Collaborations WikiProjects Tip of the day
Tip of the day...
How to move/rename a page
You can usually move a page to a new title by clicking on the move tab at the top of the page. This preserves the edit history by transferring the edit history along with the page move. The talk page, will be moved as well, if you check the box requesting that.
When a page is moved, a redirect is automatically created at the old location. Please fix any double redirects that result. Use the "what links here" link in the left hand column of any page to find the double redirects so you can edit them and point them to the new page name.
Moving a page in this way is not possible in some cases, such as when a page other than a fresh redirect exists at the destination, or when the page is move protected, but you can ask for help at Wikipedia:Requested moves.
Please do not "cut and paste" to move the text to its new location, because this leaves the page history behind. Thank you.
For the complete library of tips arranged by subject, see Wikipedia:Tips.
This is a WikiProject, an area for focused collaboration among Wikipedians. New participants are welcome; please feel free to participate!
Guide to WikiProjects
Directory of WikiProjects
To help centralise discussions and keep related topics together, all Tip-of-the-day discussions are to be held on the TOTD talk page.
Shortcuts
WP:TOTD
WP:TIP
This is the tip of the day (a.k.a. TOTD) project, providing useful daily advice on how to use or develop Wikipedia more effectively. This project is responsible for maintaining the Wikipedia:Tip of the day#Tip templates, and the collection of daily tips that are displayed by those templates.
Historyedit
The Tip of the Day was started on February 18, 2004 as an original feature of the newly created Community Portal. There were about 50 tips, displayed one per day, on a rotating basis.
In 2006 the project was revamped and expanded to a tip page for each day of the year. Later that year, a "yearless tip" was created, with no year included in the page titles, so that the same pages could be displayed automatically year after year. The tip collection grew to about 300 tips - still about 66 tips short of a full supply.
The tip of the day was added to the main help page, Help:Contents, on March 13, 2006. That page was renamed on September 20, 2012, to Help:Menu, to make way for a new main help page. In 2015, the tip of the day project underwent an overhaul, during which the display template functionality was enhanced and simplified, many new tips were added, replacing obsolete and duplicate tips. The tip of the day was added to the current help page on November 22, 2015.
Over the years, Tip of the Day project regulars, and other helpful editors have maintained the set of auto displaying tips, updating them, and creating new tips to replace redundant or obsolete tips.
Check the prominent locationsedit
The three main places that the Tip of the Day is displayed, are the Community portal page (since 02/18/2004), the Help:Contents page (the top-level help page), and the Help:Menu (this was Help:Contents until 09/20/2012).
Another place where the tip resides is the Welcome to Wikipedia page (since 01/08/2007).
Sometimes the tip gets removed from those pages, either through vandalism or by an overly bold edit. If you notice it missing from any of them, please put it back. Thank you.
Displaying tips on your user pagesedit
To add one of the many versions of the tip of the day template to your user page, go here.
Participating...edit
To participate in developing, proofreading, and scheduling new tips, see the instructions on the talk page.
This is the tip of the day scheduling queue. The TOTD system operates on the Rolodex approach, in which each daily tip page is automatically displayed again year after year.
Each tip needs to be proofread before its upcoming presentation date arrives, to ensure that it has not grown out of date or become obsolete! Please help. For questions, comments, or to submit a new tip please go to our Project's Talk page.
Now, without further ado, here are Wikipedia's daily tips, by presentation date:
January 1 – Where to begin?
January 2 – Article development
January 3 – Are your hands full? (Use search box as a small but convenient clipboard)
January 4 – How to make your watchlist easier to read
January 5 – How to improve Wikipedia's reliability
January 6 – How to send a message to other editors
January 7 – Image processing tools
January 8 – What are dummy edits good for?
January 9 – Digital audio support
January 10 – Introduction to navigating Wikipedia
January 11 – Captions
January 12 – Avoiding common mistakes
January 13 – A self-guided tutorial
January 14 – Article quality assessments
January 15 – Archives for lengthy pages
January 16 – Article banner templates
January 17 – What is a Talk page?
January 18 – How to easily recall a username
January 19 – Preview tomorrow's Featured Article
January 20 – User scripts examples
January 21 – Good article nominations
January 22 – How to reduce or enlarge font sizes
January 23 – Search and replace while editing an article.
January 24 – Search & replace in thousands of articles with AWB
January 25 – Ask for help at Wikipedia's Help Desk
January 26 – Souping up your Smartphone editing of Wikipedia
January 27 – The semi-automated article peer-reviewer
January 28 – How to request help on your Talk page
January 29 – Intruder alert! Intruder alert! (Vandalism-level warning)
January 30 – What are page history diffs?
