Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shortcuts:

WP:P

WP:1

01

This page documents a procedural policy of Wikipedia.

WP:R

ULES

WP:P

OLICY

WP:G

UIDELINE

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are pages that
serve to document the good practices that are accepted in the Wikipedia
community. This policy describes how WP policies and guidelines should
normally be developed and maintained.

Policies and guidelines

Principles

Five pillars

Ignore all rules

Core content policies

Content policies

Article titles

Biographies of living persons

Image use

Neutral point of view

No original research
 Verifiability

What Wikipedia is not (Not a dictionary)

Conduct policies

Civility

Clean start

Consensus

Dispute resolution

Edit warring

Editing policy

Harassment

No legal threats

No personal attacks

Non-discrimination policy

Ownership of content

Username policy

Vandalism

Other policy categories

Deletion

Enforcement

Friendly space policy

Legal

Procedural

Directories

List of policies

List of guidelines

Manual of Style contents

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe

best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our
goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia. There is no need to read any policy
or guideline pages to start editing. The five pillars is a popular summary of the
most pertinent principles.
Although Wikipedia generally does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia
policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-agreed practices.
Policies are standards that all users should normally follow, and guidelines are
generally meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific
contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason
and common sense.
This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization,
life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related
pages.

Contents
[hide]

1Derivation

2Role

3Adherence

4Enforcement

5Content

6Not part of the encyclopedia

7Life cycle

o 7.1Proposals

7.1.1Good practice for proposals

o 7.2Demotion

o 7.3Content changes

7.3.1Substantive changes

o 7.4Conflicts between advice pages

8Naming

9See also

10Notes
 11Further reading

Derivation
Further information: Wikipedia:Administration Human and legal administration
Wikipedia is operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which reserves
certain legal rights - see the Wikimedia Foundation's Policies page for a list of its
policies. See also Role of Jimmy Wales. Nevertheless, normally Wikipedia is a
self-governing project run by its community. Its policies and guidelines are
intended to reflect the consensus of the community.

Role
Further information: Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and
essays

Shortcuts:

WP:POLICIES

WP:GUIDES

Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all
users should normally follow. All policy pages are in Wikipedia:List of policies
and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia policies. For summaries of key policies,
see also List of policies.
Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors
should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common
sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Guideline pages can be found
in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia guidelines.
For summaries of key guidelines, see also List of guidelines.
Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors for which
widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the
entire community and may be created and written without approval. Essays that
the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict
widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace. (For more information,
see Wikipedia:Essays.)
Other administration pages in the Wikipedia: namespace include:

process pages, which facilitate application of the

policies and guidelines (e.g., Wikipedia:Articles for
deletion),
 WikiProject pages, including essays they have written
to give advice to other editors about their areas of
interest,

how-to or help pages (also found in the Help

namespace), which provide mainly technical
information,

information pages, which generally provide factual

information,

supplements to guidelines and policies, which explain

advice in greater detail,

community discussion pages and noticeboards for

communication between editors, and

historical pages, which are outdated.[1]

These other pages are not policies or guidelines, although they may contain
valuable advice or information.

Adherence
Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there
will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the
spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken.
Whether a policy or guideline is an accurate description of best practice is
determined by the community through consensus.
On discussion pages and in edit summaries, shortcuts are often used to refer to
policies and guidelines. For example, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:LIVE. Similar
shortcuts are sometimes also used for other types of project page. A shortcut
does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status.
Additionally, remember that the shortcut is not the policy; the plain-English
definition of the page's title or shortcut may be importantly different from the
linked page.

