Essay about alternative websites for content outside the scope of Wikipedia
Essay on editing Wikipedia
This is an essay on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.
It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.
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WP:OUT
WP:ALTOUT
WP:OUTLET
WP:ALTERNATIVE
WP:ALTERNATE
This page in a nutshell: There are other places for potentially useful or valuable content which is not appropriate for Wikipedia.
When content (text, pages, images, etc.) is deleted, various policies and guidelines such as "What Wikipedia is not", notability, verifiability and our prohibition on original research are often cited as reasons the material does not belong here, in an encyclopedia, and rightly so. Unfortunately, this is not particularly helpful or calming to the person(s) who put in time and effort to write the material. They often see it as their hard work being casually tossed away. The phrase "try another wiki" is also sometimes used, for similar intent.
In an effort to foster a general spirit of collegiality, this page provides some referrals to alternative outlets which do allow content that Wikipedia does not. Sometimes material is submitted that is perfectly factual and verifiable, but simply outside of the scope of Wikipedia. Just because the content does not belong here does not mean it does not have value, and it is worth preserving valuable free content if we can.
Please consider directing people to these sites (or this page), rather than simply telling them that their contributions are WP:NOT wanted.
For example, Wikipedia contains a significant amount of information about the "Star Wars" media franchise, but for an even more detailed treatment, try Wookieepedia—a wiki dedicated to the "Star Wars universe". Similarly, information on the "Star Trek" franchise can be found at Memory Alpha. JurisPedia focuses on legal topics. There also are wikis devoted to specific languages or localities that may be more appropriate for a given topic.
There may be legal or ethical restrictions on the copying of content from Wikipedia to other sites. It is up to individual contributors to familiarize themselves with the procedures and policies of other outlets and to examine their licensing arrangements, which may differ from Wikipedia in significant ways.
It is also sometimes the case that new or inexperienced users will post an excessive amount of personal details or otherwise inappropriate content in their userspace. While such userpages may be nominated for deletion at WP:MfD, it may be appropriate (and courteous) to first open a dialogue with the user, and give them notice to revise the userpage and/or move its content to a more appropriate site, such as Neocities or Tumblr. If the user responds favorably to such a request, opening a deletion discussion about their userpages may not be necessary.
Sister projectsedit
Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects:
Commons Free media repository
MediaWiki Wiki software development
Meta-Wiki Wikimedia project coordination
Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata Free knowledge base
Wikinews Free-content news
Wikiquote Collection of quotations
Wikisource Free-content library
Wikispecies Directory of species
Wikiversity Free learning tools
Wikivoyage Free travel guide
Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus
Other websitesedit
There are Wikipedia articles, lists, and categories which provide information on other websites:
There are also Wikipedias in many other languages, including a Simple English Wikipedia.
Non-Wikimedia Foundationedit
Everything2, a collaborative community repository of moderated user-generated content on a variety of topics and genres, including encyclopedic articles, reviews, fiction, as well as a large amount of non-fiction.
Fanlore, a wiki created to preserve the history and activities of fandoms.
Fandom, a wiki hosting service which hosts wikis on entertainment (i.e. video game and movie wikis).
Neocities is a web hosting service primarily for personal websites, which offers 1GB of free storage to users
OpenStreetMap, a worldwide map, which also includes business listings, local monuments, notable trees, etc.
Quora, a question and answer site on multiple topics
SourceWatch, a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy.
Stack Exchange, a network of question-and-answer websites on topics in diverse fields
TV Tropes is a wiki where common conventions in fiction, called tropes, can be described. Almost all creative works can be written about there. If you want to describe patterns in fiction, you should do it there.
License restrictionsedit
Content (text, images, etc.) Text submitted to Wikipedia is required to be licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC BY-SA); Media submitted to Wikipedia is required to be licensed under the terms of the CC BY-SA or a similar free license. Other sites (especially non-WMF sites) may require a different license. Do not copy content from Wikipedia to other sites unless you are sure the licenses are compatible. If they are not, try contacting the copyright holder of the content to obtain permission to re-license the content. Typically the user who submitted the content to Wikipedia in the first place is the copyright holder. Check the page's edit history to help identify the user.
For CC BY-SA content being deleted from Wikipedia, the edit history should also be copied or preserved in some way. For example, if the target site uses talk pages in the style of Wikipedia, copy the edit history there.
For more information, see: Reusing Wikipedia content.
See alsoedit
Wikipedia:Directory of alternative outlets
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not/Outtakes (humor)
Moving contentedit
Guide for Everything2 noders—Moving content from Wikipedia to E2
Transwiki guide at Meta
Deletionedit
Introduction to deletion process
Guide to deletion
Deletion policy
Deletion debates
Deletion process
Deletion review
Undeletion policy
Recreation of previously deleted pages
Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
Common deletion outcomes
Deletion guidelines for administrators
Deletion review guide
Why was my page deleted?
