Wikipedia:Community Portal

Contents:
1 Community bulletin board
2 Help out
3 Collaborations
4 Guidelines, help, and resources

The Community Portal is the central place to find out what's happening on Wikipedia. Learn what tasks need to be done, what groups can be joined, and get or post news about recent events or current activities.

• See the help page for documentation, or ask a question for assistance.
• The Village pump is Wikipedia's main discussion forum; there are separate sections covering News, Policy, Technical, Proposals, Assistance, and Miscellaneous topics.
• For questions about factual topics, please visit Wikipedia's Reference desk.
• For content disputes, follow Wikipedia:Resolving disputes.

Community bulletin board

Post your Wikipedia related news and announcements here! New portals, collaborations, and wikiprojects seeking contributors. New initiatives, proposals, discussions, or article drives, and current maintenance backlogs.

Notices

• The Physics article has been undergoing an (arduous) review. Editors involved in the process now have (after much discussion) three lead section proposals. A request for votes from the wikipedia community is now required to gain a broader base of opinion on what the lead section of the Physics article should be. Voting page and lead proposal links are located here, votes and comments welcomed.

• The Graphics Lab has just been set up. Based on its successful French counterpart, the Graphics Lab is a place for users propose images for clean-up and request the creation of SVG maps and diagrams. Everything is in place now, but there is an urgent need of users who can clean up photos, create SVG diagrams and maps!

• The new topic of discussion at the Virtual Classroom is Budgiekiller, on vandalism. Both questions and answers are welcome.

• A proposal for a new policy designed to replace the current vandalism warning policy has been started by Azer Red.

New project pages seeking contributors

See also

Wikizine · In the media · News · Announcements · Press releases · E-mail list summary service

Help out

Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you aren't ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration.

Things to do

• Help update to the new references format.
• Respond to a request for comment.
• Give a requested editor review
• Can you draw or take pictures? Make a requested image.
• Peer review or give feedback on some articles.
• Respond to the Reward board or Bounty board.
• Offer your thoughts and ideas on proposed policies.
• Can you use GIS tools? Help make requested maps.
• Can you speak another language? There are articles that need translation into English.
• Would you like to respond to more requests?
• Comment on the wisdom of new bot proposals.
• Can you code? Code a useful bot or update an offline report.
• Proofread a finished translation.
• Let SuggestBot suggest pages for you to improve.

Fix-up projects

Here are some tasks you can do:

• Wikify: Banshee (Warcraft), James Glenn Henderson, Samuel Watson, Coefficient of utilization, Miles and Misra method, Backlog...
• Cleanup: Wild Jimmy Spruill, Sigrid D. Peyerimhoff, Silver Springs, Ocala and Gulf Railroad, Politics of Manchukuo, Backlog...
• Stubs: Sportscaster, Member of the Scottish Parliament, Continental Europe, City of license, Marche, Aube, Brig, More...
• Verify: Badr Bin Muhammad Bin Abdullah Bin Jalawi al-Saud, Mark Falco, Nihilism, Chiminea, Endowment tax, Gerrus, Backlog...
• Update: Labour and Social Justice Party, First Battalion, Abdul Razzaq, Liberalisterne, 2005-2006 Thai political crisis, More...
• Neutral Point of View (NPOV): Katherine Albrecht, Production car racing, Axis of evil, Outcome-based education, Modern Taiwanese Language, Backlog...
• Copyedit: Workflow recovery, Paul Abbott, Vanda Miss Joaquim, Necessary and sufficient conditions, Kildare GAA, Samsun, More...
• Merge: Jang Keum-song, Mechagodzilla, Joseph Bismuth, Gain (detergent), Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Backlog...
• Style: Royal Doulton, JS Clayden, WKT Sealant, Tannirubhavi Beach, Ash Comic Convention, ENKA Schools, BibliOZ, More...
• Expand: Craig Morgan (album), APXS, Dysentery, University of Calgary, Chandpur District, More...
• Requests: Magic Edge, Harrod-neutral, Interior solution, Charlse S. Wright, Pasillo, Merengue tipico cibaeno, SVAR, More...
• Mediation Cabal: Mitrokhin Archive, false attribution, LaRouche intro, Alan Oakley, Metropolis Magazine, Second Life, More...
• Cleanup backlogs - Review recent overhauls - Active fixup projects - Maintenance projects - Maintenance COTW: be merged

Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it's probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.

Collaborations

To improve the quality of articles which are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.

