Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid/Archive 4

Character sets
An issue has been raised that character set warnings (eg: "You need a Sanskrit/Japanese/whatever font to see this text") count as a self-reference, and should be removed. Comments? Orpheus 02:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

References in an article to itself
It's acceptable for article to use phrases like "are discussed below" and whatnot, right? I mean, there's no assumption that parts of articles should be useful on their own, is there? (I ask because an editor recently changed the lead text of Arrow's impossibility theorem to remove such a reference, citing this policy, and I really think (s)he misjudged.) Thanks in advance for any input. —RuakhTALK 21:34, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it is a bit ugly and mixes real encyclopedic facts with thoughts about the process (meta-information). Compare with things like the following sections will explain how... or in the next section we will see that..... In this case the phrase is completely redundant: if things are being hinted at in an introduction, it self evident those things need to be explained further down the road, otherwise they would not be introduced. &mdash; Zanaq (?) 08:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Category descriptions
To simplify categorization, I used to include selfref with a notice stating on how to categorize articles the usual article in the category (e.g. ). Avoid_self-references seems to allow this, but it isn't entirely clear what "templates lakes this" means. I'd like to add to that section. "Use selfref when providing sample categorizations. -- User:Docu


 * I don't think it's necessary for categories to have instructions about how to include an article in them. It's the same for every category, so a new editor just has to learn it once. But if we start doing it, it will spread to many, many categories, adding a lot of self references. If there is consensus to do it (which I don't see yet), it would help if another template could be used, instead of using selfref directly, so that it's easier to skip those uses of selfref when going through to remove unneeded selfref tags. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The advantage of selfref is that users of the download version can remove all self references at once whatever their content. If we introduce additional templates, this just complicates things. -- User:Docu


 * Yes, that's right. Templates like Template:Wrongtitle use selfref internally, but they make it easy to see why the selfref has been inserted. I was thinking a template like category howto could do a similar thing for category instructions. When I go through looking for unneeded selfref tags, I ignore pages that have a tag that explains the selfref. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * To simplify checks, it's possible to filter whatlinkshere by namespace. To some extent all category descriptions are self references. Besides, most problematic are self references in article namespace that aren't in any template. Imagine how stub notices would be without templates! -- User:Docu


 * Stubs don't use selfreference (at least not consistently). Neither do cleanup templates. Basically, it's just wrongtitle type templates and templates for the age of living people. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Stubs generally do use templates, except maybe . -- User:Docu


 * Yes, they use templates, but those templates don't use selfref internally, at least not the ones I have looked at. Templates like wrongtitle do use selfref internally. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 10:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:Allegations of apartheid
Can someone please explain to the people working on this template that the link they keep adding to Centralized discussion/Apartheid is breaking mirrors? -- 67.98.206.2 20:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Please. We do not need this extra-heat for now. You all know about all the AfDs going on, the ArbCom, etc. You do see that most of the articles of the templates are protected. It reflects the heat level on this subject. This link is for now necessary to centralize all the discussions, to try to work for a consensus/mediation about ALL THE ARTICLES on the same talk page. While I do agree that it does not comply with that MoS page, please do remember that MoS is only a guideline. This link is only temporary, as a tool to help for negociation. It will be removed in due time. Thanks. NicDumZ ~  21:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Breaking the namespace here is all part of the ongoing WP:POINT violations currently being presented to ArbCom at Requests_for_arbitration, whose whole goal is to upset and bring in as many WP:IDONTCARE editors in as possible as a means of deleting Allegations of Israeli apartheid. This isn't proper. Please compare this template to the list of others at Avoid_self-references and try to understand why this doesn't template doesn't fit the mold. -- 67.98.206.2 21:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't understand how allowing users to negociate on a sensible topic in a centralized place would be a WP:POINT. I don't think that any user ever referred to this template to prove something. (Well, then, where is the WP:POINT you were referring to ?)
 * Sorry, I don't understand the need to be fastidious on a MoS suggestion, on such a heated context. As I side note, you will notice that I was one of the first users to add a statement in the ongoing ArbCom denouncing the acts of certain users. I don't see, then, how I can be included in the "ongoing WP:POINT violations currently being presented to ArbCom". Thanks for reading this. NicDumZ ~  21:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've put links at the top of all the Allegations of X apartheid Talk pages which direct readers to WP:APARTHEID. I believe this is a perfectly good compromise. -- 67.98.206.2 22:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, as long as no relentless users complain about it, it will do. I do not personally worry about this issue. I worry about the side effects there might have on the talk pages, for example accusations against a certain user to have logged out to hijack the negotiation process by removing the centralized discuss alert. :) Thanks for your help. NicDumZ ~  22:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see it has been restored once again by someone else. The willingness of editors to violate and ignore guidelines here is remarkable. What exactly is the eagerness to try to pull into WP:APARTHEID people "on the street" and not already in Talk space? It just seems like an attempt to get as many uninformed editors in a room as possible and I'm not sure how that's good for wikipedia. What's so important here? -- 67.98.206.2 22:56, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well. That's exactly why I wanted to warn you. In these debates, an editor doing the slightest change will be considered as disruptive, and deadlocked explanations will follow. :( NicDumZ ~  09:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Underdiscussion
Hi all. The Template:Underdiscussion has found its way into two main namespace articles, at the top of Allegations of state terrorism by the United States and in a section near the bottom of Dextroamphetamine. I removed it from the latter, and requested its removal from the former (which is protected), but the removal was undone shortly thereafter by a regular anon. I think I should add a noinclude notice that the tag is intended for project space only, and mentioned as much on the template's talk page, but it seems like not too many folks have the template on their watchlist. justen  19:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