January 31 – Find articles for cleanup
February 1 – Automatic page loader.
February 2 – Redirect synonymous topic names
February 3 – Fixing bare URLs to prevent link rot
February 4 – Join a WikiProject.
February 5 – Getting real-time help via IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
February 6 – Articles about notable books
February 7 – How to provide a link to a specific Google Search
February 8 – Wikipedia Search box - basic
February 9 – Please summarize your work using the Edit summary box
February 10 – Referencing for beginners
February 11 – Another way to search Wikipedia with Google
February 12 – Introduction to tables
February 13 – Shortcut for minor edit box
February 14 – Spreading the WikiLove
February 15 – Templates for Age and Dates
February 16 – Thanks - send a notification
February 17 – Mobile view sidebar from the desktop
February 18 – Using the Authority control template
February 19 – When to use subpages
February 20 – How to enable right-click section editing
February 21 – Biographies
February 22 – Wikipedia banners and buttons
February 23 – Help for new contributors
February 24 – Calendar date display for your user pages
February 25 – Screen readers for accessibility
February 26 – Editing projects for school and university classes
February 27 – What is Page curation?
February 28 – Writing articles for The Signpost
February 29 – Please sign your name on talk pages
March 1 – How to plant a CategoryTree!
March 2 – Test-drive your edits using a sandbox
March 3 – Become clairvoyant with Navigation Popups
March 4 – Supercharge your browser
March 5 – How to create a link to another article
March 6 – Use the Article Wizard to easily create new articles
March 7 – Please fill-in edit summaries
March 8 – How to get a list of a page's subpages
March 9 – Becoming an Administrator
March 10 – Where to post requests
March 11 – How to make links look the way you want
March 12 – Please sign your name on talk pages
March 13 – Are you lost?
March 14 – How to create a new page
March 15 – Wikipedia's top ten power tips
March 16 – How to catch admin attention fast
March 17 – How to make redirects appear green to you
March 18 – Breaking the 500-edit limit in "View History"
March 19 – Create links faster using tricks
March 20 – Running MediaWiki on your own computer
March 21 – Navigate faster using Wikipedia shortcuts
March 22 – Searching Wikipedia with regular expressions (regex)
March 23 – Getting your edit count
March 24 – Transclusion vs. Substitution
March 25 – Link to Wiktionary word definitions using Wikt:
March 26 – SuggestBot is a fun way to pick pages to edit
March 27 – Work faster with keyboard shortcuts
March 28 – Ask intelligent questions
March 29 – Working on the Main page - I
March 30 – Working on the Main page - II
March 31 – Toolbar links to access the WP pages you use the most
April 1 – Do not believe everything you read
April 2 – Visit the Village Pump for technical issues
April 3 – Stop by the Reference Desk
April 4 – Where to upload images and media files
April 5 – How to fix unsigned comments
April 6 – Do not use forums or emails as sources
April 7 – Automatic edit summary reminder
April 8 – Collaborations
April 9 – Search box bookmarklet for your browser
April 10 – Cite your sources
April 11 – Edit Wikipedia faster with AutoWikiBrowser
April 12 – Help Wikipedia help you
April 13 – Motto of the day...
April 14 – Create a user account
April 15 – Copyrights? Copyleft
April 16 – Uploading Free Images
April 17 – Are you jealous of others' user pages? (WP:UPDG)
April 18 – How to change your username
April 19 – Preview tomorrow's Featured Article
April 20 – Explore Wikipedia's contents
April 21 – Featured article candidates
April 22 – Wikipedia search box focus
April 23 – How to move/rename a page
April 24 – The Wikipedia Adventure!
April 25 – Super-customize your account with gadgets
April 26 – Keyboard shortcuts
April 27 – Now what? (Are you lost, and do not know what to do?)
April 28 – Getting a subpage listing
April 29 – Setting Wikipedia time to your time zone
April 30 – How to make links to articles
May 1 – To search a specific namespace, include the prefix in searches
May 2 – Time-saving links: the "pipe trick"
May 3 – Prove it with ProveIt
May 4 – Time-saving links II
May 5 – Browsing Mobile Wikipedia on your big screen
May 6 – Linking to a section of an article
May 7 – Sister projects & interwiki linking
May 8 – Displaying one page within another = Transclusion
May 9 – Using templates
May 10 – General topics lists
May 11 – Userboxes
May 12 – List building
May 13 – When is a Wikipedia project a WikiProject?
