Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia

Our purpose is to create a web-based, free content encyclopedia of all branches of knowledge, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation. The is to create a comprehensive and neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about a topic. Editors are encouraged to be bold in editing in a fair and accurate manner with a straightforward, just-the-facts style. Articles should have an encyclopedic style with a formal tone. Instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated writing. The five pillars is a popular summary of the most pertinent .

To achieve our goals, a wide range of how-to and information pages are made available. Aside from this page there are some other introductions (tutorials) to the project. The (basic) is a step-by-step guide explaining what this place is all about and how to contribute. is a comprehensive and fun 7-mission interactive guided tour, which covers all the essentials about editing and the .

Edit box showing the (screenshot from 2012). You can change the formatting and contents of the page by changing what is written in this box.

Some pages are protected from editing. These pages have a View source tab instead of an Edit tab. You can still edit these pages indirectly, by submitting an "edit request" – a user with the ability to edit the protected page will respond to your request. You can submit a request by clicking on the View source tab on that page and using the "Submit an edit request" link at the bottom right. See Help:Protection for more information.

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