User names on content pages
Does adding a User name to a photo credit create a self-reference? There is a discussion underway at Talk:Main_Page. Johntex\talk 21:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Portals
Could this page provide an opinion on whether portal tags are self-referential? I guess the portal space is separate from the article space, but they're both related to the information, not the process. Should portal links (like the one to the right) be included in the article space? There was a previous discussion of this topic at Wikipedia talk:Portal/Archive 3, but I think it could stand being directly addressed here as well. --Bookandcoffee 03:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Photo Request
In wonder whether some users could help on the following matter. One user recently did this on the Penelope Keith article. I can't stand this silohete image, its completly unnecessary, but the other user keeps reinserting it. But I have seen another user (can't remember who, will try and provide diff) remove them saying its a breach of WP:SELF. Having then read this page I can see this, as if the article was copied onto, say, answers.com then it would be wrong as clicking on the image would not let you upload it. Am I right, is the image meant not to be used by WP:SELF? Clarification would be much appreciated. --UpDown 13:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That image is to be used. You can't cite WP:SELF as a way to remove that image. Garion96 (talk) 14:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there a guideline to that effect? --UpDown 17:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's the diff for the editor. I'm wondering whether there is actually any policy? I shall ask User:Dalejenkins for his thoughts.--UpDown 17:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * A stub notice is a self-reference. I don't see anyone removing those from short articles citing this manual of style. Garion96 (talk) 18:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * A stub notice has the benefit that it categories the article, so editors can be aware its a stub. This does not category it, so it remains largely useless. The photorequest on TalkPage categories it, and is all that is necessary. But, as I asked before, why is the policy on this. Because frankly I see no reason why I should not remove it from the article in question as there is nothing to say it should be included. I believe it to be ugly in the extreme, totally un-needed and indeed encourages people to upload wrong photos. --UpDown 07:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * But that is not the main reason of a stub notice. See also the line "You can help Wikipedia by expanding it". It asks editors to expand the article. Replace this image is asking editors for free content images. Not only editors but also people just reading wikipedia who would not go to the talk pages. See also this MFD at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Fromowner and successes at Category:Fromownerviewed. There are more successes actually but many of them have already been moved to Commons. Garion96 (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well I'm not sure of the "main reason" of a stub notice, but I believe categorisation is highly important. People who aren't editors are unlikely to know what a "free image" is, and we should not encourage them to upload photos are they are likely to be not-free. --UpDown 07:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: There appears to be an informal convention that "meta information" such as stub notices, requests for citation, and disambiguation links are all italic. What if the image in question were changed to be more subtle? For example, with the same silhouette, but small sans-serif text saying "No free image exists. You can help Wikipedia by providing one." Would that make everyone happy? —Ben FrantzDale 20:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a discussion going on about redesigning the images at Village pump (proposals). Garion96 (talk) 20:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll take it up there. —Ben FrantzDale 01:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * My problems is not the current design, its the whole thing. It is ugly and unnecessary, and frankly ruins the page unnecessarily. There is no need for it whatsoever. None. As usual Wikipedia is treating the reading public as thick idiots. If someone wants to upload a photo they will work out how to do so, we don't need to spoon feed them, its very over the top. --UpDown 07:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It does work. Garion96 (talk) 18:24, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Replace this image is a self-reference, but an intentional exception to the rule for the purpose of article development. The text isn't there to baby the reader into uploading, it's there to explain "why don't you have a real photo?". I would be fine if it just said we don't have a photo. Dcoetzee 23:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