Enforcement
Further information: Wikipedia:Enforcement policies, Wikipedia:Active sanctions,
and Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement

Shortcuts:

WP:Enforcement
 WP:ENFORCEMENT

Enforcement on Wikipedia is similar to other social interactions. If an editor

violates the community standards described in policies and guidelines, other
editors can persuade the person to adhere to acceptable norms of conduct, over
time resorting to more forceful means, such
as administratorand steward actions. In the case of gross violations of
community norms, they are likely to resort to more forceful means fairly rapidly.
Going against the principles set out on these pages, particularly policy pages, is
unlikely to prove acceptable, although it may be possible to convince fellow
editors that an exception ought to be made. This means that individual editors
(including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines.
In cases where it is clear that a user is acting against policy (or against a
guideline in a way that conflicts with policy), especially if they are doing so
intentionally and persistently, that user may be temporarily or
indefinitely blocked from editing by an administrator. In cases where the
general dispute resolution procedure has been ineffective, the Arbitration
Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive or sensitive situations.

Content
Policy and guideline pages should:

Be clear. Avoid esoteric or quasi-legal terms and

dumbed-down language. Be plain, direct, unambiguous,
and specific. Avoid platitudes and generalities. Do not
be afraid to tell editors directly that they must or
should do something.

Be as concise as possiblebut no more

concise. Verbosity is not a reliable defense against
misinterpretation. Omit needless words. Direct,
concise writing may be more clear than rambling
examples. Footnotes and links to other pages may be
used for further clarification.

Emphasize the spirit of the rule. Expect editors to use

common sense. If the spirit of the rule is clear, say no
more.

Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Clearly identify

the purpose and scope early in the page, as many
readers will just look at the beginning. Content should
be within the scope of its policy. When the scope of
one advice page overlaps with the scope of another,
minimize redundancy. When one policy refers to
 another policy, it should do so briefly, clearly and
explicitly.

Avoid overlinking. Links to policies, guidelines, essays,

and articles should be used only when clarification or
context is needed. Links to other advice pages may
inadvertently or intentionally defer authority to them.
Make it clear when links defer, and when they do not.

Not contradict each other. The community's view

cannot simultaneously be "A" and "not A". When
apparent discrepancies arise between pages, editors
at all the affected pages should discuss how they can
most accurately represent the community's current
position, and correct all of the pages to reflect the
community's view. This discussion should be
on one talk page, with invitations to that page at the
talk pages of the various affected pages; otherwise
the corrections may still contradict each other.

Not part of the encyclopedia

Shortcut:

WP:NOTPART

Wikipedia has many policies and guidelines about encyclopedic content. These
standards require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people, and more.
The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the
encyclopedia proper. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform to the
same content standards. It is therefore not necessary to provide reliable
sources to verify Wikipedia's administrative pages, or to phrase Wikipedia
procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in
determining Wikipedia's editorial practices. Instead, the content of these pages
is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize
clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors.[2]
These pages do, however, need to comply with Wikipedia's legal and behavioral
policies, as well as policies applicable to non-content pages. For example,
editors may not violate copyrights anywhere on Wikipedia, and edit warring is
prohibited everywhere, not merely in encyclopedia articles.

Life cycle
Shortcut:
 WP:PGLIFE

Many of the most well-established policies and guidelines have developed from
principles which have been accepted as fundamental since Wikipedia's
inception. Others developed as solutions to common problems and disruptive
editing. Policy and guideline pages are seldom established without precedent,
[3]
and always require strong community support. Policies and guidelines may be
established through new proposals, promotion of existing essays or guidelines,
and reorganization of existing policies and guidelines through splitting and
merging.
Essays and information pages may be established by writing them and adding
{{essay}}, {{Information page}}, {{Wikipedia how-to}},or similar template to the
page.
Current policy and guideline proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia
proposals, and failed proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia failed
proposals. All editors are welcome to comment on these proposals.

