Spacemonkey4

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written collaboratively by its readers. The site is a wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can edit almost any article right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears at the top of the page. The following article is a brief introduction to Wikipedia.

Browsing Wikipedia

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Wikipedia has 6,922,932 articles on all sorts of subjects ranging from politics, science, history, music, religion, pop culture, and sports to everything and anything in between. Try browsing the various subjects right now, on the Wikipedia browsebar above. If you need assistance getting around, see this basic navigation guide.

Searching

You can also search for text in articles. Just go to the "search" field to the left, enter your search term and click "search". Note that the built-in search function may be disabled in times of server overload; in these cases you will be redirected to a Google-based search of the Wikipedia database. There are also other ways to search Wikipedia.

If you read something that you really like, then why not drop a note on the article's talk page? First select the discussion link (look for it in the tabs above the page) to get to the talk page. Then select edit this page on the talk page, or click the + to the right of edit this page to simply add a new comment.

If there's something we don't cover, or you're having difficulty finding what you're looking for, and you need to ask somebody, go to Wikipedia:Questions for a list of our departments where volunteers answer all kinds of questions - any question you could possibly think of really. Or, if you notice a topic missing from Wikipedia you could add it to our list of requested articles. Find other ways to explore Wikipedia or... write an article yourself.

See also

General information, guides & help

• About the project
• Help pages — help on editing, starting new articles, and many other topics.
• Wikipedia FAQs — frequently asked questions about the site.
• Glossary — a glossary of common Wikipedia terms.
• Where to ask questions — a list of departments where volunteers answer questions, any question you can imagine.
  
• What is Wikipedia
• What Wikipedia is not
• Policies and guidelines for contributors
• Manual of Style

Wikipedia behavior

Tutorials

• Wikiquette
• Neutrality
• Avoiding common mistakes

Overarching principles

• Civility
• Contributing
• The neutral point of view

The Wikipedia community

• Contact us
• Wikipedians — different listings of regular contributors; you may add yourself if you wish.
• Wikipedia:Community Portal is a gateway to the community. It lists a number of open tasks and group projects such as Wikipedia:Collaboration of the Week.

Help

If you need any help, give me a shout. SilkTork 23:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Real Ale is a Microbrewery in Texas

Not a problem. If you want to create an article about the Real Ale Brewery you are free to do so. It shouldn't conflict with the Real ale article. Cheers! SilkTork 23:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)