GFDL Compliance and ASR
There's currently no way to split off a section of an article to another page without separating the text from its history, which creates GFDL compliance issues. So we are required to attribute and link back to the source (i.e., the original article), just like we do when we copy from a non-Wikipedia GFDL source. I'm paranoid about attribution notes being deleted, so I've been leaving them on the article page and on the talk page. Another editor raised the question whether an attribution note in an article page, referring to another Wikipedia article, is discouraged by WP:ASR. I'm thinking that it's no worse than a cross-reference (See Also) link. What do you think? -- But | seriously | folks   22:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think copyright policy overrules this page.Genisock2 14:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

New section
The Transhumanist added a new section today. I have removed it and put the link to it below so discussion can happen. Here is the diff The Placebo Effect 00:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ha! Just linked at the mailing list is How to win an argument, for which see this edit in reference to point #4. *cough*
 * See also his changes at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists). --Quiddity 00:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Lists are an exception to the avoid self-references guideline. The new section I added to the list guideline page accurately describes the state of affairs on Wikipedia with respect to lists, and basically consolidates clauses presented in various other places in the list-related guidelines, specifically:
 * Lists (stand-alone lists), which can be traced back at least as far as 2003, here
 * List, the self-references in leads can be traced back to the very beginning of the stand-alone guideline, here, under "Intro".
 * Therefore, I've just added see references to WP:ASR to these specific guidelines, so ensure that editors who read this guideline are aware of them.
 * Though with respect to my previous edit, Quiddity seems so intent on finding fault with me, that he jumps straight to making accusations rather than assuming good faith and asking me for my reasoning. Take a look around Wikipedia.  The vast majority of lists refer to themselves, and have been doing so for years.  Direct edits to guidelines are allowed if made in good faith -- there is no requirement to discuss changes first on talk pages.  I did nothing more than to summarize existing guideline convention, both explicit and implicit.  Note that the self-referencing provided for in our list guidelines is described with examples, implying strongly that self-referential descriptions in general are acceptable. That is, all the examples of naming a list and describing the contents of a list are self-referential, and there is no reason to assume that the rest of a title or description can't be self-referential as well.  In this guideline-context, the use of "article" is acceptable, because it is an accurate descriptor for what a list lists. And this is exactly what has been happening.  Look around, and you'll find that "article" turns up many times in list titles and leads, just as "list of" does, and other more creative self-references can be found in various list leads.  What lists list are articles, and lists have been referring to what they link to for years.  Very little distinction is being made between "topics" and "articles" on lists, because the items in a list are almost all linked, and when linked, they point to articles. The Transhumanist 09:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That edit, coupled with phoenix-wiki's referencing something he had just added at Wikipedia:Lists as an "official definition", just struck me as perfect examples of that humourous essay I had just read. You have good intentions, just unusual methods ;) --Quiddity 19:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not the impression you gave: "*cough*". The Transhumanist 22:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Those examples you use are self-referential about the articles themselves, not self-referential about the Wikipedia project or their website-nature, which is what the ASR guideline is intended to address. Articles are allowed to refer to themselves as articles. Possibly the Lists of mathematics topics needs to go through Featured article review, as standards have changed since 2005. --Quiddity 18:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to change this guideline's title
Perhaps one problem with this guideline is that some editors may be interpretting its title "Avoid self-references" without reading the guideline. The title itself is ambiguous, as it does not specify what kind of self-references it is referring to. Some editors may be assuming that it means "all self-references", including references to an article by the article itself.

Maybe we should rename this guideline to Avoid referring to "Wikipedia" or to the Wikipedia project as a whole.

What do you think?

The Transhumanist 21:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's misleadingly narrow. It's not only bad to refer to Wikipedia explicitly, but also things like the medium, the editing interface, the community, and things like the editability of pages. If you have other ideas for titles encompassing these I'd like to hear them, but the current title is pretty good. Dcoetzee 23:09, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, here's another one: Avoid non-article self-references.


 * How's that?