Proposals

Shortcut:

WP:PROPOSAL
Further information: Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance
See also: WP:POLL Policy and guidelines, and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY
Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of
consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. Adding
the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean
that the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy. Most
commonly, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than
proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.
Good practice for proposals
The first step is to write the best initial proposal that you can. Authors can
request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and
from any relevant WikiProjects. Amendments to a proposal can be discussed on
its talk page. It is crucial to improve a proposal in response to feedback received
from outside editors. Consensus is built through a process of listening to and
discussing the proposal with many other editors.
Once you think that the initial proposal is well-written, and the issues involved
have been sufficiently discussed among early participants to create a proposal
that has a solid chance of success with the broader community, start an RfC for
your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include
the {{rfc|policy}} tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the
proposal. After that, you can provide, if you want, a detailed explanation of what
the page does and why you think it should be a policy or guideline. The
{{proposed}} template should be placed at the top of the proposed page; this tag
will get the proposal properly categorized.
The RfC should typically be announced at the policy and/or proposals village
pumps, and you should notify other potentially interested groups. If your proposal
affects a specific content area, then related WikiProjects can be found at
the WikiProject directory. For example, proposed style guidelines should be
announced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style, which is the
WikiProject most closely related to style issues. If your proposal relates to an
existing policy or guideline, then leave a note on the talk page of the related
policy or guideline. Try to identify the subcategory of guideline or policy (see
{{subcat guideline}}). Proposals involving contentious subjects or wide-ranging
effects should normally be listed on Wikipedia:Centralized discussion for the
duration of the RfC. Rarely, a particularly important proposal may be advertised
via a watchlist notice; sitenotices (which are displayed to all readers, not just to
active editors) are not used for proposals. RfCs for policy and guideline proposals
are normally left open for at least one week, and sometimes as long as a couple
of months.
To avoid later complaints about insufficient notice, it may be helpful to provide a
complete list of the groups or pages that you used to advertise the proposal on
the talk page.
Editors should respond to proposals in a way that helps identify and build
consensus. Explain your thoughts, ask questions, and raise concerns; all views
are welcome. Many editors begin their response with bold-font 'vote' of support
or opposition to make evaluation easier. Editors should sign their responses.
Ending a discussion requires careful evaluation of the responses to determine
the consensus. This does not require the intervention of an administrator, but
may be done by any sufficiently experienced independent editor (an impartial
editor not involved in the discussion) who is familiar with all of the policies and
guidelines that relate to the proposal. The following points are important in
evaluating consensus:

Consensus for guidelines and policies should be

reasonably strong, though unanimity is not required.

There must be exposure to the community beyond just

the authors of the proposal.

Consider the strength of the proposed page:

Have major concerns raised during the community

discussion been addressed?
 Does the proposal contradict any existing
guidelines or policies?

Can the new proposed guideline or policy be

merged into an existing one?

Is the proposed guideline or policy, or some part of

it, redundant with an existing guideline or policy?

A proposal's status is not determined by counting

votes. Polling is not a substitute for discussion, nor is
a poll's numerical outcome tantamount to consensus.

If consensus for broad community support has not

developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal
is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear
on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has
likewise failed.
Discussion may be closed as one of: Promote, No consensus, or Failed. Please
leave a short note about the conclusion that you came to. Update the proposal to
reflect the consensus. Remove the {{Proposed}} template and replace it with
another appropriate template, such as {{Subcat guideline}}, {{Policy}},
{{Supplement}}, {{Essay}}, or {{Failed}}. See Wikipedia namespace templates for a
listing of banners.
If a proposal fails, the failed tag should not usually be removed. It is typically
more productive to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch to address problems, or
seek consensus to integrate uncontroversial aspects of it into existing pages,
than to re-nominate a proposal.

Demotion

Shortcut:

WP:HISTORICAL
See also: WP:HISPAGES
An accepted policy or guideline may become obsolete because of changes in
editorial practice or community standards, may become redundant because of
improvements to other pages, or may represent unwarranted instruction creep. In
such situations editors may propose that a policy be demoted to a guideline, or
that a policy or guideline be demoted to a supplement, informational
page, essay or historical page. In certain cases, a policy or guideline may
be superseded, in which case the old page is marked and retained for historical
interest.
The process for demotion is similar to promotion. A talk page discussion is
typically started, the {{Underdiscussion|status|DiscussionTitle}} template is
added to the top of the project page, and community input is solicited. After a
reasonable amount of time for comments, an independent editor should close the
discussion and evaluate the consensus.
The {{Disputed tag}} template is typically used instead of {{Under discussion}} for
claims that a page was recently assigned guideline or policy status without
proper or sufficient consensus being established.
Essays, information pages, and other informal pages that are only supported by a
small minority of the community are typically moved to the primary author's
userspace. These discussions typically happen on the page's talk page,
sometimes with an RfC, but they have at times also been conducted
at Miscellany for deletion (despite the MFD guidelines explicitly discouraging this
practice). Other pages are retained for historical reference and are marked as
such.

Content changes

Shortcut:

WP:PGCHANGE
See also: Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard
Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page. It is not
strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a
consensus in advance. However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive
and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully
reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally
introducing new sources of error or confusion.
Because Wikipedia practice exists in the community through consensus, editing
a policy/guideline/essay page does not in itself imply an immediate change to
accepted practice. It is, naturally, bad practice to recommend a rejected
practice on a policy or guideline page. To update best practices, you may change
the practice directly (you are permitted to deviate from practice for the purposes
of such change) and/or set about building widespread consensus for your change
or implementation through discussion. When such a change is accepted, you can
then edit the page to reflect the new situation.
Substantive changes

Shortcuts:

WP:PGBOLD

WP:TALKFIRST
Talk page discussions are usually held before substantive changes are made to policies.

Talk first. Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy.
Changes may be made if there are no objections, or if discussion shows that
there is consensus for the change. Minor edits to improve formatting, grammar,
and clarity may be made at any time.
If the result of discussions is unclear, then it should be evaluated by an
administrator or other independent editor, as in the proposal process. Major
changes should also be publicized to the community in general; announcements
similar to the proposal process may be appropriate.
If wider input on a proposed change is desired, it may be useful to mark the
section with the tag {{Underdiscussion|section|talk=DiscussionTitle}} . (If the
proposal relates to a single statement, use {{Underdiscussioninline|
DiscussionTitle}} immediately after it.)

Or be bold. The older but still valid method is to boldly edit the page. Bold editors
of policy and guideline pages are strongly encouraged to
follow WP:1RR or WP:0RR standards. Although most editors find advance
discussion, especially at well-developed pages, very helpful, directly editing
these pages is permitted by Wikipedia's policies. Consequently, you should not
remove any change solely on the grounds that there was no formal discussion
indicating consensus for the change before it was made. Instead, you should give
a substantive reason for challenging it and, if one hasn't already been started,
open a discussion to identify the community's current views.[under discussion as of May 2017]
Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be
seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in
the argument when making the edits.

Conflicts between advice pages

Shortcut:

WP:POLCON

If policy and/or guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be
revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately
reflect the community's actual practices and best advice. As a temporary
measure during that resolution process, if a guideline appears to conflict with a
policy, editors may assume that the policy takes precedence.
More commonly, advice pages do not directly conflict, but provide multiple
options. For example, WP:Identifying reliable sources says that newspaper
articles are generally considered to be reliable sources,
and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) recommends against
newspaper articles for certain technical purposes. Editors must use their best
judgement to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the
specific situation at hand.

Naming
The page names of policies and guidelines usually do not include the words
"policy" or "guideline", unless required to distinguish the page from another.

See also
Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies

and guidelines, a listing of policy and guideline
proposals advertised through Wikipedia:Requests for
comment

Wikipedia:Centralized discussion, a centralized list of

ongoing policy discussions

Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, proposals that come up

very often

Wikipedia:Product, process, policy the place of

policies in Wikipedia

Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines, an

introduction to the major policies and guidelines for
very new users.

Wikipedia:Principles, an index of essays about the

community's principles and values

Notes
1. Jump up^ Many historical essays can still be found
within Meta's essay category. The Wikimedia
Foundation's Meta-wiki was envisioned as the original
place for editors to comment on and discuss Wikipedia,
 although the "Wikipedia" project space has since taken
over most of that role.

