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 remove it). |
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 summarizes accepted knowledge. As a rule, the more accepted knowledge it contains, the better. Please be bold and add content summarizing accepted knowledge, but be particularly cautious about removing sourced content. Information in Wikipedia must be verifiable and cannot be original research. Show that content is verifiable by citing reliable sources. Because a lack of content is better than misleading or false content, unsourced content may be challenged and removed. To avoid such challenges, the best practice is to provide an inline citation when adding content (see: WP:Citing sources for instructions on how to do this, or ask for help at the Help desk).
Wikipedia respects others' copyright. Although content must be backed by reliable sources, avoid copying or closely paraphrasing a copyrighted source. You should read the source, understand it, and then express what it says in your own words. An exception exists for the often necessary use of short quotations; they must be enclosed in quotations marks, accompanied by an inline reference to the source, and usually attributed to the author. (See the fair use doctrine which allows limited quoting without permission.)
Another way you 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.
Creating articles
The guideline Wikipedia:Notability describes what is needed to support the creation of a new article.
Mass page creation
Any large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation task must be approved by the community.[1][2] Community input may be solicited at WP:Village pump (proposals) and the talk pages of any relevant WikiProjects. Creators must ensure that all creations are strictly within the terms of their approval. All mass-created articles (except those not required to meet WP:GNG) must cite at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG, that is, which constitutes significant coverage in an independent, reliable, secondary source.[3]
Alternatives to simply creating mass quantities of content pages include creating the pages in small batches or creating the content pages as subpages of a relevant WikiProject to be individually moved to public-facing space after each has been reviewed by human editors. While use of these alternatives does not remove the need for approval, it may garner more support from the community at large.
Mass creation by automated means may additionally require approval as specified by Wikipedia:Bot policy. Approval of a bot for mass creation does not override the need for community consensus for the creation itself, nor does community consensus for a creation override the need for approval of the bot itself.
Note that while creation of non-content pages (such as redirects from systematic names, or maintenance categories) is not covered by this mass creation policy, other policies, such as Wikipedia:Bot policy, still apply.
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 or recently deceased persons 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
Great Wikipedia articles come from a succession of editors' efforts. Rather than remove imperfect content outright, fix problems if you can, tag or excise them if you can't.
As explained above, Wikipedia is a work in progress and perfection is not required. Any facts or ideas that would belong in the "finished" article should be retained if they meet the three core content policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability, and No original research.
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.
Instead of removing content from an article or reverting a new contribution, consider:
- Rephrasing or copy-editing to improve grammar or more accurately represent the sources
- Formatting or sourcing on the spot
- Tagging it as necessary
- 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 appropriate cleanup tags to content you cannot fix yourself
- Doing a quick search for sources and adding a citation yourself
- Repairing 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 sub-article, or if you are just unsure about removing it from the English Wikipedia 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.