 * The Transhumanist 00:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not clear to me what that even means, and is still too narrow, as it's possible for categories to refer to themselves as categories and so on. Dcoetzee 01:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I think anyone who reads the lead section, or even just the nutshell, will be fine. We don't need to change the title just to accommodate people who don't read anything! Just as we don't need to add disclaimers to the WP:IAR title. --Quiddity (talk) 07:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is it gets cited wrong. I don't see how that can happen unless the person takes the title at face value, without reading the guideline.  The Transhumanist 10:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, here's another idea. The guideline covers both self-refernces that should be avoided and acceptable self-references.  The title implies that all self-references should be avoided.  Since all types of self-references are covered, perhaps the guideline should be renamed to Self-references (over the redirect).  The Transhumanist 10:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * This was the approach taken at the more controversial Trivia sections. I could go either way - on the one hand, it is more accurate to say this guideline is about self-references in general; on the other hand, anyone who cited it would (hopefully) be citing it in order to point out a particular self-reference that ought to be avoided. Let's see what other people think. Dcoetzee 12:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Or it could be renamed to Self-references to avoid which appropriately implies that it applies to certain types of self-references and not to others. The Transhumanist (talk) 17:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I like that one. Maybe then we won't have the discussion again that some editors think Image:Replace this image1.svg falls under this guideline. They never object to stub notices for some reason though... Garion96 (talk) 17:54, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

(undent): Self-references to avoid seems to me an excellent choice; it's more pointed than WP:SR but not as (incorrectly) inclusive as WP:ASR. If no one has any good objections in the next day or two, I suggest being bold and just moving the page. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm compelled to agree with the newly-proposed title. At first I thought the idea of renaming a long-standing policy was a bit bold, but this is a succinct and less misleading description. Go for it, as long as, of course, the text is updated appropriately. Dcoetzee 03:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems like a good idea to me. --ais523 15:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to change this guideline's title (2)
I feel that the current title (Self-references to avoid) is pretty idiotic/strange, I propose changing it to something much better. What self references shouldn't be avoided? → Aza Toth 20:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The title was changed precisely to indicate that there are a number of self-references that shouldn't be avoided - and the page discusses some of them, such as disambiguation notices. Dcoetzee 20:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Then since it discusses both references that should be avoided and ones that shouldn't, perhaps it should simply be renamed to Self-references? Seems most logic to me. LjL (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Self-referential category?
Can those more experienced in recognizing legitimate self-references please check out Category:Articles with Alice and Bob explanations? I'm not sure it's in keeping with our goals of avoiding unnecessary self-references. --ElKevbo (talk) 13:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe the existence of this category is in line with this policy, as it does not refer to Wikipedia or the medium or interface, only to an abstract group of articles. Dcoetzee 17:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Application of this policy
There is a debate about whether this policy applies to a company page here Talk:Phorm/Archives/2013 a fresh pair of eyes from someone who is familiar with this policy, to give an opinion would be appreciated. GameKeeper (talk) 07:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Template link to Project
Can/should a primary subject template link to the Project focussed on that subject? In particular, how do poeple feel about an edit like this, and is it justifiable on the basis of self-reference? Note that the link was displayed as "Project". --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Category namespace self-references (particularly in category descriptions)
It seems to me that Category: space should be treated largely like article space (in particular, the categories in which articles are sorted and browsed through should be) with regards to self-references, since it's there for the navigation of readers, not for the ease of editors. This also seems to be supported by the section given here about categories and templates.

However, I find that lots of categories have instructions written on them about "What articles should be moved into this category" - or indeed moved out of it. It seems logical to me that the description of a category might, if this is not obvious, contain a brief summary of what type of article to expect to find in this category, but not a set of instructions to editors. The relevant place for instructions to editors is (surely?) in the Category talk: space for the category. I am thinking of adopting, as a matter personal policy, the habit of simply cutting and pasting such self-referential instructions if it can not be transformed into a simple reader-friendly (rather than editor-friendly) description of the purpose of the category.

A particularly egregious example is Template:CatDiffuse which is found in many of the biggest and most important categories - the ones we are most likely to send readers to as a place to get started when browsing. That template is entirely directed at editors rather than readers and acts rather like a "clean up" or warning tag would in article space, alerting readers and editors to problems with the article. However, what CatDiffuse is actually applied to categories merely deemed to be at risk of degenerating - not necessarily categories that actually require clean-up. The equivalent action in article space, of putting a warning tag on all the most-visited articles in Wikipedia, regardless of their current quality state, declaring that "This is a highly-visited article and therefore care should be taken during when you are editing it" would be seen as a gross violation of WP:SELF and quickly reverted. However, some high traffic articles do have notices to that effect placed at the top of the talk page.

