User:Rabbitfang/Sandbox/Quick policy and guideline reference

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This userpage is a quick reference guide to Wikipedia's many policies and guidelines. This page is not guaranteed to be accurate but it will try to be. Note that this page may have copy and paste text from official policy pages. If these pages change, this page may not change for some time.

Principals

Five pillars

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a indiscriminate collection of information, dictionary, newspaper, or a collection of source documents.
2. Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here. That means citing verifiable, authoritative sources, especially on controversial topics and when the subject is a living person.
3. Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit and distribute. Respect copyright laws. All your contributions are freely licensed to the public, and no editor owns any article.
4. Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner. Respect and be polite to your fellow Wikipedians, even when you disagree. Apply Wikipedia etiquette, and avoid personal attacks. Find consensus, avoid edit wars, and remember that there are 7,007,023 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming.
5. Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here. Be bold in updating articles and do not worry about making mistakes. Your efforts do not need to be perfect; prior versions are saved, so no damage is irreparable.

What Wikipedia is not

• Wikipedia is not a dictionary.

• Wikipedia is not a publisher of original research. Do not use Wikipedia for any of the following:

1. Primary (original) research such as proposing theories and solutions, original ideas, defining terms, coining new words, etc. Citations of reliable sources are needed to demonstrate that material is verifiable, and not merely the editor's opinion.
2. Personal inventions or things made up one day.
3. Personal essays that state your particular feelings about a topic (rather than the consensus of experts). However, personal essays on topics relating to Wikipedia are welcome in your user namespace or on the Meta-wiki. There is a Wikipedia fork at Wikinfo that encourages personal opinions in articles.
4. Discussion forums. Please try to stay on the task of creating an encyclopedia. You can chat with people about Wikipedia-related topics on their user talk pages, and should resolve problems with articles on the relevant talk pages, but please do not take discussion into articles. In addition, bear in mind that talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles not for general discussion pages about the subject of the article, nor are they a helpdesk for obtaining instructions or technical assistance.
5. Journalism. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories. Wikipedia is not a primary source. However, Wikipedia sister projects Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources. Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news, and can be updated with recently verified information.

• Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. This applies to articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages. Therefore, content hosted in Wikipedia is not for:

1. Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views. Wikipedia pages may not be used for advocacy unrelated to Wikipedia, but pages in the Wikipedia namespace may be used to advocate for specific viewpoints regarding the improvement or organization of Wikipedia itself. So essays, portals, project pages, etc. are part of what Wikipedia is.
2. Opinion pieces. Although some topics, particularly those concerning current affairs and politics, may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (i.e. passionately advocate their pet point of view), Wikipedia is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced to put entries, especially for current events, in a reasonable perspective, and represent a neutral point of view.
3. Scandal mongering, something "heard through the grapevine" or gossip. Articles about living people are required to meet an especially high standard, as they may otherwise be libellous or infringe the subjects' right to privacy. Articles should not be written purely to attack the reputation of another person.
4. Self-promotion. It can be tempting to write about yourself or projects in which you have a strong personal involvement. However, do remember that the standards for encyclopedic articles apply to such pages just like any other, including the requirement to maintain a neutral point of view, which is difficult when writing about yourself or about projects close to you. Creating overly abundant links and references to autobiographical articles is unacceptable. See Wikipedia:Autobiography, Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.
5. Advertising. Articles about companies and products are written in an objective and unbiased style. Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations which are the topic of the article. Wikipedia neither endorses organizations nor runs affiliate programs. See also Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) for guidelines on corporate notability. Those promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a forum other than Wikipedia to do so.

• Wikipedia is neither a mirror nor a repository of links, images, or media files. Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Mere collections of external links or Internet directories.
2. Mere collections of internal links, except for disambiguation pages when an article title is ambiguous, and for lists to assist with article organization and navigation.
3. Mere collections of public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, unmodified wording. Complete copies of primary sources may go into Wikisource, but not on Wikipedia. There is nothing wrong with using public domain resources such as 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica to add content to an article. See also Wikipedia:Do not include the full text of lengthy primary sources and Wikisource's inclusion policy.
4. Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles. If a picture comes from a public domain source on a website, then consider adding it to Wikipedia:Images with missing articles or Wikipedia:Public domain image resources.