Wikipedia:Plain and simple guide for legal editors

This is a one-page guide for editing legal content on Wikipedia. Legal content is extremely important, and Wikipedia's legal content is underdeveloped. We need your help!

The mission

 * We have a radical goal: Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.  That's Wikipedia's mission statement, and it's a radical mission.  Most radical of all is that, it's working.
 * In 10 short years Wikipedia has become a force of its own, with an importance that has only grown with its size. Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in the history of mankind.  8 billion words among 21 million articles. And not just in English.
 * There are 285 separate editions of Wikipedia as many languages. For some, Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia that has ever existed in that language.
 * English Wikipedia has 3.9 million articles and 26 million total pages and is 50 times larger than Microsoft Encarta's 2002 Deluxe edition.
 * There have been over 500 million edits to the site and every day another 250,000 or so are added. 800,000 uploaded files not including the 13 million hosted at Wikipedia's sister site Wikimedia commons.  There are 16 million registered users, interestingly, of whom only 150,000 have been active in the last 30 days.  That virtual horde is overseen by a mere 1500 administrators.  The community basically runs itself.
 * Not only is Wikipedia massive and influential, it has become trusted. A 2005 study in the prestigious journal Nature found that Wikipedia came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica, which is written by the world's foremost experts in their subjects.
 * Other studies compared Wikipedia to professional and peer reviewed sources and found Wikipedia's depth and coverage were of a high standard. That includes articles on medicine, science, math, and history, in addition to the popular culture and trivia which we are known for.

The importance of law

 * Wikipedia's coverage of legal topics is relatively underdeveloped, especially compared to coverage of other prominent academic fields.
 * Wikipedia can and should be a valuable knowledge resource for lawyers, law students, and the general public--providing an alternative to legal content that is otherwise locked behind expensive subscriptions.
 * Everyone has a right to know and attempt to understand the law, especially since hiring an attorney is financially unfeasible for many.

Principles
The Wikipedia community has been built on certain principles, summarized in the Five pillars and similar pages. Here's how these principles relate to conflicts of interest:


 * Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia.
 * As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is designed for reference, not promotion. Advertising and marketing are not appropriate here.


 * Wikipedia has a neutral point of view.
 * Our policies and customs have developed to handle all articles in a neutral manner.


 * Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit and distribute.
 * By making an edit to Wikipedia, editors are giving permission for their writing to be modified, used and redistributed at will. All text submitted must be available under terms that are consistent with our terms of use. Copying and pasting from a website or elsewhere can not only introduce non-neutral content, but would also be a copyright violation.


 * All Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner.
 * Editors who are here for professional reasons may become frustrated when they find that Wikipedia is not the medium they thought it would be. Cooperation, patience and courtesy are expected here.


 * Wikipedia does not have firm rules (the spirit of the rule trumps the letter of the rule).
 * Following the rules to the letter does not guarantee that your contribution will be kept. The Wikipedia community holds common sense as its fundamental principle, and contributors who technically follow the rules but miss the spirit of the policy or are confrontational will not be successful.

Writing high-quality articles

 * Neutral point of view: Write from a neutral point of view. Make a fair representation of the world as reliable sources describe it. All articles should be balanced to convey an impression of the various points of view on a subject. Some views may get more attention than others, depending on the attention they receive in reliable sources. Wikipedia has no "opinion" of its own; it just accurately summarizes reliable sources.
 * Verifiability: Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources. These are sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, like newspapers, academic journals, and books.  Even if something is true our standards require it be published in a reliable source before it can be included. Editors should cite reliable sources for any material that is controversial or challenged, otherwise it may be removed by any editor. The obligation to provide a reliable source is on whoever wants to include material.
 * No original research: Articles may not contain previously unpublished arguments, concepts, data, or theories, nor any new analysis or synthesis of them if it advances a position. In other words, you can't make a point that hasn't already been directly made somewhere else in a reliable source.  You can summarize, but it has to be based in the sources.
 * Be bold in updating pages! Go ahead, it's a wiki! No mistake can break Wikipedia, because any edit can be undone. Encourage others, including those who disagree with you, to likewise be bold! If you find yourself disagreeing with someone's boldness or they with yours, discuss it on the talk page.

