Wiki in Hawaiian means "fast" and this user-edited encyclopedia is the largest resource of knowledge on earth today. You google anything damn thing, 70% chance it will land on a wikipedia page. We use it every day, by choice or through google, unintentionally. Wikipedia is a true lane of democratic knowledge on the Internet. Here in this article, let's find out what are the most surprising wikipedia tips and tricks that you probably don't know yet.
Use Wikipedia nearby to find something about the place you are visiting or recently moved
With this trick you can find out more about the place you are visiting right now. Visit this URL - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby to find articles in the current place. It will initially ask you to let the wiki know your location. Just confirm it. Now browse the most important facts, places or important information in the place.
Use simple wikipedia for a simpler version of wikipedia articles
This wiki trick makes it easy to navigate wikipedia with a little URL hack. You are not the only one who is bothered by the overly complex and jargon-like information presented on wikipedia. If you would like to use a simpler version of the article, please visit: http://simple.wikipedia.org
Also, when browsing an article, you can simply replace en with simple. You will get a very polished and easy to understand article.
You can check the difference between these two articles on wikipedia.
Wikipedia article on wikipedia and Wikipedia article on simple wikipedia
Download the article in pdf to read later
Just click on the file download as pdf link and you will get a pdf version of the article in an organized way. You can easily read this book downloaded on your kindle or mobile device. So if you just want to read the article later and even when you are offline, download those articles as a pdf and save it to your device.
Download the entire wikipedia and keep it on your PC for offline use
Yes, it is possible. You can download the entire wikipedia to your computer and you can use it even in the absence of the internet. The file size is approximately 10GB.
Just visit this link to download the full website: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page
You can also download Wiktionary, Wikiquote and other wiki project websites here.
Use wikipedia to improve knowledge of events
You can search for a particular month in wikipedia to view the series of events in that particular month.
Alternatively, you can browse Wikipedia News to browse current news.
Read the random wikipedia article
Just visit this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random to read a random article from Wikipedia.
You can also set it as the homepage in your browser to read a random article from wikipedia, every time you open the browser.
Use Wikipedia as a translation tool
This is one of the most useful wikipedia tricks as far as I know. If you have difficulty finding the translation of a word in a language. Just find that term on wikipedia and then select the language from the left sidebar to know the translation.
Create a book from wikipedia by combining important articles
You can easily create a wikipedia book with interesting index pages and structured content. For this follow these simple steps.
Step 1 # First click on create a book link on the left sidebar.
Step 2# Now on the next page click start making books Button.
By clicking you will go to the article you were in previously. But wait, there is a Book Maker menu visible at the top of the article, as shown in the image below.
Step 3 # Now, if you want to add this article to your book, click on add this page to your book. If not, visit any other articles you'd like to add to your book. The creator menu for this book will always be at the top for you to enable adding that page to the book. You can also click on the tips pages. Clicking on this will bring up a related list of articles so you can add them to your book if you wish.
Step 4 # Once done, click show book to finalize the book.
