(Work in progress) So you just made your first edit on Wikipedia. Welcome to the world's largest online encyclopedia. Some internet culture customs are not, however, followed on Wikipedia.
Introduction
Wikipedia is a community of many volunteer editors, which anyone may join. Wikipedia is focused on discussion among users to make decisions on how articles should read. To prevent disruption of this process, Wikipedia has stricter rules regarding personal attacks, harassment, trolling, and the like.
Getting started
- Learn your wikitext syntax: Syntax errors in articles are usually viewed as vandalism (see below for vandalism's definition). To practice, use the sandbox.
- Learn core content policies: Unfortunately, the learning curve is often very steep for Wikipedia. These policies are usually referred to by acronyms derived from their shortcuts, and editors usually expect other editors to know them well.
- Learn behavior policies: Wikipedia has higher expectations for users' behaviors than most other websites, but is still a dynamic Internet community. See the below section.
- Learn the norms: The impression many Wikipedia editors get when you do things like fail to sign your comments is usually "he's not experienced". You can normally learn these norms by reading over the many talk pages of Wikipedia (see below).
- Be prepared to answer questions: You will receive a "You have new messages" notice whenever your own talk page is edited. Only certain comments cannot be removed from your talk page, but it is preferred that you at least read what the comments are saying, and, ideally, respond to them.
- Be prepared to be wrong: We all disagree! Even I have to put up with it when it's proved that I'm wrong. The ability to give in is a key part of achieving consensus (agreement).
Trolling and personal attacks
Personal attacks have a much stricter restriction on Wikipedia than most websites. A personal attack is when a user says something bad about another in relation to something other than violations of Wikipedia policy. Even mild personal attacks are strictly prohibited, except brief and non-directed, since it prevents Wikipedia's system of discussion from proceeding as it should. Accordingly, trolling, in almost all cases, is also strictly prohibited. The only exceptions are mild practical, non-disruptive, jokes that experienced Wikipedians may make among themselves.
How Wikipedia functions
Terminology
This table lists the terms Wikipedia uses in place of common internet terms.
| Term in internet culture | Wikipedia equivalent | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Site Rules | (Wikipedia) Policy | Wikipedia's guidelines are called policies. Users are expected to follow them when editing Wikipedia. Many of the links on this page link to policies. Policies lie in the Wikipedia: namespace (see below). |
| Moderator | Administrator | Administrators are users trusted to be able to block other users, protect pages and delete them, amongst other capability. Administrators are decided by a process called requests for adminship. As inviting as it seems, usually, users need huge amounts of experience to become administrators. |
| Staff | Staff | The staff of the Wikimedia Foundation (which is the organization which runs Wikipedia) is not as involved in site matters as staff on other sites often are. The staff rarely do any moderation or other tasks on Wikipedia - they mainly maintain hardware and work to solve the Foundation's problem. |
| Member | User/Account/Wikipedian | Editors of Wikipedia are called Wikipedians. The term member is almost never used. You are definitely welcome to donate to the Foundation, but it is not the same as premium membership. |
| Administrator | Bureaucrat/Administrator/Steward/Sysadmin/Staff | Wikipedia administrators may promote or demote users from certain positions; however, this does not include the administrator position. Wikipedia administrators have the ability to block users from editing. Bureaucrats are users who are always also given administrator permissions, and can add or remove the bureaucrat and administrator permissions. Bureaucrats also manage which users have the bot permission. Stewards are users that can add or remove any user right on any Wikimedia wiki (including the steward permission itself, CheckUser (see below), Oversight (see below), administrators, and bureaucrats). They are intended to be able to act as a member of any user group - but they are not supposed to make any decisions regarding permissions themselves; they are only intended to carry out community consensus. |
