Hello, and a very cordial welcome to the English Wikipedia. I'm MuZemike. As you probably know by now, Wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia collaboratively written entirely by volunteers. Anybody is allowed to freely edit almost any page here, provided they're in good faith and within some basic rules that we follow. If you make mistakes along the way, that's OK; (I know I've made some mistakes when I started out here, as well.) they'll eventually get corrected.
If you have any questions, just place the text {{helpme}} on your talk page (which is this page right here), and someone will help you shortly. We also have other channels of communication in which you can participate in, whether it be for questions or to even to have a discussion or banter. This includes the following:
- On-wiki: Help pages, help desk, help for new contributors, and editor assistance
- IRC channels: #wikipedia connect, #wikipedia-en connect, and #wikipedia-en-help connect
We also have many Featured Articles and Good Articles which can help give you good examples of how articles are constructed and written here. Please take some time to read our Five Pillars of Wikipedia, as it gives a good overview about what our encyclopedia is and does. If anything else, remember the three most basic rules we follow:
- Regarding editing, maintain a neutral point of view, add only verifiable material, and always cite your sources.
- Regarding behavior, remain civil, assume good faith, and don't be a dick.
- Regarding the open nature of a wiki in general, be bold and take the initiative, and if a rule gets in the way of improving the encyclopedia, ignore it!
Finally, don't be worried if this is overwhelming. Wikipedia is a huge website; with 6,911,842 articles, it is the single biggest encyclopedia in the world. Additionally, there are thousands of policy and process pages, and you don't need to know them all right away to get around. You may want to follow this Tutorial to get you started. Thank you, –MuZemike 16:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)