt:Help:Contents|Wiktionary]]<br>
For other languages see Meta.
|}