Wikipedia:Not editing because of Wikipedia restriction
Summary
Essay on editing Wikipedia
This is an essay.
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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This page in a nutshell: If your planned article or editing would conflict with Wikipedia's standards, it's happened before. No website can be everything for everyone. Examples follow.
Add your stories freely, but with respect for these caveats: Do not identify any person or organization who cannot be written about in Wikipedia. Do not state a fact or view that may not be stated on Wikipedia. Do not give a partial identification or statement that may help someone else, knowing other information, to infer the full identification or statement that may not be in Wikipedia. For example, do not be so specific that someone Googling can identify the person or organization, such as if you supply a quotation. The best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone. Isolate the problem. Make the principles clear. For example, probably the city of an article's subject is irrelevant to a principle, in which case don't mention the city. To discuss an example, do so on this essay's talk page.
At times, an article should not be written into Wikipedia, although we'd like to write it. This includes a potential new article and editing of content for an existing article. It shouldn't be written or edited because we can't do so within Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. This is not necessarily a bad quality of Wikipedia; it may even be good to preserve it. But it is noteworthy for discussion.
Examplesedit
Any purported identification of a person or organization hereinbelow is purely coincidental and fictional. Any person or organization in one example hereinbelow is presumptively not in any other example hereinbelow.
Person in industry which liesedit
Some living people are notable only for being in industries that habitually lie about personal backgrounds to such a degree that most of the reliable sources report the misinformation distributed by industry representatives. The U.S. entertainment industry (movies, television, music, etc.) seems to be rife with this, for their stars and probably for most people who are trying to become stars. Often, the public does not find out anything like the truth until after the star dies, and then only because someone does in-depth research, often a scholar. One musician supposedly went to prison, but maybe he never did and was simply told by his recording company not to say anything when the company said he had been imprisoned. One female actor supposedly was discovered while she was at a lunch counter, but maybe that never happened. One opera singer said he flew across Europe and knocked on the door of a famous rock musician and they got along famously and agreed to record together; a nice story and even possible, but, to this editor, it seemed doubtful that that's the true story of how they got together, as it's unlikely the opera singer would have flown that far and at such expense and been as casual about having a chance meeting with a musician who was well known for travelling frequently on lengthy trips to many countries.
I heard a rumor about a magazine that features women who previously were unknown to the public and publishes short biographies of the women; the rumor is that magazine editors invent the biographies. Probably the biographies have some truth in them, but that's because it is nearly impossible to write pure fiction of any significant length and find an audience willing to support it. A mixture of indistinguishable truth and fiction is not a reliable source, no matter where it is published.
Under Wikipedia's policies, we report what reliable sources say. To disagree with those sources without a source to back up our disagreement would be original research, which Wikipedia does not allow. I wish I could contradict some of what is in Wikipedia, but I don't have sourcing with which to do it. So I'm left with just not reporting in that type of situation.
—Submitted by editor Nick Levinson.
Litigation resolution unknownedit
An organization did what I believe to be good work deserving of public coverage and it was notable. I researched sources and discovered, to my dismay, that its principal leader had been sued for conduct that was too close, in my opinion, to what the organization was against. If the allegations were true, the leader might well have been hypocritical, moronic, or cruel, or all three. I was willing to report the legal case in the article. A usable source described the complaint against the leader. However, the allegations would likely have been denied by almost any defendant, at least initially after receiving the complaint. And, given how much time had elapsed since the lawsuit was reported in a source, it is virtually guaranteed that the suit has been concluded, even including direct appeals, yet no source reported the outcome. Both defendant and plaintiff are likely still alive. Wikipedia says that we don't report the lawsuit when the outcome is unknown from secondary sourcing. Not being able to report on the suit would have imbalanced the article (even though, technically, the article would probably have been considered balanced because it would have reflected what could be reported). That potential and insoluble imbalance led me to not write the article in the first place.
—Submitted by editor Nick Levinson.
Bad and good groupsedit
An organization did very good work. I wrote about it in Wikipedia.
