Creating an account is fast, easy, and free of charge. Although you are notrequired to create an account in order to read, edit, or contribute toWikipedia, registering and using an account provides various benefits.
Obligation
People who read, edit, or distribute articles, pages, or content that's published onto this project arenot required to create a Wikipedia account and use one; doing so is of course encouraged, but is also completely voluntary and is a choice that anyone can make.[note 1] So long as the relevant articles or pages are notprotected, anyone is allowed to modify, edit, and save changes to them; no account is required. This is afounding principle on Wikipedia and its mission to be a completely open project that anyone can edit, update, improve, or fix.
Summary of benefits
Registering doesn't just give you better tools for making edits; an account facilitates working with other volunteers.
Registering and using an account to contribute to Wikipedia provides benefits for those who choose to do so. These benefits include, but are not limited to, the ability to:
Have a consistent identity.Temporary accounts expire after at most 90 days.
Edit articles from mostIP addresses that are blocked from editing Wikipedia.
Create your ownuser page to share information about yourself.
Practice editing and publishing in your ownsandbox.
Communicate with other editors via your ownuser talk page, which will remain yours permanently. You can also opt in to exchangingemails with other users.
Use custom preferences to change the look and behavior of Wikipedia and how it works for you. Temporary accounts can only change certain basic display settings.
Editsemi-protected pages, which display a gray lock on the top-right corner of the article.Temporary accounts and non-confirmed users cannot edit pages with thisprotection level.
When youcreate an account, you can pick auser name,provided it is available and unique. Edits you make while logged in will be associated to the username of your account instead of yourtemporary account.
You will have your own permanentuser page where you can write a bit about yourself. WhileWikipedia is not a homepage provider, you can use this to display a fewfreely licensed pictures, write about your hobbies, etc. Many users use their user page to maintain a list of the articles they are most proud of, or to list other valuable information they've collected from Wikipedia.
You will also have a permanentuser talk page that you can use to communicate with other users. You will be notified whenever someone writes a message on your talk page. If you choose to provide an email address with your account, other users will be able to contact you by e-mail if you choose. This feature isanonymous; the user who emails you will not know your email address unless you respond to them using your email address.
You are less identifiable logged in than you are with a temporary account (so long as you avoid disclosing identifiable information on your user page or in your username). A named account's IP address can only be viewed bya small number of users under limited circumstances, whereas temporary accounts' IP addresses can be viewed bya larger group with fewer limitations. You might want to consider privacy and the possibility of offline harassment when deciding what personal information to disclose.
Reputation, communication, and more successful edits
Having an account gives you a fixed Wikipedia identity that other users will recognize. While we welcome contributions from unregistered editors, logging in under a user name lets you build trust and respect through a history of good edits, and makes it easier for veteran users toassume good faith, communicate and collaborate. Having a good name (or a pseudonym to protect your identity) promotes more responsible editing, and morecivil discourse.
Sometimes new or unregistered users are prevented from editing pages that are common targets ofvandalism (just asthis page is protected, and only users with an account can edit it). Also,bots can mistake even good-faith temporary account edits for vandalism. For these reasons, edits under a user name tend to be more successful.
Having an account is a must for many processes in Wikipedia, such asvoting for administrators orbureaucrats. As your reputation builds, it is possible to earn privileges such asrollback,sysop/administrator, andothers. It is not possible for an unregistered editor to be granted these privileges.
Your user name may also receive recognition for good work such asBarnstars,Project Awards,Personal User Awards, or nomination for voted accolades likeEditor of the Week. You'll receive much more of this kind of recognition with a permanent account.
User preferences
As a registered user, you can customize the way pages are displayed by altering yourpreferences. There, in theAppearance tab, you can change the following display settings:
UnderSkin: various options as to the appearance of the website
UnderMath: how mathematical formulas are displayed
UnderFiles: how large image thumbnails should be
And various editing preferences:
How your username signature appears on talk pages
How pages should be displayed in recent changes
and many others
Open research
People who have Wikipedia accounts can gain access to the vital reliable sources viaThe Wikipedia Library.
Blocked?
Shared IP addresses such as school and enterprise networks orproxy servers are frequently blocked forvandalism which, unfortunately, may also affect innocent editors on the same network. However, registered users in good standing canrequest existing blocks on their IP address be modified to affect only unregistered editors so that they can continue contributing to Wikipedia. If you are currently blocked from creating an account, we suggest you do one of the following:
Try again after the block on your IP address expires. Go tomy contributions and follow theBlock log link at the top of that page to find the length of the block. If no block appears, go toSpecial:BlockList and copy the IP address which appears at the top ofSpecial:MyPage into the box next to "IP address for username:".
To create an account, click on the "Create an account now" link and fill out the required fields. This will belogged, and your account will be created.
^Users who do not meet the 30 day registration & 500 edit rule are prohibited from editing content that falls undercertain contentious topics even in articles that are otherwise open for editing (because the majority of the article does not fall under the contentious topic). Users who do not qualify to edit such content could geta warning, their edits could be reverted (even if useful), and repeatedly editing content that falls under such contentious topics could result inblocking.