| Ban | Block/Ban | A block is an action by which administrators may disable editing by certain users, including other administrators and anonymous editors (identified by IP addresses), for either a fixed time or indefinitely. Accounts that do not comply with Wikipedia policy are blocked indefinitely. A block is only a technical restriction, and is commonly used to combat vandalism and personal attacks. A ban, on the other hand, is a formal revocation of an individual's editing privileges to all or part of Wikipedia, regardless how the individual accesses Wikipedia. A ban, if encompassing all of Wikipedia, is always accompanied by a block. It is typically either one year or indefinite in duration (the latter being more common). |
There are several additional terms used on Wikipedia. The most important ones are boldened.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Vandalism | Vandalism is to deface articles by making bad edits to them. Vandalism includes introducing deliberate grammatical and/or spelling errors and adding blatantly unsourced content. Vandalism also includes dramatically editing someone's userpage (see below) or any page in his/her userpace (see below) in a bad way without his/her permission. Vandalism is prohibited - editors who engage in it are blocked. An account whose edits are only vandalism is called a vandalism-only account and is almost always blocked indefinitely. Note: Some edits are not vandalism. Only highly disruptive edits made in bad faith that are completely rubbish in quality can be considered vandalism. |
| External links | An external link is a link to a page not on Wikipedia, as opposed to a wikilink, which links to another page on Wikipedia. |
| Spam | Spam is adding promotional or malicious links to Wikipedia for the purposes of marketing or the spread of malware. Spam is prohibited. |
| Namespace | A namespace is a specific zone to classify pages on Wikipedia. The namespace is indicated by the syntax Namespace:Page name. If there is no colon or the colon is not immediately after Talk, User, User talk, Wikipedia, Wikipedia talk, Template, Template talk, Special, MediaWiki, MediaWiki talk, Category, Category talk, Book, Book talk, Portal, Portal talk, Media, File, File talk, Help, or Help talk, the page is in the main namespace, where all articles are located in. The namespaces ending with "talk" are the namespaces for talk pages (see below) of the pages with the same name and in the non-talk namespace (for example, Wikipedia:Example would have the talk page Wikipedia talk:Example associated with. The article Example article would have the Talk:Example article page as its talk page). The prefix WP: is shorthand for Wikipedia: . (WP:Administrators, for example, is the same as Wikipedia:Administrators). This abbreviation is often used for shortcuts, which are used for policies. Shortcuts are special redirects that redirect a short phrase after WP: to a policy page. If there is a m:, meta:, or mw: prefix before the page name, then the page is not on Wikipedia, but on meta.wikimedia.org (the meta-wiki for coordinating all Wikimedia Foundation projects) for the first two and mediawiki.org (the site for the software that runs Wikipedia, MediaWiki) for the latter, respectively. |
| Userpage | Each user has a page for information on him/her in the format User:Username. The userpage is not a Facebook-like wall nor a profile page, but is instead used to show information relevant to Wikipedia (like whether the user is an administrator or not). In general, users should not edit each others' userpages. |
| Talk page | Possibly the most important part of Wikipedia, every page (except special pages) has an associated talk page that can be reached by clicking the "Discussion" tab on the top of the page (it is the second from the left). Talk pages, as the name suggests, are used to discuss about how to resolve a dispute in an article and how to otherwise improve it. New threads are started by clicking "New section" tab on the top of the talk page, and discussion on that topic usually remains inside that thread. However, article talk pages are not forums - they may only be used to discuss improving the article. |
| User talk page | A user talk page begins with User talk: and is the talk page for the user. The names of such talk pages follow User talk:Username. User talk pages are used for communication between users. When blocked, usually the talk page remains editable by the user that was blocked, but that can be removed by a change of block settings or page protection if the user abuses it. User talk pages are used for block notices, warnings, concerns brought up by other editors, notifications about content disputes or discussion at a noticeboard, and other purposes. When your user talk page is edited, you will see a yellow "You have new messages" banner until you view your talk page. Usually, it is best to be prompt in replying to any new messages on your talk page in order to avoid giving other editors the impression that you are not listening to them. |