Another organization did low-quality work. It's probably not the worst in the field, but it's bad enough to make a stark comparison. People who are interested should know that it does low-quality work. It's notable, so it qualifies for an article. But if I write both articles, and considering a few other facts, I could be accused of having a conflict of interest. I suspect even proposing that the article be written would lead readers to question the motive behind the article. If the article appears and I think necessary content is missing, normally I could add it, but again the accusation could arise. So I haven't even proposed the second article. And I haven't looked to see if anyone else already started it, because I don't want to be tempted to edit it to add missing content.
—Submitted by editor Nick Levinson.
Sources likely wrongedit
On two people (one living and one dead), the content I would have added from sourcing was probably false, in one case because it was out of date. What I know was probably true was without a source that could be used, not even as claims or rumors and sources even for the latter are unlikely to exist. Rather than support likely-wrong content, I didn't write a new article on one person or add to the existing article on the other person. If someone else added it, I'd probably leave it alone, but I also probably wouldn't defend it against a challenge.
—Submitted by editor Nick Levinson.
Solutionsedit
Not all situations can be resolved in favor of adding new information to Wikipedia. But some can be, and some methods follow.
Post to a talk pageedit
Presenting information in a talk topic lets another editor consider it. This has been done when the information was not adequately understood by the original editor, when additional context or definition was needed, or when weight could easily have been exaggerated. A separate talk topic with full sourcing is best.
Ask for a policy or guideline to be changededit
This is unlikely to happen, but can, especially if the change is relatively minor in the context of Wikipedia as a whole but would permit the proposed editing. Go to the policy's or guideline's talk page, see if it's been discussed before, and make your proposal. The more successful proposals are likely to be specific and likely to preserve most of a policy or guideline except for the narrow change you seek.
Research more thoroughlyedit
While this may take the most work, it may give you the most control, as you don't have to depend on other people doing the research or not.
See alsoedit
Wikipedia: Write for the enemy (essay)
v
t
e
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 queerphobes
No, you can't have a pony
Passive aggression
POV railroad
Superhatting
There are no oracles
There's no need to guess someone's preferred pronouns
You can't squeeze blood from a turnip
UPPERCASE
WikiRelations
WikiBullying
WikiCrime
WikiHarassment
WikiHate
WikiLawyering
WikiLove
WikiPeace
Essays on 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
Don't cite GNG
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
High Schools
Inclusion is not an indicator of notability
Independent sources
Inherent notability
Insignificant
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 big loss
No one cares about your garage band
No one really cares
Notability/Historical/Arguments
Notability cannot be purchased
Notability comparison test
Notability is not a level playing field
Notability is not a matter of opinion
Notability is not relevance or reliability
Notability means impact
Notability points
Notability sub-pages
Notabilitymandering
Not every single thing Donald Trump does deserves an article
Obscurity ≠ Lack of notability
Offline sources
One hundred words
One sentence does not an article make
Other stuff exists
Overreliance upon Google
Perennial websites
Pokémon test
Read the source
Reducing consensus to an algorithm
Run-of-the-mill
Solutions are mixtures and nothing else
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
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 essays
Adminitis
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 preview button
Avoid using wikilinks
Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
Barnstaritis
Before they were notable
BOLD, revert, revert, revert
Boston Tea Party
Butterfly effect
CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh?
Complete bollocks
Counting forks
Counting juntas
Crap
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
Ignore all essays
Ignore every single rule
Is that even an essay?
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 one cares about your garage band
No one really cares
No, really
No sorcery threats
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
R-e-s-p-e-c-t
Requests for medication
Requirements for adminship
Rouge admin
Rouge editor
Sarcasm is really helpful
Sausages for tasting
The Night Before Wikimas
The first rule of Wikipedia
The Five Pillars of Untruth
Things that should not be surprising
The WikiBible
Watchlistitis
Wikipedia is an MMORPG
WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!
What Wikipedia is not/Outtakes
Why not create an account?
Yes legal threats
You don't have to be mad to work here, but
You should not write meaningless lists
About essays
About essays
Essay guide
Value of essays
Difference between policies, guidelines and essays