The English Wikipedia does not have a single, definitive statement of the community's values and principles. Over the years, several editors have written summaries of these values and principles as well as essays expressing their ideas about what is important. The following is a list of some of the more popular pages:
Wikipedia:Five pillars :User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles : One of the oldest, this statement of principles was written by Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales .Wikipedia:Trifecta : This three-point simplified ruleset was the precursor to the Five Pillars page.Wikipedia:Core content policies : Brief summary and a bit of background on our core content policies.Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia : Blunt and to the point laying out of what Wikipedia isWikipedia:Wikipedia in brief : Focuses on the encyclopedic nature of the project.Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset : A longer page with more detail.Wikipedia:Ethics : A list of various ethical codesWikipedia:Ethical Code for Wikipedians Wikipedia:Purpose : Wikipedia's purposeUser:Andrewa/creed : What Wikipedians believeWikipedia:Pledges : Specific principles individual Wikipedians pledge to upholdWikipedia:Product, process, policy : The three PsWikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia : Behaviors that build, or destroy, the project.Wikipedia:Eight simple rules for editing our encyclopedia Wikipedia:Ten simple rules for editing Wikipedia Wikipedia:Historical archive/Rules to consider Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Principles : a compilation of principles stated by the Arbitration Committee in previous cases
All of these pages are intended to be informative and helpful to editors. None of these pages themselves are official policies or guidelines of the English Wikipedia community (see WP:Local consensus for details).
Wikipedia:Administration , about the human administrative structure, as well as its non-human components.Wikipedia:Expectations and norms of the Wikipedia community , supplementWikipedia:Editorial oversight and control , summary of various processes and structuresWikipedia:Introduction /Wikipedia:About , introductory pagesWikipedia:History of Wikipedian processes and people , historicalWikipedia:Governance , directory of links related to Wikipedia governanceWikipedia:IPs are human too , an essayWikipedia:The rules are principles , an essayWikipedia:Reasonability Rule , an essayWikipedia:Wikiness , an essayWikipedia:Why Wikipedia is so great , an essayWikipedia:Five pillars of evil , a humorous essayWikipedia:Content forking/Internal § Policy forks – on avoiding conflict between different policy/guideline pages
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Five pillars
Jimbo's statement
Simplified ruleset
Building, editing, and deletion
Philosophy
Articles are more important than policy Articles must be written All Five Pillars are equally important Avoid vague introductions Civil POV pushing Cohesion Competence is required Concede lost arguments Dissent is not disloyalty Don't lie Don't search for objections Duty to comply Editing Wikipedia is like visiting a foreign country Editors will sometimes be wrong Eight simple rules for editing our encyclopedia Explanationism External criticism of Wikipedia Five pillars Here to build an encyclopedia Large language models Leave it to the experienced Levels of competence Levels of consensus Most ideas are bad Need Not broken is ugly Not editing because of Wikipedia restriction Not every article can be a Featured Article The one question Oversimplification Paradoxes Paraphrasing POV and OR from editors, sources, and fields Process is important Product, process, policy Purpose Reasonability rule Systemic bias There is no seniority Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia Tendentious editing The role of policies in collaborative anarchy The rules are principles Trifecta We are absolutely here to right great wrongs Wikipedia in brief Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Wikipedia is a community Wikipedia is not RationalWiki
Article construction
100K featured articles Abandoned stubs Acronym overkill Adding images improves the encyclopedia Advanced text formatting Akin's Laws of Article Writing Alternatives to the "Expand" template Amnesia test A navbox on every page An unfinished house is a real problem Archive your sources Article revisions Articles have a half-life Autosizing images Avoid mission statements Be neutral in form Beef up that first revision Blind men and an elephant BOLD, revert, discuss cycle Build content to endure Cherrypicking Chesterton's fence Children's lit, adult new readers, & large-print books Citation overkill Citation underkill Common-style fallacy Concept cloud Creating controversial content Criticisms of society may be consistent with NPOV and reliability Dictionaries as sources Don't cite Wikipedia on Wikipedia Don't demolish the house while it's still being built Don't get hung up on minor details Don't hope the house will build itself Don't panic Don't "teach the controversy" Editing on mobile devices Editors are not mindreaders Encourage the newcomers Endorsements (commercial) Featured articles may have problems Formatting bilateral relations articles Formatting bilateral relations templates Fruit of the poisonous tree Give an article a chance Gotfryd custom How to write a featured article Identifying and using independent sources
