Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

This page is an overview of how Wikipedia policy works. See also List of policies and List of guidelines. For the nuts and bolts of how the software editing codes work, etc., see the tutorial and other materials at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents/Editing_Wikipedia

Wikipedia has developed a body of policies and guidelines which have helped us over the years to work toward our singular common goal:

'Our goal with Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia. Hence it is common on Wikipedia for policy itself to be debated on talk pages, on Wikipedia: namespace pages, on the mailing lists, on Meta, and on IRC. Everyone is welcome to participate.

While we try to respect consensus, WWIN#Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy, and its governance can be inconsistent. Hence there is disagreement between those who believe rules should be explicitly stated and those who feel that written rules are inherently inadequate to cover every possible variation of problematic or disruptive behavior.

In either case, a user who acts against the spirit of our written policies may be reprimanded, even if no rule has technically been violated. Those who edit in Assume good faith, show civility, seek Consensus, and work towards the goal of creating a great encyclopedia should find a welcoming environment. Wikipedia greatly appreciates additions that help all people.

Key policies

You don't need to read every Wikipedia policy before you contribute. However, the following policies are particularly important to the project, and the sooner you understand and use them, the better:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its goals go no further, and material that does not fit this goal must be moved to another Wikimedia project or removed altogether. (See What Wikipedia is not)
Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all views on a subject, factually and objectively, in an order which is agreeable to a common consensus.
Don't infringe copyrights. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Submitting work which infringes copyrights threatens our objective to build a truly free encyclopedia that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal problems. (See copyrights)
Respect other contributors. Wikipedia contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building an encyclopedia. (See Civility, Etiquette, Dispute resolution.)

Other concise summaries of key policies

One of these concise versions of the Wikipedia guidelines should get you familiar with the important policies.

Here's the recommended reading order:

Five pillars: a quick rundown of the 5 key rules you need to start editing. Don't worry, it's easy.
Simplified Ruleset: 16 rules of thumb to help you avoid problems.
List of policies: A comprehensive list of the 43 official policies with very quick summaries.

Every policy and guideline is listed in one of the following Category:

Category:Wikipedia official policy: policies that are widely accepted and that everyone is expected to follow.
Category:Wikipedia guidelines: less rigid rules of thumb that are generally accepted by consensus to apply in many cases.

Procedural questions

How are policies started?

Much of Wikipedia policy dates from before 2002. Policy change now comes from three sources:

A proposed policy being adopted by Consensus. (See How to create policy)
A slow evolution of convention and common practice eventually codified as a policy.
Jimbo Wales, Board of Trustees, or Developers, particularly for copyright, legal issues, or server load.

Currently proposed and previously rejected policies can be found in these categories:

Category:Wikipedia proposals: ideas for new policies
Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals: rejected or abandoned ideas for policies

The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc.

A List of guidelines is something that is: (1) actionable and (2) authorized by consensus. Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Amendments to a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page - although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it.
- A Wikipedia naming conventions or Wikipedia style guidelines is a specific kind of guideline, related to proper naming, or the way articles should be written.
A List of policies is similar to a guideline, only more official and less likely to have exceptions. As with guidelines, amendments should generally be discussed on their talk pages, but are sometimes forked out if large in scope. One should not generally edit policy without seeking consensus first.
A process is a central and organized way of doing things, generally following certain policies or guidelines (e.g. the "deletion policy" tells us how the "deletion process" works)
A Wikipedia proposals is any suggested guideline or policy that is not yet authorized by consensus, or any process not yet in use, as long as discussion is ongoing. Amendments to a proposal should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page - although it's generally acceptable to edit a proposal to improve it. Proposals should generally be advertised to get feedback and to reach a consensus. Proposals are NOT decided upon by voting on them, but a well advertised straw poll may be used to help build a consensus.
- A Wikipedia archives page is any proposal for which consensus is unclear, where discussion has died out for whatever reason. Historical pages also include any process no longer in use, or any non-recent log of any process. Historical pages can be revived by advertising them.
- A Wikipedia rejected proposals page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction.
A feature request is anything that requires a change to the Wikipedia software. These should be filed on Bugzilla. One should never assume the developers will implement something without asking them first. Thus, if you propose something that requires a feature request to work, discuss with the devs first before asking community opinion on an issue that may turn out to be moot.
A Wikipedia how-to or help page is any instructive page that tells people how to do things. These will of course be edited by people who have suggestions on how to do things differently.
An Wikipedia essays is any page that is not actionable or instructive, regardless of whether it's authorized by consensus. Essays tend to be opinionated. Essays need not be proposed or advertised, one can simply write them, as long as one understands the fact that one does not generally speak for the entire community. If you do not want other people to reword your essay, put it in your userspace.

How are policies enforced?

You are a About editor. Since Wikipedia has no editor-in-chief or top-down article approval mechanism, active participants make copyedits and corrections to the format and content problems they see. So Wikipedians are both writers and editors.

Individual users thus enforce most policies and guidelines by editing pages, and discussing matters with each other. Some policies, such as Dealing with vandalism, are enforced by Administrators by blocking users. In extreme cases the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive situations, as part of the general Dispute resolution procedure.

Some features of the software which could potentially be misused, such as deleting pages and locking pages from editing, are restricted to Administrators, who are experienced and trusted members of the community. See Administrators' reading list for further information.

Guidelines

In addition to the generally accepted policies listed above, a very large number of List of guidelines have been proposed and adopted by Wikipedians. These are used to provide guidance in various situations that arise on Wikipedia. They cover everything from naming conventions and sensitive terms that should be avoided to how to get along, and why not to bite the newcomers.

Other essays and discussions about Wikipedia

The site contains many articles about Wikipedia and related topics in a more editorial style.
Creating How-to articles in Wikipedia.
Centralized discussion has a number of discussions to establish consensus on whether some groups of articles should or should not be included in Wikipedia. These policies should be upheld by all users.

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