Hello, and welcome to the loony yet quite pleasing ranks of
Wikipedians! My name is
BorgHunter, one of very many zany Wikipedians around here, and let me be the first to welcome you here. Before getting too in-depth, you may want to read about the
simplified ruleset. If you need help on how to title new articles check out the
naming conventions, and for help on formatting the pages visit the
manual of style. If you need help look at
Wikipedia:Help and the
FAQ , plus if you can't find your answer there, check the
Village Pump (for Wikipedia related questions) or the
Reference Desk (for general questions)! There's still more help at the
Tutorial and
Policy Library. Plus, don't forget to visit the
Community Portal. And if you have any more questions after that, feel free to post them on
my user talk page. And don't worry -- you may well have a bunch of questions after that avalanche of info I just threw at you. Yeah, Wikipedia has a bit of a culture and
etiquette of its own, but you get used to it!
Additional tips
Here's some extra tips to help you get around in the 'pedia!
If you want to play around with your new Wiki skills the
Sandbox is for you.
You can sign your name using three tildes (~). If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.
You should also consider (if you have not already) creating a
user page for yourself, to tell us a bit about you. Don't worry if it's small at first -- most people tend to grow their user pages over a period of time, much like Wikipedia articles. Don't expect everything to happen all at once!
If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the
votes for deletion page. There is also a
votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.
If you're still entirely confused, or would like to get a better grasp of your wikipedia skills, and you have an
IRC client (or don't mind getting one), check out the
Bootcamp. It's not what it sounds like, but it is fun and can help you with your editing skills.
If you're bored and want to find something to do, try the Random page button in the sidebar, or check out the Open Task message in the
Community Portal.