History sources Law sources Primary sources Science sources Style guides Tertiary sources Ignore STRONGNAT for date formats Introduction to structurism Link rot Mine a source Merge Test Minors and persons judged incompetent "Murder of" articles Not every story/event/disaster needs a biography Not everything needs a navbox Not everything needs a template Nothing is in stone Obtain peer review comments Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area Permastub Potential, not just current state Presentism Principle of Some Astonishment The problem with elegant variation Pro and con lists Printability Publicists Put a little effort into it Restoring part of a reverted edit Robotic editing Sham consensus Source your plot summaries Specialized-style fallacy Stublet Stub Makers Run an edit-a-thon Temporary versions of articles Tertiary-source fallacy There are no shortcuts to neutrality There is no deadline There is a deadline The deadline is now Try not to leave it a stub What is a reliable source Understanding Wikipedia's content standards Walled garden What an article should not include Wikipedia is a work in progress Wikipedia is not being written in an organized fashion The world will not end tomorrow Write the article first Writing better articles
Writing article content
Avoid thread mode Copyediting reception sections Coup Don't throw more litter onto the pile Gender-neutral language Myth vs fiction Proseline Reading in a flow state Turning biology research into a Wikipedia article Use our own words We shouldn't be able to figure out your opinions Write the article first Writing about women Writing better articles
Removing or
Adjectives in your recommendations AfD is not a war zone Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions Arguments to avoid in deletion reviews Arguments to avoid in image deletion discussions Arguments to make in deletion discussions Avoid repeated arguments Before commenting in a deletion discussion But there must be sources! Confusing arguments mean nothing Content removal Counting and sorting are not original research Delete or merge Delete the junk Deletion is not cleanup Does deletion help? Don't attack the nominator Don't confuse stub status with non-notability Don't overuse shortcuts to policy and guidelines to win your argument Emptying categories out of process Follow the leader How the presumption of notability works How to save an article nominated for deletion I just don't like it Identifying blatant advertising Identifying test edits Immunity Keep it concise Liar liar pants on fire No Encyclopedic Use Notability is not everything Nothing Nothing is clear Overzealous deletion Relisting can be abusive Relist bias The Heymann Standard Unopposed AFD discussion Wikipedia is not Whack-A-Mole Why was the page I created deleted? What to do if your article gets tagged for speedy deletion When in doubt, hide it in the woodwork Zombie page
Neutrality
Academic bias Activist Advocacy Avoid thread mode Be neutral in form Blind men and an elephant Cherrypicking Civil POV pushing Coatrack Controversial articles Creating controversial content Criticisms of society may be consistent with NPOV and reliability Criticism Describing points of view Don't "teach the controversy" Endorsements Let the reader decide Inaccuracy Myth vs fiction NPOV dispute Neutral and proportionate point of view Not Wikipedia's fault POV and OR from editors, sources, and fields Partisans Partisanship Presentism Pro and con lists Systemic bias Tendentious editing There are no shortcuts to neutrality Wikipedia:Truth We are absolutely here to right great wrongs We shouldn't be able to figure out your opinions What is fringe? Why Wikipedia cannot claim the Earth is not flat Wikipedia is not RationalWiki Yes, it is promotion
Notability
