This is a message I created for a new user I found while on a Recent Changes patrol, and I decided to put it here for anyone to modify and copy-paste as need be. This is simply what I feel is the most important for a new user, and it'll probably change too much for a while yet to be turned into a template and put in the custom Twinkle options.
Hi User, and welcome! Here's a few links to help you get started.
- Wikipedia:A Primer for newcomers—An overview of Wikipedia
- Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines—The core of most decisions here
- Help:Manual of style—How to format your edits
- Help:Referencing—How and when to add references
- Help:Wikimarkup—A glossary of the code we use here
- Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia—How to get around (there's a lot more than just articles here!)
- Wikipedia:Tutorial—A basic tutorial
- Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure—A game that teaches a lot about Wikipedia
If you've got any questions that aren't answered here, feel free to go to the Help Desk, the appropriate Village Pump, or Editor's talk page.