Template talk:CatDiffuse has a discussion about whether that template in particular should be employed only in Category talk: space. I'd be interested in the more general question of whether WP:SELF disapproves of instructions to editors being put into Category: descriptions (it's a shame there's not a way of making text visible only to logged-in editors and not general readers!) and indeed whether WP:SELF actually needs clarification on that point - it seems mostly concerned with the use of self-referential categories rather than the description space available on categories itself. TwoMightyGodsPersuasionNecessity 12:13, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * A slightly broader observation - it's not only the space in category descriptions which is unregulated by the current version of WP:SELF, but also Portal: space doesn't get a mention at all. To what extent are self-references (such as links to the relevant WikiProject) suitable in a portal? TwoMightyGodsPersuasionNecessity 15:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Part of WP:STYLE?
The template says that these guidelines are part of the Manual of Style, but it doesn't appear to be mentioned/linked to over there. Jobarts-Talk 16:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Note to self
I do not see any mention about lists.

To make that a bit more clear. If a list is a spin off from a parent article it would be logical to state that. However this set of guidelines is somewhat confusing as to if that should be done (As in "This is a spin off list from article F"). To go a bit beyond this, a list will have items on it. According to another set of guidlines, Stand-alone lists, under the header "Lead and selection criteria" it contains two important statements that have a bearing on the "Self" guidelines. The statements are:


 * Lists should begin with a lead section that presents unambiguous statements of membership criteria.


 * Each entry on a list should have its own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia...

So if part of the list specific criteria were that all entries on the list had their own non-redirect article in English Wikipedia, based on one set of guidelines, that is acceptable. However based on the "Self" guidelines that is not acceptable. If you remove the word "Wikipedia" it makes no sense - "All Entries on this list must have their own non-redirect English article".

What does one do in regards to lists? Soundvisions1 (talk) 13:21, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * One could say in the list criteria "Each entry should have its own article in this encyclopedia." GRBerry 22:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Articles should not contain editing instructions except in comments. The point is moot. Dcoetzee 23:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Interwikis self references
An AWB Feature request asks to automatically convert wmf external links to interwiki; I have authored a script to do this (example) and this page since come to my attention. My question is does this policy apply to interwiki self references? — Dispenser 02:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sort of - in the sense that, for self-reference links, converting external links to interwiki links makes sense, whereas for links treating them as encyclopedia topics, it does not. For example, an article that discusses the Spanish Wikipedia should not break when that article is exported and reused in another application. Any references to Wikipedia itself must also use external link format, even if it's to the English Wikipedia; you can see this in the article Wikipedia, e.g. . Dcoetzee 01:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

linking wikipedia user pages from articles about that person?
Hi, I noticed that someone added a link to my Wikipedia user page on an article (FFTW) about some software that I wrote. I suspect that this is inappropriate under the WP guidelines, but it's not entirely clear to me from this page.

—Steven G. Johnson (talk) 05:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right - this almost certainly wouldn't be considered an acceptable cross-namespace link. It's okay to link from your user page to the article, or from the article talk page to your user page (probably), but not from the article to your user page. The policy doesn't currently discuss this, but I'm just giving my intuition for it - I've never seen an article link to user space. Dcoetzee 05:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

"See below" and the like
I've always seen parenthetical comments like (see below) or (see ) as self-referential, for precisely the same reason as the examples given. However, these aren't mentioned in the page. I think a note on these should be added, because they are common in lower-quality articles and usually indicate that the prose does not flow adequately from subject-to-subject, or that the lede fails to provide a proper summary. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually I think these are okay. You see similar inter-section references in a paper encyclopedia, and it makes sense as long as the section isn't removed from the context of its article. They may be a sign of bad writing in some cases, but that's not a self-references issue. Dcoetzee 12:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * What about in cases of spoken variants? Then the material isn't "below". In addition, as an explicit instruction to the user, isn't it a case of inappropriate second-person? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: Refocus this page to document the larger policy of which ASR is just a logical consequence
Something's been bothering me about this page for some time, and now I've figured out what it is. At first I thought it was just that there were actually two related policies being discussed on this page and no one had yet articulated that "avoid self-references" was only one of two intersecting policies. After thinking about it, however, I realized that it's less "two intersecting policies" and far more "one overarching policy, of which 'avoid self-references' is a logical consequence".

