Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Registering

Now that you’re well informed about why you want to create an account, and have some thoughts about your user name, it’s time to register. Here are the steps:

1. When you don’t have an account, or aren’t logged in, you see at the upper right of every Wikipedia page (that is, every page on en.wikipedia.org), a link to “Sign in / create account”. Click that link.

   You arrive at the screen in Figure 3-3.

   

   Figure 3-3. Wikipedia’s standard sign-in screen includes a “Create one” link for you to create an account and get yourself a user name.

1. Click the link that reads, “Create one”.

   (The “E-mail new password” link makes you go through several more steps than you’d otherwise do to create an account; don’t go there.) You’ll see something like Figure 3-4.

   

   Figure 3-4. As explained in step 5 on 5, when you create an account, providing an email address is important. After you register, you get an email message from [e-mail], with the subject “Wikipedia e-mail address confirmation.” You must click the link in the confirmation notice if you want Wikipedia’s administrators to be able to contact you. (You can change your email address anytime you want, once you’ve confirmed it.)

2. Type your proposed user name.

   Consider the following points:

   • Try to keep your user name shorter than 25 characters. ...