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* Thinking that there is an "author" of any given article you read. A common misconception of new arrivals to Wikipedia is that there are single authors of articles. This leads people to feel constrained to change articles themselves; they issue critiques on /Talk pages when they could just as easily make changes to articles themselves. The fact of the matter though is that no article here has just one official author, even if only one person has worked on it. In theory, anyone can work on any article--and if you see a problem with an article, and you can fix it, then please do fix it then and there. Don't bother with the /Talk page unless politeness demands you explain what you've changed (it often doesn't), or that you ask a question first. For more information, see be bold in updating pages and talk page. |
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* Deleting useful content. It's impolite simply to delete content that is useful just because it is somewhat biased (why not just remove the bias?) or because it's poorly copyedited (why not do the necessary copyediting?). Except in the very most obvious of cases, deleting anything over, say, a few sentences demands some words of justification on a talk page. A relevant principle is never to reduce the overall amount of useful content in an article. |
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* Making changes to the HomePage. Even though the HomePage can be edited like any other page, most Wikipedians leave it as it is unless there is a really good reason to change something. If you have an idea to improve the HomePage, bounce it around on HomePage/Talk first. * Adopting a combative stance. Some new people immediately see that there is a special community of people here committed to working together toward friendly consensus. Others make the mistake of treating disputes on Wikipedia as on a par with Usenet flame wars. In fact, most old hands want to spend as little as possible time in nasty, competitive disputes. That isn't what Wikipedia is about. This isn't to say that there aren't acrimonious disputes, even among the old hands--there certainly are. We ain't perfect. But it does seem safe to say that most of us aren't here for that, and we are embarrassed when it comes that. We're here to write an encyclopedia. For that, some amount of Wikipetiquette (if you will) is required. |
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* Thinking that there is an "author" of any given article you read. A common misconception of new arrivals to Wikipedia is that there are single authors of articles. This leads people to feel constrained to change articles themselves; they issue critiques on /Talk pages when they could just as easily make changes to articles themselves. The fact of the matter though is that no article here has just one official author, even if only one person has worked on it. In theory, anyone can work on any article--and if you see a problem with an article, and you can fix it, then please do fix it then and there. Don't bother with the /Talk page unless politeness demands you explain what you've changed (it often doesn't), or that you ask a question first. For more information, see be bold in updating pages and talk page. * Adopting a combative stance. Some new people immediately see that there is a special community of people here committed to working together toward friendly consensus. Others make the mistake of treating disputes on Wikipedia as on a par with Usenet flame wars. In fact, most old hands want to spend as little as possible time in nasty, competitive disputes. That isn't what Wikipedia is about. This isn't to say that there aren't acrimonious disputes, even among the old hands--there certainly are. We ain't perfect. But it does seem safe to say that most of us aren't here for that, and we are embarrassed when it comes to that. We're here to write an encyclopedia. For that, some amount of Wikipetiquette (if you will) is required. |
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This list is limited to the most common and important Wikipedia faux pas. For other "rules" or suggestions, see Wikipedia policy. |
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This list is limited to the most common and important Wikipedia faux pas. For other "rules" or suggestions, see Wikipedia policy. |
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