2. Jump up^ There is no prohibition against including

appropriate external references to support and explain
our policies or guidelines, but such sources are not
authoritative with respect to Wikipedia, and should only
be used to reinforce consensus.

3. Jump up^ Office declarations may establish

unprecedented policies to avoid copyright, legal, or
technical problems, though such declarations are rare.

Further reading

Book: Key
Wikipedia Policies &
Guidelines

Mission statement - The Wikimedia Foundation

Wikimedia values - The six values of the Wikimedia

Foundation

Wikimedia founding principles - Principles generally

supported by all of the Wikimedia communities

Wikipedia key policies and guidelines

Verifiability

No original research

Neutral point of view

What Wikipedia is not

Biographies of living persons

Autobiography

Image use

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Article titles
Notability

Citing sources

Identifying reliable sources

medicine

Do not include copies of primary sources

Plagiarism

Don't create hoaxes

Fringe theories

Patent nonsense

External links

Civility

Consensus

Editing policy

Harassment

Vandalism

No personal attacks

Ownership of content

Edit warring

Dispute resolution

Sock puppetry

No legal threats

Child protection

Paid-contribution disclosure

Assume good faith

Conflict of interest

Disruptive editing

Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

Etiquette

Gaming the system

Please do not bite the newcomers

Courtesy vanishing

Deletion policy
 Proposed deletion

Criteria for speedy deletion

Attack page

Oversight

Proposed deletion of BLP

Proposed deletion (books)

Revision deletion

Administrators

Banning

Blocking

Page protection

Article size

Be bold

Disambiguation

Hatnotes

Set index articles

Subpages

User pages

Talk page guidelines

Signatures

Broad-concept article

Project namespace

WikiProjects

Style Manual of Style

Contents

Accessibility

Understandability

Dates and numbers

Images

Layout
 Lead section

Linking

Lists

Categories, lists, and navigation templates

Classification Categorization

Template namespace

List of policies

Friendly space policy

Licensing and copyright

Privacy policy

Values

FAQ

List of all policies and guidelines

List of policies

List of guidelines

Principles

Five pillars

Ignore all rules

[show]

Wikipedia accounts and governance

Categories:
Wikipedia policies
Wikipedia policies and guidelines
Wikipedia administration
Wikipedia procedural policies

Navigation menu
Not logged in

Talk
 Contributions

Create account

Log in
Project page
Talk
Read
View source
View history
Search
Main page
Contents
Featured content
Current events
Random article
Donate to Wikipedia
Wikipedia store
Interaction
Help
About Wikipedia
Community portal
Recent changes
Contact page
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Wikidata item
Print/export
Create a book
Download as PDF
Printable version
In other projects
Wikimedia Commons
MediaWiki
Meta-Wiki
Wikispecies
Wikibooks
Wikidata
Wikinews
Wikiquote
Wikisource
Wikiversity
 Wikivoyage
Wiktionary
Languages
Afrikaans



Azrbaycanca


Bahasa Banjar


()


Bosanski
Brezhoneg
Catal
etina
Cymraeg
Dansk
Deutsch
Din bizaad

Espaol
Esperanto
Euskara

Franais
Gaeilge
Galego




Hornjoserbsce
Hrvatski
Bahasa Indonesia
Interlingua
slenska
Italiano

Kalaallisut



 Kurd

Ltzebuergesch
Magyar





Bahasa Melayu


Napulitano

Norsk
Norsk nynorsk
Ozbekcha/
Polski
Portugus
Romn
Romani

Scots
Shqip
Sicilianu

Simple English

Slovenina
Slovenina

/ srpski
Srpskohrvatski /
Basa Sunda
Suomi
Svenska

/tatara


Trke



Ting Vit



Edit links
This page was last edited on 21 May 2017, at 00:09.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to
the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Privacy policy

About Wikipedia

Disclaimers

Contact Wikipedia

Developers

Cookie statement

Mobile view