May 14 – Centralizing project discussion
May 15 – Redirects
May 16 – Footnotes
May 17 – How to add hidden editor notes in an article
May 18 – How to review user contributions
May 19 – Use your browser's toolbar to navigate Wikipedia
May 20 – Formatting disambiguation pages
May 21 – Featured content
May 22 – Table of contents
May 23 – Transclusion caveat
May 24 – Go to the right desk
May 25 – Please return the favor
May 26 – Check your work before you save, using Preview
May 27 – Where on the page to put images
May 28 – Placing templates
May 29 – Placing "External links" sections
May 30 – Main page - Did you know
May 31 – Shortcuts
June 1 – Placing category tags
June 2 – Page history
June 3 – Tag your image uploads
June 4 – Placing interlanguage links
June 5 – Sorting entries in the categories
June 6 – Look before you leap
June 7 – How to start a new article
June 8 – Talking to Wikipedians
June 9 – Cite the source on all image uploads
June 10 – Designing your user page
June 11 – Use your watchlist
June 12 – Navigation popups
June 13 – How to insert a picture into an article
June 14 – Wikipedia-specific searching within Firefox
June 15 – Section edit button
June 16 – Ask intelligent questions
June 17 – Beware of instruction creep
June 18 – Fix double redirects
June 19 – Alphabetical list of articles
June 20 – Screenshots
June 21 – Please read department instructions
June 22 – When not to use links
June 23 – A better wiki editor: WikEd
June 24 – Change text size quickly (with Ctrl-mouse wheel)
June 25 – Portals
June 26 – What are templates used for?
June 27 – Pretty tables
June 28 – Ask intelligent questions
June 29 – Wikipedia for your mobile...
June 30 – Custom signatures
July 1 – Citation Requests
July 2 – Love thy neighbor
July 3 – Posting on the Wikipedia Community Bulletin Board
July 4 – Band articles
July 5 – List the things to do for an article
July 6 – Wikipedia's Manual of Style
July 7 – Welcoming Committee
July 8 – The three revert rule
July 9 – Avoid using neologisms
July 10 – The fastest way to end a conflict: walk away
July 11 – Jump to the search box with ⇧ Shift+Alt+F
This is the tip scheduling queue arranged alphabetically. The TOTD system operates on the "yearless year" approach, in which each tip's page is automatically displayed year after year. There is also a chronological list of these tips.
Each tip needs to be proofread before its upcoming presentation date arrives, to ensure that it hasn't grown out of date or obsolete! Please help. For questions, comments, or to submit a new tip please go to this Project's Talk page.
Shortcuts
WP:ALPHATIP
WP:AZTIP
A better wiki editor: WikEd – June 23
A comprehensive index for editors – November 20
A plain & simple introduction – October 26
A self-guided tutorial – January 13
Abbreviating edit summaries – August 9
Accuracy, quality and peer review – December 18
Acronyms and initialisms – August 13
Advanced signatures – November 6
Advice for parents – December 15
Alphabetical list of articles – June 19
Another way to read or share Wikipedia: Books. – July 29
Another way to search Wikipedia with Google – February 11
Archives for lengthy pages – January 15
Are you jealous of others' user pages? – April 17
Are you lost? – March 13
Are your hands full? (Use search box as a small but convenient clipboard) – January 3
Article banner templates – January 16
Article banner templates – July 16
Article construction stages – September 7
Article deletion process – September 11
Article development – January 2
Article quality assessments – January 14
Article size – August 17
Articles about notable books – February 6
Articles for Creation (AFC) process – August 4
Ask for help at Wikipedia's Help Desk – January 25
Ask intelligent questions – June 16
Ask intelligent questions – June 28
Ask intelligent questions – March 28
Automatic edit summary reminder – April 7
Automatic page loader. – February 1
Automating tasks on Wikipedia – December 16
Avoid trademarks – October 5
Avoid using neologisms – July 9
Avoiding common mistakes – January 12
Band articles – July 4
Basic copyediting – October 27
Be forgiving to new users – July 15
Be neutral when editing Wikipedia – November 7
Be neutral, like Wikipedia – October 23
Become clairvoyant with Navigation Popups – March 3
Becoming an Administrator – March 9
Beware of instruction creep – June 17
Biographies – February 21
Biography articles needing attention – September 10
Breaking the 500-edit limit in "View History" – March 18
Brilliant pictures – November 29
Browsing Mobile Wikipedia on your big screen – May 5
Calendar date display for your user pages – February 24
Cannot find what you are looking for? – December 21
Captions – January 11
Category tips – October 4
Centralizing project discussion – May 14
Change text size quickly (with Ctrl-mouse wheel) – June 24
Check your work before you save, using Preview – May 26
Citation Requests – July 1
Cite the source on all image uploads – June 9
Cite your sources – April 10
Collaborations – April 8
Come visit the Teahouse – December 30