Editor's index entries about deletion
External linksedit
WikiIndex.org – a wiki of wikis
Wikindex.com – tracking statistics of MediaWiki sites
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Wikipedia essays (?)
Essays on building, editing, and deleting content
Philosophy
Article content
Articles must be written
All Five Pillars are equally important
Avoid vague introductions
Be a reliable source
Civil POV pushing
Cohesion
Competence is required
Concede lost arguments
Dissent is not disloyalty
Don't lie
Don't search for objections
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
Here to build an encyclopedia
Leave it to the experienced
Levels of competence
Most ideas are bad
Need
Neutrality of sources
Not editing because of Wikipedia restriction
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
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 article editing
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
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
Deprecated sources
Dictionaries as sources
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
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
Inaccuracy
Introduction to structurism
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
Pruning article revisions
Publicists
Put a little effort into it
Restoring part of a reverted edit
Robotic editing
Sham consensus
Source your plot summaries
Specialized-style fallacy
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
Understanding Wikipedia's content standards
Walled garden
What an article should not include
Wikipedia is a work in progress
Wikipedia is not a reliable source
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
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 deleting content
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
Follow the leader
How to save an article proposed for deletion
I just don't like it
Identifying blatant advertising
Identifying test edits
Immunity
Keep it concise
Liar liar pants on fire
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
No Encyclopedic Use
Essays on civility
The basics
Accepting other users
Apology
Contributing to complicated discussions
Divisiveness
Don't retaliate
Edit at your own pace
Encouraging the newcomers
Enjoy yourself
Expect no thanks
High-functioning autism and Asperger's editors
How to be civil
Maintaining a friendly space
Negotiation
Obsessive–compulsive disorder editors
Please say please
Relationships with academic editors
Thank you
Too long; didn't read
Truce
Unblock perspectives
We are all Wikipedians here
You have a right to remain silent
Philosophy
A weak personal attack is still wrong
Advice for hotheads
An uncivil environment is a poor environment
Be the glue
Beware of the tigers!
Civility warnings
Deletion as revenge
Failure
Forgive and forget
It's not the end of the world
Nobody cares
Most people who disagree with you on content are not vandals
Old-fashioned Wikipedian values
Profanity, civility, and discussions
Revert notification opt-out
Shadowless Fists of Death!
Staying cool when the editing gets hot
The grey zone
The last word
There is no Divine Right of Editors
Most ideas are bad
Nothing is clear
Reader
The rules of polite discourse
There is no common sense
Two wrongs don't make a right
Wikipedia clichés
Wikipedia is not about winning
Wikipedia should not be a monopoly
Writing for the opponent
Dos
Assume good faith
Assume the assumption of good faith
Assume no clue
Avoid personal remarks
Avoid the word "vandal"
Be excellent to one another
Beyond civility
Call a spade a spade
Candor
Deny recognition
Desist
Discussing cruft
Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass
Encourage full discussions
Get over it
How to lose
Imagine others complexly
Just drop it
Keep it concise
Keep it down to earth
Mind your own business
Say "MOBY"
Mutual withdrawal
Read before commenting
Settle the process first
Don'ts
ALPHABETTISPAGHETTI
Civil POV pushing
Cyberbullying
Don't accuse someone of a personal attack for accusing of a personal attack
Don't be a fanatic
Don't be a jerk
Don't be an ostrich
Don't be ashamed
Don't be a WikiBigot
Don't be high-maintenance
Don't be inconsiderate
Don't be obnoxious
Don't be prejudiced
Don't be rude
Don't be the Fun Police
Don't bludgeon the process
Don't call a spade a spade
Don't call people by their real name
Don't call the kettle black
Don't call things cruft
Don't come down like a ton of bricks
Don't cry COI
Don't demand that editors solve the problems they identify
Don't drink the consensus Kool-Aid
Don't eat the troll's food
Don't fight fire with fire
Don't give a fuck
Don't help too much
Don't ignore community consensus
Don't knit beside the guillotine
Don't make a smarmy valediction part of your signature
Don't remind others of past misdeeds
Don't shout
Don't spite your face
Don't take the bait
Don't template the regulars
Don't throw your toys out of the pram
Do not insult the vandals
Griefing
Nationalist editing
No angry mastodons
just madmen
No Nazis
No racists
No Confederates
No, you can't have a pony
Passive aggression
Please don't bite the newcomers
POV railroad
Superhatting
There are no oracles
There's no need to guess someone's preferred pronouns