Wikipedia:Editing policy
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 | This page in a nutshell: Improve pages wherever you can, and do not worry about leaving them imperfect. Preserve the value that others add, even if they "did it wrong" (try to fix it rather than delete it). |
| Conduct policies |
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Wikipedia is the product of millions of editors' contributions, each one bringing something different to the table, whether it be: researching skills, technical expertise, writing prowess or tidbits of information, but most importantly a willingness to help. Even the best articles should not be considered complete, as each new editor can offer new insights on how to enhance and improve the content in it at any time.
Adding information to Wikipedia
Wikipedia is here to provide summaries of accepted knowledge to the public, as described in WP:NOT; generally speaking, the more accepted knowledge it can provide (subject to certain defined limitations on its scope), the better it is. Please boldly add content summarizing accepted knowledge to Wikipedia, either by creating new articles or adding to existing articles, and exercise particular caution when considering removing sourced content. However, it is Wikipedia policy that information in Wikipedia should be verifiable and must not be original research. You are invited to show that content is verifiable by referencing reliable sources. Unsourced content may be challenged and removed, because on Wikipedia a lack of content is better than misleading or false content—Wikipedia's reputation as an encyclopedia depends on the content in articles being verifiable and reliable. To avoid such challenges, the best practice is to provide an "inline citation" at the time the content is added (see: WP:Citing sources for instructions on how to do this, or ask for assistance on the article talk page).
Although reliable sources are required, when developing articles on the basis of sources, avoid copying or closely paraphrasing a copyrighted source. Wikipedia respects others' copyright. You should read the source, understand it, and then express what it says in your own words.
Another way editors can improve an article is by finding a source for existing unsourced content. This is especially true if you come across statements that are potentially controversial. You do not need to be the person who added the content to add a source and citation for it.
Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required
Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. For instance, one person may start an article with an overview of a subject or a few random facts. Another may help standardize the article's formatting or have additional facts and figures or a graphic to add. Yet another may bring better balance to the views represented in the article and perform fact-checking and sourcing to existing content. At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing.
Neutrality in articles of living or recently deceased persons
Although perfection is not required, extra care should be taken on articles that mention living persons. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should either be verified immediately, with one or more reliable sources and presented in a neutral manner without undue weight, or be removed immediately, without waiting for discussion.
Try to fix problems
Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't. Preserve appropriate content. As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability and No original research.
Instead of removing article content that is poorly presented, consider cleaning up the writing, formatting or sourcing on the spot, or tagging it as necessary. If you think an article needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do so, but it is best to leave a comment about why you made the changes on the article's talk page. The editing process tends to guide articles through ever-higher levels of quality over time. Great Wikipedia articles can come from a succession of editors' efforts.
Instead of removing content from an article, consider:
- Rephrasing or copy-editing to improve grammar or more accurately represent the sources
- Correcting inaccuracies, while keeping the rest of the content intact
- Merging or moving the content to a more relevant existing article, or splitting the content to an entirely new article
- Adding another point of view to the existing points of view to make the article more balanced
- Requesting a citation by adding the {{citation needed}} tag, or adding any other Template:Inline cleanup tags as appropriate
- Doing a quick search for sources and adding a citation yourself
- Adding appropriate cleanup tags to sections you cannot fix yourself
- Repair a dead link if a new URL for the page or an archive of the old one can be located
- Merging the entire article into another article with the original article turned into a redirect as described at performing a merge
- Fixing errors in wikitext or formatting
Otherwise, if you think the content could provide the seed of a new subarticle, or if you are just unsure about removing it from the project entirely, consider copying the information to the article's talk page for further discussion. If you think the content might find a better home elsewhere, consider moving the content to a talk page of any article you think might be more relevant, so that editors there can decide how it might be properly included in our encyclopedia.
Problems that may justify removal
Several of our core policies discuss situations when it might be more appropriate to remove information from an article rather than preserve it. Wikipedia:Verifiability discusses handling unsourced and contentious material; Wikipedia:No original research discusses the need to remove original research; What Wikipedia is not describes material that is fundamentally inappropriate for Wikipedia; and WP:UNDUE discusses how to balance material that gives undue weight to a particular viewpoint, which might include removal of trivia, tiny minority viewpoints, or material that cannot be supported with high-quality sources. Also, redundancy within an article should be kept to a minimum (excepting the lead, which is meant to be a summary of the entire article, and so is intentionally duplicative).
Libel, nonsense, and vandalism should be completely removed, as should material that violates copyright and material for which no reliable source that supports it has ever been published.
Special care needs to be taken with biographies of living people, especially when it comes to handling unsourced or poorly sourced claims about the subject. Editors working on such articles need to know and understand the extra restrictions that are laid out at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.
Talking and editing
Be bold in updating articles, especially for minor changes and fixing problems. Previous authors do not need to be consulted before making changes. Nobody owns articles. If you see a problem that you can fix, do so. Discussion is called for, however, if you think the edit might be controversial or if someone indicates disagreement with your edit (either by reverting your edit and/or raising an issue on the talk page). The "BOLD, revert, discuss cycle" (BRD) is often used when changes might be contentious.
Boldness should not mean trying to impose edits against existing consensus or in violation of core policies, such as Neutral point of view and Verifiability. Fait accompli actions, where actions are justified by their having already been carried out, are inappropriate.
Be helpful: explain
Be helpful: explain your changes. When you edit an article, the more radical or controversial the change, the greater the need to explain it. Be sure to leave a comment about why you made the change. Try to use an appropriate edit summary. For larger or more significant changes, the edit summary may not give you enough space to fully explain the edit; in this case, you may leave a note on the article's talk page as well. Remember too that notes on the talk page are more visible, make misunderstandings less likely and encourage discussion rather than edit warring.
Be cautious with major changes: discuss
Be cautious about making a major change to an article. Prevent edit warring by discussing such edits first on the article's talk page. One editor's idea of an improvement may be another editor's idea of a desecration. If you choose to be bold, try to justify your change in detail on the article talk page, so as to avoid an edit war. Before making a major change, consider first creating a new draft on a subpage of your own user page and then link to it on the article's talk page so as to facilitate a new discussion.
But – Wikipedia is not a discussion forum
Whether you decide to edit very boldly or discuss carefully on the talk page first, please bear in mind that Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. It is best to concentrate our energies on improving articles rather than debating our personal ideas and beliefs. This is discussed further at Wikipedia:Etiquette.
Edits to policies and guidelines
Policies and guidelines are supposed to state what most Wikipedians agree upon, and should be phrased to reflect the present consensus on a subject. In general, more caution should be exercised in editing policies and guidelines than in editing articles. Minor edits to existing pages, such as formatting changes, grammatical improvement and uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time. However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first. The change may be implemented if no objection is made to it or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general, as should proposals for new policy pages (see also Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Proposals).
Editing and refactoring talk pages
For guidance on how to edit talk pages see:
See also
- Contributing to Wikipedia: how and where you can help Wikipedia
- Disruptive editing: how not to edit Wikipedia
- Edit conflicts: how to deal with an edit conflict
- There is no deadline: various points of view on what this lack of a deadline means