:Yes, learning by doing is the only way on Wikipedia - if you read all the guidelines first, you would never get started! Some more useful links: 
 :*WP:CHEAT - summary of Wiki markup 
 :*WP:EDIT - more detail 
 :*WP:HELP 
 :*WP:HELPDESK - for questions about using or editing Wikipedia 
 :*WP:BETTER - writing better articles 
 :*WP:MOS - the official style guide 
 :and links on from those... Also, you can put  (two curly brackets each side) on your talk page followed by a specific question, and someone will come along.  

 :One particular detail of markup that causes problems for many new users: I don't know why, but if you put a leading space at the beginning of a line, the format goes all funny 
  like this! 
 :Another useful tip: make frequent use of the "Show preview" button after you make a change, so that if the result is not what you expect you can correct it before you actually commit to "Save page." You can in fact build up quite an extensive edit this way before you save it, which has the side benefits of simplifying the page history and reducing the load on the servers, which have to keep track of all the versions of every page. If you acquire this good habit there is a trap to avoid - it's all too easy to forget actually to click "Save page" when you're done, and then all your work is lost! 
 :Regards,