Wikipedia:Meta

Meta, Meta-Wiki or Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (meta.wikimedia.org) is a wiki-based website that is auxiliary for coordination of all the Wikimedia Foundation wikis.

Created as Meta-Wikipedia in November 2001, it now serves several distinct roles:


 * 1) Discussion and formulation of the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, and in particular policy discussion.
 * 2) A forum for personal essays that are not necessarily NPOV.
 * 3) A place to organize and prepare content, and to discuss interlanguage coordination issues.
 * 4) A place to coordinate the development process.
 * 5) A help guide to using the MediaWiki software when the help is not in the MediaWiki website.
 * 6) A place for coordination of anti-spam and small wiki anti-vandalism.

Meta currently serves as one of the major avenues of discussion for Wikimedians including Wikipedians, the others being the mailing lists, the IRC channels, and the talk pages of individual articles and users. Meta is an independent and autonomous project from the English-language Wikipedia, and thus has its own policies and customs, which often differ from those here.

Originally focused on the English Wikipedia, Meta has, since its upgrade to Wikipedia's custom MediaWiki software, become a multilingual discussion forum used by all Wikimedia language communities.

Referring to Meta
Some types of discussion should be referred to appropriate places on Meta.
 * Issues referred from other Wikipedias, such as help requests relating to policy, should be referred to We need your help. English editors are encouraged to follow such referrals to Meta and provide input there, as Meta may receive much less traffic than English Wikipedia.