Here's how I think the various aspects of this policy actually interrelate:
 * Don't assume anything about the circumstances in which the content will be read.
 * Don't assume the medium.
 * Don't assume that it will be in print.
 * Don't assume that it will be online.
 * Don't assume the time and place.
 * Don't assume the reader is in a particular nation or on a particular continent.
 * Don't assume that the reader is reading at a particular time.
 * Don't assume the venue.
 * Don't assume that the reader is reading on "Wikipedia".
 * Don't assume that the reader will understand Wikipedia jargon.
 * Don't assume that the reader will automatically find any relation of the subject to Wikipedia meaningful/interesting.

Some of these sub-policies are already well-described on this page ("Don't assume print", "Don't assume online") and others are not ("Don't assume the time" should be on this page, but the closest I can find to it is actually WP:DATED.) What's the solution? I don't know. We could retool this page to describe the larger policy, or we could create a new page for the larger policy that links to WP:ASR and WP:DATED and any other existing pages which describe policies that come under this umbrella. What seems clear is that we do need to focus on the larger policy and make sure that is covered. -- 65.78.13.238 (talk) 16:21, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

References to how to add to a list in the article itself
I found at least one example of a list List of Puerto Ricans, which describes the procedure for adding new names to the list in the article itself, rather than in the talk page. i see this as being self referential, but some editors there dont see this as a problem. i find it jarring, though i totally understand the motivation behind it (to cut down on inappropriate additions to a list which has attracted them). I wonder if there is a specific guideline on WP about where to specify list criteria, and how. i know i simply try to describe the parameters in an encyclopedic manner (this list includes x,y,z, but does not include a,b,c, for reasons 1,2,3), and not as a how-to. i really want to change this articles lead, but i also want to be polite and respect what has evolved there.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Generally this type of suggestion is placed in comments and not in the article text itself. Dcoetzee 04:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Referring to an ongoing mediation in an article
There is a proposal to add a tag like this (officiallyThis text is the subject of current mediation (see talkpage)) to the text of Roman Catholic Church to indicate that one specific word ("officially") is the subject of an ongoing mediation. I think this is a bad idea as it is a self-reference of Wikipedia to one of its processes (mediation). If the tag was at the beginning of the article, I think it would be tolerable although not a great idea. To tag a specific word in the manner being proposed seems like an awkward self-reference in my opinion. I'd like to hear what other editors think.

--Richard (talk) 01:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:philosophy topics and ilk
Template:Philosophy topics and others (such as Template:Philosophy of science) have self references in the bottom. Ok or not ok? Specifically I refer to the WikiProject references; those are almost always left to the talk page. I also don't think it is appropriate that the special:recentchangeslinked is on the template either. --Izno (talk) 00:34, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Bengali romanization
A discussion potentially involving self-reference issues has been instigated at Talk:Bengali script. Please weigh in if you care. —  AjaxSmack   01:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Local bias
I reverted this edit by, partly because I think the wording was fine as it is, but mainly because the use of a locally biased example as outlined on "POV: Local bias" essay; "Jay Leno" in this case: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so its articles are about their subjects; they are not about the articles themselves (even if an article itself becomes famous or is the subject of a joke told by Jay Leno, it should not report this about itself).  Nu&beta;i&alpha;&tau;&epsilon;ch  Talk/contrib 20:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The Jay statement dates from 24 November 2007 and was removed 8 October 2008. The context is correct, even though it includes Jay. The Jay reference could be removed without harming the sentence.

In the edit you reverted, I had removed the following:

"Articles in main namespace may discuss topics passing Wikipedia's notability guidelines exclusively. Lists of Wikipedia articles belong in Portal namespace, as discussing Wikipedia contents."

That was added on 8 October 2008, but there was no consensus for it. A proposal in March 2008, entitled "Move navigational lists to portal namespace failed. No proposal of this type has succeeded in the meantime.  A change to wikipedia of this magnitude needs a wide forum of discussion and cannot be implemented by a single editor simply by editing a guideline.

Also, the phrase "may discuss topics passing WP:N exclusively" contradicts the notability guideline which states: "The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. They do not give guidance on the content of articles, except for lists of people." But the quote above doesn't limit the "topics discussed" to the subject specified in the article's title. This contradiction needs to be fixed.