Getting along with other editors

 * Be civil to other users at all times. If you have a criticism, comment about content and specific edits. Don't make negative remarks about other editors as people.  Be constructive and be respectful.
 * Assume good faith: Try to consider the person on the other end of the discussion as a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to Wikipedia. Even if you're convinced that they're an [insert insult of your choice], still pretend that they're acting in good faith. Ninety percent of the time you'll find that they actually are acting in good faith (and the other ten percent of the time a negative attitude won't help anyway). Be gracious. Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Try to accommodate other people's quirks as best you can, while trying to be as polite and straightforward as possible.
 * Discuss contentious changes on the talk page: Mutual respect is the guiding behavioral principle of Wikipedia. Although everyone knows that their contributions may be edited by others, it is easier to accept changes when you understand the reasons for them. Discussing changes on the article's talk page before you make them can help reach consensus even faster, especially on controversial subjects.  We have all the time in the world, so always make an effort to explain changes to other editors, and feel free to ask them to do the same.
 * Undo others' edits with care: Undoing someone's work is a powerful tool, hence the three-revert rule that an editor should never undo the same content more than three times in twenty-four hours (ideally, even less). Try not to revert changes which are not obvious vandalism. If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary like "I disagree, I'll explain why on Talk", and immediately take it to the accompanying talk page to discuss.  If someone reverts your edits, do not just add them back without attempting discussion.
 * Try to understand why your article or edit was deleted: Many topics do not meet our inclusion guidelines. Some of the same bad article ideas show up and get deleted frequently in articles for deletion and speedy deletion discussions.  New editors may benefit from the Articles for creation helper.  Other contributions are often just not neutral or just not well-sourced.  In general, finding better, more reliable sources and summarizing them neutrally is almost always the best response.
 * Resolve disputes: Disagreements happen but they need not be ugly.  Find out what others think about an issue and try to address it.  If you still disagree, seek input from other editors informally, or through a third opinion, mediation, or an open request for comment.

Working efficiently together

 * Use clear edit summaries: Straightforward, simple explanations are greatly appreciated. Other editors need to understand your thinking, and edit summaries also help you understand what you did after a leave of absence or a complex series of changes. Please state what you changed and why. If the explanation is too long, use the Talk page to add details. Since anyone can edit articles, even without registering, there are a lot of changes to watch; good edit summaries simplify things for everyone.
 * Sign your posts: Sign on talk pages (using, which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit "save page"), but don't sign in mainspace articles.
 * Preview your changes: Repeatedly saving small edits clutters the page's history, which makes it difficult for some editors to follow along with changes. Several small changes without edit summaries is even harder to follow.  Use the show preview button rather than saving many times.
 * Use noticeboards to get input: On Wikipedia certain types of issues come up very frequently and have their own noticeboard where experienced editors gather to discuss those topics.  If you need input, use them.  WP:NPOVN is for neutrality issues, WP:RSN is for reliable sources, WP:ANI is for specific issues needing administrator input; others are listed at the noticeboard page and at the bottom of this page as well.
 * Join the community: Find out what's going on in the community.  The Community Portal is a good starting place, where you can find ongoing community discussions, the weekly Wikipedia newspaper, and plenty of tasks that need work.  There are also mailing lists which feature project and organization-wide discussions, and internet relay chat for a variety of topics.  WikiProjects are places editors gather to work on specific areas of the encyclopedia; they're also good places to ask for input.  New ideas are often put forth at the Village pump, and hot-topics at Jimbo's talk page.
 * Ask for help: The Wikipedia community has a wealth of knowledge and you are almost surely not the first person to have a particular question, concern, idea or disagreement.  You can ask anyone for help anytime by placing  on any talk page along with an explanation of your problem.  Great places for assistance are the new contributor's help page, the Help Desk, and live help chat.  Also, WP:Questions and WP:FAQ for the most common areas and queries.

Reliable legal sources
It is vital that the legal information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current legal knowledge. Ideal sources for such content include primary sources like judicial opinions and other content published directly by courts, and secondary sources like textbooks, hornbooks, treatises, Restatements, and law review articles. Actively-maintained content, such as Westlaw's Practical Law, is highly reliable.