CopyPatrol tool – September 15
Copyright Cleanup – September 13
Copyrights? Copyleft – April 15
Counting your edits – September 23
Create a user account – April 14
Create links faster using tricks – March 19
Custom signatures – June 30
Customize appearance of dates – August 1
Dates in Wikipedia articles – December 2
Designing your user page – June 10
Difference between wikiprojects and portals? – September 18
Digital audio support – January 9
Displaying one page within another = Transclusion – May 8
Displaying tips on your user page Note. Do not change this tip. It is a linked tip on displaying tips! :-) – July 21
Do not believe everything you read – April 1
Do not use forums or emails as sources – April 6
Double click editing – October 22
Edit Wikipedia faster with AutoWikiBrowser – April 11
Editcountitis – October 3
Editing articles for web accessibility – November 10
Editing projects for school and university classes – February 26
Explaining Wiki markup to other users – August 15
Explore Wikipedia's contents – April 20
External links – September 22
Fansites, forums, & other web page articles – November 17
Featured article candidates – April 21
Featured content – May 21
Featured world of Wikipedia – September 16
Find articles for cleanup – January 31
Find stubs and expand them – December 3
Find uncategorized articles – August 2
Fix double redirects – June 18
Fixing bare URLs to prevent link rot – February 3
Flashback to Wikipedia's past – November 1
Footnotes – May 16
Formatting disambiguation pages – May 20
Forums and emails are not acceptable sources – July 24
Freedom of speech and profanity – December 20
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – September 12
General topics lists – May 10
Getting a subpage listing – April 28
Getting real-time help via IRC (Internet Relay Chat) – February 5
Getting your edit count – March 23
Giving editor awards – November 12
Go to the right desk – May 24
Good article nominations – January 21
Good article reassessment – September 9
Google search link – August 30
Graphics Lab – September 19
Guestbooks – September 4
Help for new contributors – February 23
Help reduce the Wikipedia backlog – November 4
Help test the MediaWiki software – December 28
Help Wikipedia help you – April 12
Highlight text on any website, then search Wikipedia for it with a single click – September 17
How do you pronounce that? – September 21
How does Wikipedia stack up? – August 18
How popular is Wikipedia? – August 29
How reliable is Wikipedia? – August 21
How to add a picture to an article – December 8
How to add an article to a category – August 6
How to add hidden editor notes in an article – May 17
How to adjust the height of your edit window – December 7
How to catch admin attention fast – March 16
How to catch admin attention fast – October 31
How to change your username – April 18
How to create a category – August 10
How to create a link to another article – March 5
How to create a new page – March 14
How to create a subcategory – August 16
How to create reusable boilerplate – August 12
How to customize your signature – December 5
How to display the Tip of the day on your user page – October 1
How to easily recall a username – January 18
How to enable right-click section editing – February 20
How to enhance Recent changes – October 29
How to find legal photographs and graphics – October 10
How to fix unsigned comments – April 5
How to get a list of a page's subpages – March 8
How to improve Wikipedia's reliability – January 5
How to insert a picture into an article – June 13
How to link to a category without categorizing the page – July 31
How to link to a category – August 23
How to link to a section of an article – August 26
How to link to word definitions – September 25
How to look at the changes to an article – December 4
How to make a table on a page – July 20
How to make links look the way you want – March 11
How to make links to articles – April 30
How to make your watchlist easier to read – January 4
How to move/rename a page – April 23
How to plant a CategoryTree! – March 1
How to provide a Google search in a link – November 18
How to provide a link to a specific Google Search – February 7
How to reduce or enlarge font sizes – January 22
How to request help on your Talk page – January 28
How to review user contributions – May 18
How to search Wikipedia with Google – August 11
How to see a list of the pages in a namespace – October 25
How to send a message to other editors – January 6
How to skip scrolling and clicking – December 9
How to start a new article – June 7
How to transclude a page into the page you are editing – October 12
How to turn links to disambiguation pages orange – November 16
This is the list of tip display templates (also posted at Wikipedia:Tip of the day/July 21). Here is a gallery of display templates for you to view the display templates listed below:
{{totd}} – the main userspace version of the tip of the day template, with border, centered in the middle of the page. Complete with inspirational light bulb.