The Transhumanist 23:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, thanks for the explanation. I'll revert my own edit, then remove the Jay Leno reference, and step out of the way.   Nu&beta;i&alpha;&tau;&epsilon;ch  Talk/contrib 09:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

How to tag problems? Are examples ok?

 * 1) Is there a cleanup-style tag to mark problematic self-references with? If so, it should be linked from this page.
 * 2) Are examples that refer to Wikipedia ok? See the long section in Simpson's paradox.

Thanks. Stevage 14:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

County templates
Some (most?) US county templates place themselves in the main article space. For example, Adair County, Iowa places itself in Category:Adair County, Iowa. This seems like a self-reference to be avoided because the template is a tool used by editors for creating county articles and not intended to be for main space readers. Thoughts? ✤ JonHarder talk 12:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style
There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

From the article Saxo Bank
I find Employees have several times edited this Wikipedia article I'm pretty sure that phrasing shouldn't be used, but what should be? Nosleep ( Talk  ·  Contribs ) 00:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a bit late, but you'd want something along the lines of "Employees, several times, edited the Wikipedia article on the subject." Makes sense even on another wiki (and Wikipedia is wikilinked there for much the same reason, as you'd wikilink any other encylopedia in that context...) --ais523 11:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Chembox validation self-references in chemical infoboxes
Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals/Chembox validation. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 00:34, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiWorld
Is a WikiWorld comic considered self-reference? In specific, I'm wondering about this edit to George P. Burdell, which removed the image to the right. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 05:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I am inclined to agree that the reference to WikiWorld, a Wikipedia WikiProject, or inclusion of its illustrations are a self-reference to the project and should be avoided. ✤ JonHarder talk 12:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I totally agree. Until Britanica starts putting WikiWorld cartoons in their articles, Wikipedia shouldn't either. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 12:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject & other maintenance links on navbox templates
Navbox templates frequently contain at the bottom of the navbox a link to the portal and to the category of the topic. Recently, I have noticed several navbox templates on major articles that include links to behind-the-scenes aspects of the encyclopedia; including but not limited to, links to the a) WikiProject, b) talk page of the WikiProject, c) recent changes to articles linking to the template, and d) the stubs' category. This seems to me to violate the spirit of this guideline which aims to keep behind-the-scenes links off of the article page and on the article talk page. I realize navboxen are not part of the article, but are instead transcluded onto the article -- but for all intents and purposes the average reader will not know about this.

Therefore, I request that this guideline be updated to specifically address such navbox links. I would propose that such maintenance links be prohibited to appear on the article page via the navbox transclusion; and instead be included on the WikiProject template that is included on the article talk page, or be 'd on the template page so as not to appear on the article. --64.85.215.230 (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC) (Dynamic IP address, will change when I log off.)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style
Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation: "Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?" It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. N oetica Tea? 00:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Simplifications
I've made a few changes to simply the presentation of ideas in this article, and to remove superfluous language. Any thoughts? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:21, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I see that the following bullet point disappeared in this edit of yours.
 * * Any link in an article in the main namespace that links to one in the Wikipedia namespace. Such links are self-referential, because the Wikipedia namespace is not part of the encyclopedia. This applies even if the link is a piped link.
 * I was using that guideline in this discussion about the following article text in List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming.
 * "The Wikipedia definition of Notability of people is used in this article. 'Notable' is not used in the common language meaning of 'a person of distinction or great reputation',"


 * I haven't been able to find anything about namespaces at WT:MOS, although I admit that I haven't been through all 125 archives. I wonder if you can clarify, does your edit represent a consensus that it is now perfectly acceptable to reference Wikipedia-namespace guidelines in article space? We currently have, under 'Examples of relevant self-referencing', the text "any links in the main namespace to the Wikipedia namespace". I am having trouble parsing a sentence out of what I see there, so I thought it better to ask before I pursue further discussions with other editors. Thanks for your help. --Nigelj (talk) 15:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I had no intention of changing the meaning of the guideline, and find several parts which still recommend avoiding such a link, if possible:
 * "In this framework, if you link from an article to a specific Wikipedia page, use external link style [and only then in certain types of page]"
 * "articles produced should be useful, even outside the context of the project used to create them"
 * Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, that's good. Thanks. It's just a little harder to engage in a debate without something specific to quote. Do we take it that 'relevant' in 'Examples of relevant self-referencing' means relevant in the sense that you mustn't do them? --Nigelj (talk) 21:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This is just my two cents, but I'm not a big fan of many of these revisions—especially the October 11 reorganization, which I think makes the guideline less clear for newcomers.