Searching for sources
Search engines are commonly used to find legal sources. Each engine has quirks, advantages, and disadvantages, and may not return the results that the editor needs unless used carefully. It typically takes experience and practice to recognize when a search has not been effective; even if an editor finds useful sources, they may have missed other sources that would have been more useful or they may generate pages and pages of less-than-useful material. A good strategy for avoiding sole reliance on search engines is to find a few recent high-quality sources and follow their citations to see what the search engine missed. It can also be helpful to perform a plain web search rather than one of scholarly articles only.

When searching for an article to edit or create, a good resource is the Index of law articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_law_articles

How to cite sources
There is no standard for formatting citations on Wikipedia, but the format should be consistent within any one article. The easiest way to cite an article is to use the [Cite] button on the Editing Toolbar. This will present a drop-down list of Templates, from which you can select the best match. Citations are placed at the end of the sentence (or sometimes paragraph) which they are supporting, always after punctuation like commas and periods.

See article for citing cases specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citation

How to edit legal content
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of notable topics written for a general audience. It is neither a research paper nor a how-to manual. On Wikipedia, edits are considered valuable when they reflect a neutral point of view (NPOV) and can be verified by references to reliable legal sources. It's worth noting that legal articles can be particularly susceptible to certain common pitfalls such as advocacy, advertising, plagiarism, and copyright violation.

Steps for editing
Here is a simple step-by-step overview, assuming you've already chosen a page you'd like to edit:


 * 1) You may like to register an account and choose a username, which can be as anonymous as you like. Alternatively, many  pages can be edited as an IP address (in this case your edits will be publicly linked to your computer's IP address but not to any particular persona).
 * 2) Choose a good reference – ideally a recent review article or major textbook.
 * 3) Hit the Edit button for the corresponding section you wish to add or change. The page will turn into code, called wikimarkup. See Cheatsheet for a quick guide to wikimarkup.
 * 4) Summarize (or paraphrase) the content in question.
 * 5) Cite the reference.
 * 6) To see what your edit is going to look like live, click the Show preview button.
 * 7) When you're happy with your edits, hit Save page.
 * 8) Welcome! If this was your first edit, you are now a Wikipedian.

Manual citation
Alternatively, you could just type up the bibliographic citation by hand: if so you'll find a brief wikimarkup cheatsheet here, and the full manual here. Remember to wrap the citation with the parentheses (try clicking Cite your sources at the bottom right of the edit window).

Getting help
There is an extensive, searchable Help section at WP:HELP. For specific technical queries, live editing help via web chat (IRC) is available 24/7.

Formatting

 * Edit. Nearly every page on Wikipedia has an edit button on it, either in the page itself or at the top left of the screen.  Click [edit] and you'll see a place where you can type and make changes.  It will look a little different since Wikipedia uses a language called 'markup'.  Don't worry if it looks intimidating.  Just try a few small changes and copy what others do that gets the result you want.
 * Basic markup. Markup language is a very simple way to add formatting with symbols.  These can be inserted using the editing tool bar or manually.  Otherwise, just type as normal.
 * Looks
 * For italics, type two apostrophes ( ' ) around the word like this italics.
 * For bold use three apostrophes:  bold .
 * For bold and italics use five:  italics and bold .
 * Sections and Lists
 * Section headers are made with the equals sign (=) on each side. ==This is a level 2 header==. More equals signs make smaller sub-sections. ===This is a level 3 header===, and so on. You won't use a level 1 header, since that is the title of the page itself.
 * Bulleted lists are made by putting * at the beginning of each line.
 * Numbered lists are made by putting # at the beginning of each line.
 * Links
 * Links from one Wikipedia page to another are made with two brackets on each side of the word like wikilink . To make a link go to a different page than the word it shows, use a pipe: WORD
 * Links to external websites are made with one bracket on each side like [external link]. But these are only used in the External links section of an article.
 * Images are added with IMAGENAME .  'Thumb' is just a size and should be left in.
 * Paragraphs and references
 * Line breaks and paragraphs require hitting [return] or [enter] twice (showing an empty line in between), or using  or
 * References go between ref tags: . Place these after the punctuation in the sentence they are used.
 * Preview and Save. If you want to see a draft of your changes, click [show preview]; otherwise click [save] and your edit will go live.
 * Page structure. Articles follow a common format. Start with the introduction, a few paragraphs summarizing the page.  Make the first mention of the page's subject bold.  Place the article's content in level 2 headers like ==Section title here==, only capitalizing the first word unless it's a proper noun.  The last sections can add information such as See also, References, and External links, in that order.  Place those sections in level 2 headers as well.

