Chapter 3. Setting Up Your Account and Personal Workspace
You can edit Wikipedia articles to your heartâs contentâfor the rest of your life evenâwithout ever registering with Wikipedia. But the sooner you register (that is, get a user name), the sooner youâll have the benefits of a user accountâlike being able to create entirely new articles and to monitor changes to articles. A user account costs nothing, and you donât even have to provide any personal information. In fact, having an account actually protects your privacy better than editing anonymously. In this chapter, youâll learn more about these perks, get some suggestions on picking a user name, and find out about the personal user pages you can set up after you register.
Why Register?
If you sometimes feel as if every Web site, product manufacturer, and service provider wants you to register, you may be rightâwhen you give someone your name, address, phone number, and so on, youâre potentially opening yourself to junk mail, intrusive phone calls, and even the (small) possibility of identity theft. Registering with Wikipedia isnât like that at all. When you register, you donât provide any personal information except (optionally) your email address. It takes only a minute or two to get a Wikipedia user account, and it has many advantages. As you can see by the graph in Figure 3-1, you have plenty of company.
Figure 3-1. Since July 2006, the average number of newly registered accounts at Wikipedia has ...
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