Wikipedia 2197:What Wikipedia is not

Nonono, an GIF animated by Erika Inzitari derived from a painting by Christopher Williams. In some countries such as Bulgaria , the "head shake" means approval.

An encyclopedic article cannot be a complete exposition of all the details verifiable or presumed useful on the subject, but rather a neutral summary of the relevant information given by reliable sources, treating each of these aspects according to its importance in relation to the subject, having regard to the relative weight given to it by these sources. The following examples, which are not exhaustive, illustrate 'what Wikipedia is not'. This page sets out counter-examples of Wikipedia's purpose: to be an encyclopedia.

A discussion group

Wikipedia is neither a newsgroup nor a collection of articles organized like everything2 or h2g2. Wikipedia is also not a discussion forum, nor a chat site.

However, Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia and discussion among contributors is often necessary to improve the encyclopedia or to reach consensus on certain topics. You can chat with the participants on their personal pages and you can discuss a particular article on the Discussion page attached to it. A good place to ask a general question is le Bistro. The different places of discussion are described here.

A dictionary

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, that is, a set of definitions of common terms. Thus, if a term covers a non-encyclopedic subject, no article will be devoted to it, and if several terms cover the same encyclopedic subject, then a single article will be devoted to it and redirections will be used . Each article introduction must therefore define a concept and describe its history and not define a word and detail its etymology and uses. In addition, the disambiguation pages are intended to bring together the various articles devoted to the same name, which may designate in particular different people and / or places, or to the same term, word or expression, sometimes used in very different senses.

This does not mean that etymology, pronunciation, and any other element linguistics are irrelevant on Wikipedia, only they are not the central element. To access a free dictionary, see Wiktionary, a project of the Wikimedia Foundation instead.

A guide to using the language

Wikipedia's function is not to explain how to use words, phrases, etc. But, of course, it is sometimes useful, "within the framework of an article", to indicate how a word is to be used according to a particular authority.

By extension of the previous paragraph, Wikipedia is not "a guide to the use of computer terms" either. We're not here to teach you how to talk like 'hackers'. We are here to write an encyclopedia. See Le Jargon Français if the terms hackers interest you. But on the other hand, you are welcome if you want to write articles, even very specific, on hackers and their culture; and if "in the context of such articles", certain terms of the "hacker" slang require an explanation, then writing an article on these terms will of course be justified.

database

, indiscriminately, names, resumes, audiovisual programs, products, miscellaneous information. More details here.

A school or university textbook

Overly “academic” approaches, such as exercises, lectures, etc., obey other logics and needs than the encyclopedic approach of Wikipedia. Wikipedia favors a synthetic approach that is accessible to as many people as possible, giving an overview of knowledge on a subject. School or academic approaches have a more analytical approach, go into more details, mathematical formulas, with less accessible language. They aim less to provide an accessible panorama than in-depth technical knowledge of a specific subject.

This difference in approach is so important that a sister project of Wikipedia, Wikiversité, was created to admit more academic or academic approaches.

Inappropriate information

A Wikipedia article is not intended to be:

• a frequently asked questions;
• a memorial or commemoration;
• a collection of documents, annotated or not;
• a simple summary of a work;
• the simple text of a song.

A political experiment

The community has certain rules, but we must not lose sight of the fact that they exist only for the goal to which the community aspires: to build a 'quality' encyclopedia. By extension, Wikipedia is neither a democracy, nor a dictatorship, nor an attempt to carry out any political project. These rules should therefore not be considered as laws, but as recommendations intended to facilitate collaborative work. This does not prevent some from wondering about the organization of the community, there are various essays on the subject, such as Is Wikipedia an experiment in anarchy?

A bureaucracy

Although Wikipedia brings together many elements of a bureaucracy, it is not governed by law: it is not a quasi-judicial body, and the rules are not the ultimate goal of the community. Although some rules can be applied, the written rules do not fix the accepted use. Rather, they simply document existing community consensuses about what should be accepted and what should be rejected.

Wikipedia's written guidelines and guidelines should be taken seriously, but they should not be misused. Do not follow a literal interpretation of the rules without taking their principle into account. If there are any rules that really prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussions, not by strictly following rules and procedures. In addition, the rules and recommendations can be changed to reflect changes in the consensus.

A procedural error in a proposal or request is not a valid reason for rejecting a proposal or request.

A procedural, code, or grammatical error in a new contribution is not a reason to cancel it, unless the error cannot be easily corrected.

A diary

Articles are not meant to write your autobiography, introduce family or friends. For this, there are many free sites to create a blog. However, if you, as a contributor, wish to introduce yourself or explain your areas of interest, use your user page, which is available to all people registered on Wikipedia.

Censored

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers find offensive or offensive. Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, that is, a project bringing together information on various subjects in the most impartial and objective manner possible, shocking or not of an article remains something very subjective: what may seem trivial to the greatest number may very well be inadmissible for others. Articles, however, may feature content that is considered offensive by the wider community, so there is a reason for this: Content of this type is used if and only if their omission would make the article less informative, less relevant, and less accurate, and that there is no alternative.

An encyclopedia on paper

The costs of hard drive space and bandwidth are negligible. According to Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia), as long as it respects founding principles (mainly point of view neutrality) and that it is properly structured, the existence of content on Wikipedia should mainly be tributaire of the interest that will have a contributor to add it. Except interest, nothing prevents a subject from being treated in as much detail and depth as it is possible to do.

A doctor

As with all the content of the encyclopedia, an article dealing with medical field does not contain any guarantee as to its reliability, having been written by any contributor not informed on the subject.

Further, Wikipedia is not a medical practitioner and even when the information provided is verifiable and reliable, it cannot substitute for the advice of a health professional which will be able to adapt to each particular case, unlike Wikipedia.

An image bank

The writer of an article in Wikipedia may tend to want to include as many images as possible. This goes against the spirit of synthesis specific to encyclopedic articles, drowns the text and can diminish the importance of the links between images and text. In addition, adding many images in bulk, especially at the end of the article, does not give a quality aspect to the latter.

"Conversely", it is desirable for an article to present a number of well-chosen images and in sufficient quantity, so that the illustration thus produced gives the article a correct relief and density. An article that is dull because it is poor in images should be avoided.

A laboratory

Researching Wikipedia's contents, procedures, and contributors can yield information useful to public knowledge, education, and the Wikipedian community, but Wikipedia is not a public laboratory. Searches of Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and other content are usually uncontroversial, because this public information is published under a free license. However, research projects which disrupt the community or which degrade the quality of articles (even temporarily) are prohibited and the responsible contributor is exposed to the blocking of his account.

Regardless of the nature of the project, researchers must be as transparent as possible; for example, they should indicate their institutional or corporate ties, or the real goals of the research. If they conduct their research with a grant or any other form of remuneration, they should clearly mention this lest they be seen as paid editors when they appear in an article or on a talk page for example.

Some contributors refuse, explicitly or implicitly, to collaborate on research. Please respect their wishes not to participate in research.

See also

Related Articles

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (What Wikipedia is)
• Wikipedia:Founding principles
• Wikipedia:Article eligibility criteria