{{totd b}} – a more compact version of the above template. Useful for columns.
{{totd3}} – a purple box version, useful for displaying the tip in columns.
{{totd-random}} – this is the tip of the moment template, which automatically displays a different tip every time you enter a page it is on. If it doesn't update, try clearing your browser cache.
{{totd-tomorrow}} – this shows tomorrow's tip, and is used by Wikipedia tipsters to make sure that the tips are up-to-date and corrected before they go live.
{{tip of the day}} – the borderless version, with lightbulb.
{{tip of the day with h3 heading}} – the tip in heading/paragraph format (No light bulb).
{{totd2}} – the borderless version used on Wikipedia's Help page (which already has its own borders). (No lightbulb).
{{totd CP}} – like the help page version, but with a box & light bulb. Spans the whole field (screen or column) that it is in.
{{totd-static}} – like the totd version but the date is static. You have to manually change the date. Good for testing purposes.
Random tipedit
The following template {{Totd-random}} is for Wikipedians who can't wait until tomorrow for their next tip! It presents a random tip each time you reload the page it is presented on:
Tip of the moment...
Please sign your name on talk pages
It is proper "Wikiquette" (WI-kee-ket) to sign your messages on talk pages.
This prevents readers from confusing your posts with messages by other users.
To sign a message, move the cursor to the end of the message, and then with your mouse click on
the signature icon () in the toolbar at the top of the edit box.
This inserts the signature code (~~~~) where the cursor is.
When you save the page, these tilde characters are converted to your signature followed by a date stamp.
You can also type this code in manually with the four tilde characters ~+~+~+~.
To sign without a date stamp, use three tildes ~~~ ~+~+~ instead.
To sign only the date stamp, use five tildes ~~~~~ ~+~+~+~+~.
Prior tip – Tips library – Next tip
Read more:
Sign your posts on talk pages
Talk page guidelines
Become a Wikipedia tipster
To add this auto-randomizing template to your user page, use {{totd-random}}
Tomorrow's tipedit
This template {{Totd-tomorrow}} is for monitoring the tip queue one day in advance for any editing needs:
Please proofread the daily tip...
It's displayed below one day early.
Some tips are obsolete. So we need new tips too. Please share your best tips and tip ideas at the Tip of the day department.
editTomorrow's tip of the day...
The Wikipedia Adventure!
The Wikipedia Adventure (TWA) is a seven mission interactive tutorial that introduces new editors to basic Wikiquette, policy, and editing skills while earning sixteen editor badges along the way. TWA is a great way to learn the basics fast, without trial and error and is even a great way for experienced or returning editors to freshen up on their skills. Wikipedia is not a game, but a fun way of learning. TWA only takes about an hour.
Prior tip – Tips library – Next tip
Read more: About The Wikipedia Adventure
Become a Wikipedia tipster
To add this auto-updating template to your user page, use {{totd-tomorrow}}
Day-after-next's tipedit
This template {{Totd-day-after-next}} is for monitoring the tip queue two days in advance to make sure the tip is proofread before it goes live anywhere in the world:
Please proofread the daily tip before it goes "live"...
It's displayed below two days early, so it can be error-checked and made ready-to-display for all time zones.
Some tips are obsolete. So we need new tips too. Please share your best tips and tip ideas at the Tip of the day department.
editDay-after-next's tip of the day...
Super-customize your account with gadgets
Add abilities to your account in the form of "gadgets", programs that you can activate from the Gadgets tab in Preferences.
Gadgets range from very simple to extensive. Some of the most powerful gadgets are:
Navigation popups – preview a page by hovering mouse pointer over the link to it. It is recursive: also preview within previews.
Twinkle – multi-purpose tool to report vandalism, warn vandals, request deletion, welcome users, tag articles, and more.
wikEd – a full-featured wiki-editor that replaces Wikipedia's default editor.
Sidebar menu of custom templates and scripts.
Responsive Content – enhance browsing experience of content on narrow and wide screen formats.
Prior tip – Tips library – Next tip
Read more:
Wikipedia:Gadget
Become a Wikipedia tipster
To add this auto-updating template to your user page, use {{totd-day-after-next}}
Note: with {{totd-tomorrow}}, it isn't tomorrow for all time zones, and so it may have already gone live for part of the world before you've edited it.
See alsoedit
Help portal
Wikipedia:Tips – the tip library arranged by subject.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia tipster – about the people that write the tips
Wikipedia:Department directory – the closest thing to a site map of the Wikipedia namespace.
Wikipedia:Shortcuts – another map of the Wikipedia namespace.