| Sockpuppetry | Users may, in general, edit and use only one account. Using multiple accounts to evade a block or ban or any other type of editing restriction is prohibited - the alternative accounts get blocked. Such abuse of multiple accounts is called sockpuppetry. The abused accounts are called sockpuppets, commonly called socks for short. The first account the person behind the sockpuppets used is called the sockpuppeteer or the sockmaster. A sockpuppet's userpage often reads like "This account is a sockpuppet of Sockpuppeteer and has been blocked indefinitely." The user talk page is often redirected to it. |
| Neutral point of view | Often abbreviated NPOV, violations of this policy are called POV or Point-of-View edits. Even if users are fans or opponents of an article's subject, they must always keep discussion neutral, and not biased. The content of articles must always use a neutral point of view. |
| Edit warring | Naturally, being human, Wikipedia editors frequently get into conflict with each other when editing. Such disputes should be resolved by consensus and discussion on a talk page. An edit war results when two or more editors repeatedly undo (revert) each others' edits. Edit warring is governed by the three-revert rule. Users who edit war may be blocked. |
| CheckUser | CheckUser (often abbreviated as CU) is a tool that a small number of users are permitted to use to access server logs, used mainly to check for sockpuppetry. |
| Harassment | Harassing another Wikipedia user is not allowed. A user may feel harassed if he/she repeatedly shows that he/she does not want to talk to you even though you persist in placing messages on the user's talk page. Harassment, like on most other websites, is a serious offense that often leads to a long (often indefinite) block or a ban. |
| Global account | An account that can be used on any Wikimedia wiki is called a global account. A global account results from the unification of two or more accounts, at least one of which is on Meta-wiki. This creates accounts for the account holder on every single wiki, including wikis in other languages. |
| Non-free content criteria | These criteria (abbreviated as NFCC) specify under what conditions may copyrighted material (almost always in the form of media files like pictures) may be used on Wikipedia. |
| Manual of style | Commonly abbreviated as MOS, this is the policy regarding the language conventions Wikipedia should use in articles. |
| Reliable sources | Wikipedia requires that sources come from reliable publishers. Usually, the sources must be third-party and ideally, neutral in point of view. This policy is often called RS. |
| Original research | Reliable sources must always be cited. Editors themselves are not reliable sources, and must not add information that only their own experience can verify. Adding such info constitutes original research (often abbreviated as OR), which isn't allowed. |
| Notability | Notability is a measure on whether a particular subject may have an article on Wikipedia. It is usually based on remarkability, judged by the amount and total count of reliable third-party sources. Notability is almost always the main stumbling block when new articles are written and have to be deleted. |
| Disruptive editing | Disruptive editing is a broad term that is often defined as editing that is contrary to the goal of Wikipedia - to produce a reliably-sourced, neutral, and free encyclopedia. Disruptive editing includes edit warring, vandalism, and many other things. |
| Contributions | contribs). The "talk" links to the user's user talk page, the name of the user to his/her userpage, and the "contribs" to the user's contributions. |
| Good faith | You must always assume that a user is acting with good intentions, with the exception of obviously bad faith users like vandals. This especially applies for users new to Wikipedia. It is often abbreviated as AGF. |
Wikitext Syntax
The syntax of Wikipedia's markup language, called wikitext, can be confusing, but it's best that all users learn it to avoid being mistaken for vandalism. See Help:Editing for more details.
Talk pages
Wikipedia is built upon the idea that users must collaboratively build a free, open, encyclopedia. Therefore, Wikipedia expects all users to use talk pages to resolve editing disputes. There are thus several rules and conventions that are followed.
| Convention | Description |
|---|---|
| Talk page signing | All comments are signed by 4 tildes (~~~~) immediately after the comment. Comments that aren't signed are typically labeled as "unsigned" by SineBot (one of Wikipedia's many automated bots). Comment signing typically is useful for other editors to know whose comment it is. The signature that replaces the ~~~~ is your own signature with the UTC date immediately afterward.
