Help:WP search protocol

What this page describes – an easy method to navigate the labyrinthine behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia – is something you likely would have figured out yourself sooner or later. Click here if want to skip the introductory blather below. In fact, everything on this page, can be summarized in one sentence, and if it's enough for your understanding, you may not need to read anything further:

You can probably find a targeted, behind-the-scenes information page that will give you relevant information for understanding just about anything you see in the interface, or you hear mention of by regular editors, by merely typing into the search box: "WP:" (an easier-to-type alias of "Wikipedia:"), followed by whatever name or phrase you saw or heard. (That's it!)

Overview

Wikipedia has hundreds or even thousands of behind-the-scenes project pages that provide information on all manner of subjects – Wikipedia's internal documentation on its policies and guidelines; its structure; navigation; dos and don'ts of interaction and editing; help pages; discussion forums, collaborative projects, essays on editing; overviews of each element of Wikipedia's viewing and editing interface – the list goes on and on.

As an editor of Wikipedia, knowing how to navigate the labyrinth of behind-the-scenes pages is crucial, so that you can easily find project pages to assist you with aspects of building the encyclopedia. This project page is directed at that goal, by providing a simple search protocol that, when followed, should allow you to easily target and land on relevant project information and help pages without laborious searching.

"Wikipedia:" / "WP:" prefix search protocol

All of Wikipedia's encyclopedia articles will be found at just a base name, with no prefix. For example, Wikipedia's encyclopedia article on the movie, The Godfather, is at just the title: "The Godfather". All internal project pages, by contrast, have a prefix in their name. For example. Wikipedia's bedrock policy on verifiability of information is at the name "Wikipedia:Verifiability".

Just about any feature of Wikipedia that is a part of the interface, such as the links you see right now at the top of this page or in the left hand side menus, and just about any Wikipedia project concept, policy, guideline, essay, tool, script, protocol, style, methodology etc., that you hear mentioned by regular editors in discussions that has a fairly standardized name, will almost always have one or more project pages at: "Wikipedia:Name Used".

A trick to combine with the above search protocol is that "WP:" works as an alias for "Wikipedia:", saving typing time. Sometimes these pages may actually be in the "Help:"", or other namespace, but the format "Wikipedia:Name Used", and its easier-to-type format: "WP:Name Used", will still work, as almost invariably redirecting to the actual project page title.

In fact, this search protocol has already been demonstrated by the formatting of many of the piped links provided previously on this page, — respectively to the project pages for verifiability, namespaces, redirecting and yes even earlier in this sentence, for piped links. Each was typed, and it was known that they would link to the right project pages without having to think much at all about it, using the shortcut titles: WP:Verifiability, WP:Namespace, WP:Redirect and WP:Pipe.

Additionally, almost always, there will be redirects for all likely variants of a given title; so as long as you use a near variant you will be successful.

Example use

As an example of the usefulness, and usual wide scope of this searching protocol: if you are reading this page and are logged in, you'll see a link at the top of this page for [your] "Watchlist". If you want to know about that feature of the interface, you can find the main project page describing it, which is actually at the title "Help:Watchlist", by typing any of:

• Wikipedia:Watchlist or Wikipedia:WATCHLIST or WP:watchlist or WP:WATCHLIST
• Wikipedia:Watch List or Wikipedia:WATCH LIST or WP:Watch List or WP:WATCH LIST
• Wikipedia:Watchlisting or Wikipedia:WATCHLISTING or WP:Watchlisting pages or WP:WATCHLISTING
• Wikipedia:Watch listing or Wikipedia:WATCH LISTING or WP:Watch listing pages or WP:WATCH LISTING
• Wikipedia:Watching pages or Wikipedia:WATCHING PAGES or WP:Watching pages or WP:WATCHING PAGES
• Wikipedia:Watching articles or Wikipedia:WATCHING ARTICLES or WP:Watching articles or WP:WATCHING ARTICLES
• Wikipedia:My watchlist or Wikipedia:MY WATCHLIST or WP:My watchlist or WP:MY WATCHLIST—

—as well as about twenty other variations of the page title, so long as you followed the protocol of prefixing Wikipedia: / WP:. The same is true of just about everything else you see or hear about on the encyclopedia project.