Article Creation and Improvement Drive

The Article Creation and Improvement Drive works on an article that needs a lot of help before reaching featured-article standard. The subject of this week's article improvement drive is Cactus:

The name cactus has been traditionally given to any member of the flowering plant family Cactaceae. They are often used as ornamental plants, but some are also crop plants.

Cacti are distinctive and unusual plants which have adapted to extreme arid environments, showing a wide range of anatomical and physiological features which conserve water. Their stems have expanded into green succulent structures containing the chlorophyll necessary for life and growth, while the leaves have become the spines for which cacti are so well known.

You can still help with last week's article, Rosetta Stone, or help pick next week's article.

Good Article Collaboration of the week

The Good Article Collaboration of the week works to polish already good articles so they show the highest of standards.

This week's improvement drive is Photosynthetic reaction centre

A photosynthetic reaction centre is a protein that is the site of the light reactions of photosynthesis. The reaction centre contains pigments such as chlorophyll and phaeophytin. These absorb light, promoting an electron to a higher energy level within the pigment. The free energy created is used to reduce an electron acceptor and is critical for the production of chemical energy during photosynthesis.

You can still help pick next week's article.

Core Topics Collaboration

The Core Topics Collaboration of the Fortnight works to polish essential Wikipedia topics. The current collaboration is Sex.

Scheme of human sex chromosomes and resulting germ cells.

Sex refers to the male and female duality of biology and reproduction, a process in biological DNA that dates back 4.6 - 3.5 billion years. DNA links back in an unbroken series of sexual reproduction taking forward information to present day. The somewhat similar term gender has more to do with identity than biology. The concept is confined to organisms that reproduce sexually.

You can help pick the next Core Topic collaboration article.

Collaborations by topic

Other collaborations

Active improvement teams

Maintenance

Help clear up the backlog of articles to be merged! Merging is the process combining two (or sometimes more) articles in to a new article, or adding the content of one article to another. You'll need to be familiar with the associated templates. Before you begin, you need to know the details of merging and moving pages. After you read that, you're ready to begin consolidating and improving articles!

WikiProjects

WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist — examine the master list to find one that interests you. They are separate from, though may work with, Collaborations.

Language translation

Wikipedia is not just in English! Versions exist in many different languages. To fill in some of the English Wikipedia's gaps, we translate articles from other languages into English. You can view a list of articles that need translation from any language, or, in a few cases, by only one language (this is only available for the more popular languages).

Guidelines, help, and resources

Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.

Help

• Wikipedia help - Browse help pages
• Where to ask questions

Editing

• The Manual of Style guidelines and tutorial
• How to edit a page
• Contributing
• How to improve articles
• How to write a great article
• Where to find information for articles
• A list of template messages
• The list of images that have been uploaded to Wikipedia
• What special pages are
• Tools for editing
• Request newspapers or magazines

Policies and guidelines

Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply both to articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed.

Article standards

Working with others

Resources

New user information

Introduction · Sandbox · Help · New user log · Adoption · What Wikipedia is not · Glossary · Account benefits

Ways to communicate

Contact (overview) · Discussion pages · Mailing lists · IRC chat · Instant Messaging · Meetups · User pages · Surveys · Public watchlists · Regional notice boards · Administrators' noticeboard · Requests for article feedback

Community support groups and programs

Welcoming committee · Members' Advocates · Esperanza · Wiki-adoption · Concordia · Wikipedia Youth Foundation · Harmonious editing club · Kindness Campaign · Wikipedia awards program · Dept. of Fun · One featured article per quarter · Missing encyclopedic articles

Common Procedures

Featured content · Good articles · Requests for feedback · Deleting a page (full policy) · Moving a page (naming policies) · Protecting a page (full policy) · Reverting a page · Administrator nominations (summaries) · Category-based access

How to resolve conflicts

Stay cool! · Be nice to newcomers · Alert others · Request assistance from a members' advocate · Dispute resolution · Arbitration policy

Community information

About Wikipedia · Goings-on · About Wikimedia · Wikipedians · Wiki-adoption · Donations · Administrators · Babel · Culture · Games · Humor · Mottoes

Related communities

Tip of the day

The current events portal is used to describe current world-wide events of note, not just in politics, but also in science, culture, technology, sports, entertainment and many other areas. The information in question should be added to any relevant articles as well. However, Wikipedia does not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories (use Wikinews for that). Instead, the In the news section on the Main Page mentions and links to entries of timely interest that are (and this is crucial) nonetheless encyclopedia articles that have been updated to reflect an important current event. Non-Administrators can suggest items or changes to this Main Page section by editing the candidates page, from which administrators will update the live template from time to time.

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