Signatures and comment signing is governed by the policy on them. Signatures must not impersonate other editors, must not be too long, and must link to at least one (ideally two or more) of the following: Your userpage, user talk page, or your contributions. However, edits outside of pages that are not for discussion should not be signed. Comments are not supposed to be signed like letters are. Don't sign comments with things like "Best, John Doe." |
| Do not post your personal information | While we cannot prevent you from doing so, posting personal information like your email address or phone number is highly discouraged. Wikipedia almost always has no use for this information - other editors can contact you on your talk page. Posting personal information puts you at increased risk for real-life troubles like harassment, for which Wikipedia claims no responsibility for. |
| Indenting | Comments that are direct replies to other comments should be below the comment being replied to, and indented. Comments are indented using colons (:). If a comment by User A is preceded by ::, then User B's reply is indented using :::. If User C replies to User B's comment, he/she would indent with ::::, and so on. When the indenting becomes excessive, the outdent template is typically used to reset the indentations of the discussion. |
| Making new discussions | New discussions are almost always started by clicking the "New section" tab next to the "Edit" tab. However, the "New section" tab should almost never be used to make a direct reply to a user's comment. New discussions and comments must always be on the bottom (in short, newer material goes on the bottom, not the top, of a talk page). |
| Keep your comment short | Editors do not want to have to read a whole essay to understand your comment. Try to keep comments as concise as possible. |
| Discussions are archived | Rather than simply deleting closed discussions, they are archived, usually in a specific subpage of the page in question that is used to store the archived content. |
| Talk page edit summaries | While not really necessary, comments on talk page have the edit summary of "comment" (or more shortly, "cmt") for initial comments or "reply" (sometimes shortened to "re" or "r") for replies. More rarely, both comments and replies get the edit summaries "+", "+reply", "+comment", and/or "+cmt." |
| Rule | Description |
| In general, don't edit or delete other people's comments | Editors on Wikipedia find it rude to deliberately edit or delete their comments. The only exception to this is editing or removing your own comments (preferably not in the middle of a discussion) or making minor formatting corrections (like indenting). There are several things that cannot be deleted from your talk page if you receive them: any notice of a currently active sanction (typically a block notice of a current block), shared IP address templates (which only are used on anonymous editors' talk pages), declined unblock requests, and any tag related to deletion. You may otherwise remove any other edit made to pages in your userspace, but when editors bring up a concern to you, removing any of these is discouraged, since the editors usually have something that needs to be discussed. |
| Civility | Incivility on talk pages does not help Wikipedia's goal of collaboration, so it is not allowed anywhere on Wikipedia. Incivility includes unnecessary use of bold or italic text, all-caps, personal attacks, trolling and flaming, vents about an article's subject, and the like. |
| Harassment | Harassment is a serious offense on Wikipedia. Users who make comments designed to cyberbully or otherwise hound another user are usually blocked, often indefinitely. Harassment includes revealing the personal information of someone (outing) without his/her authorization and making repeated comments on someone's talk page when that user does not want it. |
Other discussion pages that are not in a talk namespace
While technically not talk pages, there are a number of other pages on Wikipedia that are also used for discussion, and for which the above guidelines and conventions also apply to. These pages include Wikipedia:Village pump, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations (subpages only), Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, and Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. When bringing up a user to any of these kinds of pages (Administrators' noticeboard, Wikiquette assistance, sockpuppetry (not always, especially if the master has done it a lot), and Dispute resolution, etc.), you should notify that user, with the exception of Administrator intervention against vandalism and Usernames for Administrator Attention.
Editing conventions
Wikipedia, in addition to the policies described above, has a few conventions regarding editing. Most can be seen in Wikipedia's manual of style.
| Convention | Description |
|---|---|
| Do everything in one edit | To keep the edit history compact, do all the editing you want in as little edits as possible. Editors, in general, don't like a very long line of very minor edits. |
| Section editing | When you are not editing the entire page, click "edit" next to the header of the section you want to edit to edit the page (this especially applies to talk pages so editors will know which section you are commenting on). Leave your intended edit summary after the section title that has already been filled in. |
| HTML comments | A hidden comment with the syntax <!--comment--> to remind other editors of what to do in that section can be used at times. These comments are only displayed to Wikipedia editors. When you are editing a section with HTML comments it is usually best to either follow the comment or contest it on the talk page. |
Community
Wikipedia, aside from being much more formal, is very much like other internet communities. It is OK from time to time to mildly violate a policy as a non-disruptive joke (especially on April's Fools day), and Wikipedia does have some humor pages that otherwise would be inappropriate on Wikipedia. Even serious editors must take a break from time to time.
The community encompasses all Wikipedia editors, even anonymous ones, except banned users. No-one has formal status over anyone else, but in general, experienced users are trusted more than new users (unfortunately, since many new users also cause disruption), and administrators tend to be trusted more than lower-ranking users (since the level of trust for that position is inherently high).