User:Omni Flames/Adoption/Policies and Guidelines

Before we get into it, we need to cover our basic policies and guidelines. Policies are important because they govern the way we act and edit here on Wikipedia. They should normally be followed at all times. The full list can be found at Category:Wikipedia policies, although a list of more essential information can be found at Category:Wikipedia basic information. Guidelines are similar, but they're merely standards which are generally expected of all Wikipedians. We're not going to cover every policy and guideline, just a few, listed below. Note that the summaries which I give you are just simple explanations, I still expect that you visit the pages linked in the headings, you'll need it for the test.

Five pillars
Although not a policy or guideline as such, the five pillars of Wikipedia (or 5P) are very important to the project and how it functions.
 * The first pillar states that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and lists what Wikipedia is not.
 * The second pillar states that Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view, and needs reliable sources to back up it's claims.
 * The third pillar states that Wikipedia is free, and no editor owns it's articles.
 * The fourth pillar states that editors should respect each other, and interact in a peaceful way.
 * The fifth pillar states that Wikipedia's rules aren't set in stone, and can be changed.

Neutral point of view
A neutral point of view (commonly abbreviated NPOV) is what all Wikipedia articles should be written from. If at all possible, we always try to keep content well sourced and neutral. That means that articles shouldn't be biased or include personal opinions. If you see content which you believe is not written from a neutral point of view, try to rewrite it so it is. The policy also mentions that articles should refer to the opinion of the majority of the community agrees with, rather than a minority viewpoint. To help keep articles neutral, all content should be verifiable. All statements should be backed up by a reliable source. We'll learn more about sourcing and references later.

Biographies of living persons
The biographies of living persons (commonly abbreviated BLP) policy covers all articles about living people, or very recently deceased people. Since these articles are often sensitive, it's important that we keep them neutral, and keep the content accurate. We can do this by backing up all information in these articles with a reliable source. If you happen to be editing a page about a living person, be very careful that the information you insert is correct. If you happen to see any unsourced and possibly non-neutral content, I strongly advise you remove it.

We, as a community, have developed a lot of processes to keep articles that fall under BLP well sourced and neutral. These include things such as the BLP PROD, which we'll discuss in detail in another lesson.

Notability
Notability is what we use to find if an article is notable enough to deserve an article. The basic notability guideline states that something warrants an article if it has received significant coverage from reliable sources which would normally have no interest in the subject. You can see more of the notability guidelines specific for different things at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. Note that these guidelines only apply to articles themselves, not to content within them.

What Wikipedia is not
We already covered a little about what Wikipedia is not in the five pillars section, but here we'll talk about it a little more. The page I've just linked is a large list which documents what Wikipedia is not for. I'm not going to go through every item here, I'll let you study it yourself.

Questions
Read all that? Feel comfortable with all the things I've just mentioned? Or do you have some questions? If so, just click the "edit" link on this section, and add a question below. Remember to sign your post with four tildes ( ~ ). Once you're ready, I'll post the test.