Advanced source searching All high schools can be notable Alternative outlets Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions Articles with a single source Avoid template creep Bare notability Big events make key participants notable Businesses with a single location But it's true! Common sourcing mistakes Clones Coatrack Discriminate vs indiscriminate information Drafts are not checked for notability or sanity Every snowflake is unique Existence ≠ Notability Existence does not prove notability Extracting the meaning of significant coverage Google searches and numbers How the presumption of notability works High schools Historical/Policy/Notability/Arguments Inclusion is not an indicator of notability Independent sources Inherent notability Insignificant Just because BFDI has an article doesn't mean you can add fancruft about it Masking the lack of notability Make stubs Minimum coverage News coverage does not decrease notability No amount of editing can overcome a lack of notability No one cares about your garage band No one really cares Notability and tornadoes Notability cannot be purchased Notability comparison test Notability is not everything Notability is not a level playing field Notability is not a matter of opinion Notability is not relevance or reliability Notability means impact Notabilitymandering Not all Vocaloid songs deserve their own article Not every single thing Donald Trump does deserves an article Obscurity ≠ Lack of notability Offline sources One sentence does not an article make Other stuff exists Overreliance upon Google Perennial websites Popularity ≠ Notability Read the source Red flags of non-notability Reducing consensus to an algorithm Run-of-the-mill Solutions are mixtures and nothing else Significance is not a formula Source content comes first! Sources must be out-of-universe Subjective importance Third-party sources Trivial mentions Video links Vanispamcruftisement What BLP1E is not What is and is not routine coverage What notability is not What to include Why was BFDI not on Wikipedia? Wikipedia is not Crunchbase Wikipedia is not here to tell the world about your noble cause Wikipedia is not the place to post your résumé Two prongs of merit
Humorous
Adminitis Ain't no rules says a dog can't play basketball Akin's Laws of Article Writing Alternatives to edit warring ANI flu Anti-Wikipedian Anti-Wikipedianism Articlecountitis Asshole John rule Assume bad faith Assume faith Assume good wraith Assume stupidity Assume that everyone's assuming good faith, assuming that you are assuming good faith Avoid using the preview button Avoid using wikilinks Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Barnstaritis Before they were notable Be the fun police BOLD, revert, revert, revert cycle Boston Tea Party Butterfly effect CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh? Case against LLM-generated articles Complete bollocks Counting forks Counting juntas Crap Delete the main page Diffusing conflict Don't stuff beans up your nose Don't-give-a-fuckism Don't abbreviate "Wikipedia" as "Wiki"! Don't delete the main page Editcountitis Edits Per Day Editsummarisis Editing under the influence Embrace Stop Signs Emerson Fart Five Fs of Wikipedia Seven Ages of Editor, by Will E. Spear-Shake Go ahead, vandalize How many Wikipedians does it take to change a lightbulb? How to get away with UPE How to put up a straight pole by pushing it at an angle How to vandalize correctly How to win a citation war If you have a pulse Ignore all essays Ignore all user warnings Ignore every single rule Is that even an essay? Keep beating the horse List of really, really, really stupid article ideas that you really, really, really should not create Mess with the templates My local pond Newcomers are delicious, so go ahead and bite them Legal vandalism List of jokes about Wikipedia LTTAUTMAOK No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man No episcopal threats No one cares about your garage band No one really cares No, really No self attacks Notability is not eternal Oops Defense Play the game Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you Please bite the newbies Please do not murder the newcomers Pledge of Tranquility Project S.C.R.A.M. R-e-s-p-e-c-t Requests for medication Requirements for adminship Rouge admin Rouge editor Sarcasm is really helpful Sausages for tasting Spaling Muich? Template madness The Night Before Wikimas The first rule of Wikipedia The Five Pillars of Untruth Things that should not be surprising The WikiBible Watchlistitis We are deletionist! Why is BFDI on Wikipedia? Why you shouldn't write articles with ChatGPT, according to ChatGPT Wikipedia is an MMORPG WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! Yes, falsely Yes legal threats Yes personal attacks You don't have to be mad to work here, but You should not write meaningless lists
About
About essays
Essay guide Value of essays Difference between policies, guidelines and essays Don't cite essays as if they were policy Avoid writing redundant essays Finding an essay Quote your own essay
Policies and guidelines
About policies and guidelines
How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance Policy writing is hard
Essay search
Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia, 2005 TED (conference), 20 mins.