Communication

 * Talk pages. In addition to the pages you read for information, for almost every Wikipedia page there is a corresponding talk page where discussion happens among editors.  To use the talk page, click [edit] and add your comments.  To create a new topic, slick [new section] at the top of the page, give the section a title, and leave your comment.  New topics go at the bottom of the page.
 * Indenting. To make conversations easier to follow, place your comments below the one you are responding to and indent it using a colon .  Each colon moves the comment farther to the right, so if the person above you used 3 colons  you should use 4 .  To start a new talk page topic, click [new section] at the top of the page and type a title with your comment; or, start a new level 2 heading for the same effect.
 * Signatures. On talk pages but not article pages, all comments should be signed with ~ .  Once saved, this will turn into your username or ip address with a timestamp.
 * Edit summaries. Leave a brief note about what you did and why any time you make an edit.  Place it in the edit summary box before you click save.

Images
To use a picture (or other media such as sound or video) on Wikipedia, you need permission from the owner/photographer:


 * If it is your own picture that you produced yourself, then you can just upload it yourself, from WP:UPLOAD, saying "It is entirely my own work". This link will take you to Commons, where free files are hosted.
 * If it is not yours, then you need permission from the owner one of two ways:
 * License statement on company website: Ask the company to place the image somewhere on the company's official website. Then, either on the same page or on a separate copyright page on the same website, they should include a statement that the work is released under a suitable free license, for example: "The image of the X Company Logo is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0." The recommended Creative Commons Attribution License allows the image to be used by anyone, with or without modifications, and allows commercial use, so long as the original author is credited. Some other licenses are also acceptable — contact a helper if you would like more information. Once this is done, a helper can assist you in uploading the image. Your company can also upload the image to another website, such as Flickr, under its official account, with the same license statement.
 * E-mail permission: Have the owner email permission with the picture attached to [FIX THIS] stating "I release the attached image under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0." (Again, some other licenses are also acceptable — contact a helper if you would like more information.) The email should say that they are the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of the photograph(s) of the attached photo (or the photo at http://websiteaddresshere.com), and include their full name.  It may require several days to process this e-mail - to avoid this delay, use the other method above. Once your image is approved, a helper can assist you in uploading the image.
 * After uploading, put the file in a Wikipedia page by adding [[File:FILENAME|thumb]FILEDESCRIPTION]]  to any Wikipedia page.

Navigating Wikipedia

 * Article: Where content happens. These contain encyclopedic material which must be backed up by sources.  Don't sign your name on these.
 * Talk: Where talk happens. Every article page has one, linked at the top of the page.  Use them for collaboration and dispute resolution by clicking [Talk] at the top of the page.
 * History: Where prior versions of an article are stored (talk pages have them too). Click [View history] at the top and you'll see all prior edits to the page.
 * User: Your personal page (or someone else's). Linked at the top right of every page, with a blue link and your name.  Put stuff here to explain what you're about and why you're here.
 * User talk: Your personal talk page. Use this to facilitate discussions and collaboration.  Also used for notices and warnings.
 * Wikipedia: Information about policies, guidelines and advice for editing.  These are quite detailed.  They come in handy eventually.
 * Help: Basic how-to material. These pages cover everything from markup to templates.  A good place to start.
 * File: Where images are. These store all of the details about photographs and other media.  The name of the file page is also the name of the file.
 * Special pages: Specific functions such as Recent Changes, and Page logs. You can spot them because they don't have talk pages.

Navigation

 * Search: The easiest way to get around.  Type your query in the box at the top right and pick from the results.  Start with WP: for Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and projects (WP:Verifiability) and Help: for help pages (Help:References).
 * Directory: The full department directory and quick directory are good tools.  Or just ask someone and they'll give you a link.
 * Help: The Help Desk, live help chat, and the discussion pages for specific help topics are all good places to ask questions.
 * Google: Wikipedia is very well indexed by Google and searching for a term, even about an editing question, followed by "wiki" or "wikipedia" usually pulls up what you need.  External links however are not indexed, and adding a link from an article to your corporate page will not increase its PageRank. (For the technically inclined, external links on Wikipedia have the nofollow attribute that search engines use to block linkspam.)

Links