Previously the guideline was very clear. The basic rule ("Avoid referring to 'Wikipedia'") was given at the top, with further guidance ("Think about print") and exceptions ("Neutral self-references are acceptable", "Writing about Wikipedia itself") given in simple language under clear headings. The page has had this same basic form for years.

Now nearly the entire guideline is crammed into one big section, "Types of self-reference", perhaps with the intent that editors look for the type of self-reference that most closely matches the situation they are dealing with. However, I don't think that the subheadings of "Types of self-reference" are a good way of capturing the kinds of self-references that may exist in Wikipedia. I think the new structure will actually make it harder, rather than easier, for editors to find information relevant to them.

I also think much of the language is more stilted, which makes it harder for newcomers to get the point. Some of the rewritten text is difficult to understand. For example, the basic explanation under the first heading was previously "Avoid self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project"; now it is "Mentioning that the article is being read on Wikipedia, or to Wikipedia policy or technicalities of using Wikipedia should be avoided where possible", which is far more abstruse.

Fundamentally, this guideline is a simple one: don't refer to Wikipedia, unless you're writing about Wikipedia in a context where it's appropriate to do so. Over time, this page has accumulated a bunch of explanation and examples to illustrate this rule, but the rule itself is simple. I feel that the new structure obscures rather than clarifies this. I do think you made some good improvements, especially in simplifying wordings and the like. But on balance, I don't care for the reorganization. —Caesura(t) 22:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Section on self reference tools needs clearer explanation
This section is almost incomprehensible (especially the description of srlink. I tried to improve it a bit by incorporating some of the explanation from the template's documentation.  But still could use some rewriting.  This explanation, from the  documentation for Template:Selfref is the clearest explanation I found for srlink.  "srlink, for the opposite case when you want a link to the Wikipedia: namespace that does show in mirrors without breaking (for instance when writing an article about Wikipedia or something connected to it)."

Is srlink only used for links to Wikipedia namespace? If so, should say so in the explanation here. If not, then maybe use this as a basis for writing something understandable to somebody who doesn't already know what the templates do and when one should use them. Thanks. Zodon (talk) 07:07, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Practical examples
Are practical examples such as in the Mouseover article acceptable self-references? (permlink) Asking since this particular example appears harmless but it defies the advised notion of "writing for a print encyclopedia". --213.168.117.36 (talk) 17:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is useful to have an example, but the example could be explicit rather than implicit, at the same time making it print-compatible (in the same sense that animations and other media are print-compatible). That example could just as well be included in floating box with a caption as multimedia. I'd argue more readers would find it and more readers would understand that it is part of the article not "meta". —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 12:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The templates that render self-referencing graphics
I suggest that the paragraph:

is altered to explain that some self-referencing templates such as stub, npov, and refimprove serve a dual purpose, they inform editors of problems with an article but they also warn readers that there is a problem with the article of which readers should be informed, but articles should normally avoid self-referencing templates such as shortcut and the others that provide no immediate benefit to the reader and are in essence editor to editor messages:

-- PBS (talk) 18:22, 7 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I just want to point out, if it isn't self-evident, that if this new wording is approved, PBS is going to use it to support his argument that maintenence tags like dead end, underlinked, copyedit etc. should be placed on talk pages, rather than in articles. DoctorKubla (talk) 15:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

"... is beyond the scope of this article"
Recently another editor disagreed with this phrase's appearance in an article - "articles should not talk about themselves." I agree that articles should not say e.g. "This article was referenced in an article in the New York Times", but "beyond the scope of this article" is a very common usage - Google finds 11,000 occurrences on English WP. Who's right?

I settled for using an hatnote, but that doesn't work so well if the thing the article isn't about doesn't really come up until somewhere in the article body.

Similarly, "(this other thing that we just provided a brief introduction to) is described more completely in Wikilink " is ok, yes? Even though it's "talking about Wikipedia"? There are cases where I'd rather do that than just Wikilink (this other thing). Jeh (talk) 22:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

SRA and images
I have a question, why isn't there a clause considering the use of the Wikipedia logo in articles not about Wikipedia? It's not free content, but still - doesn't using Wikipedia as an example for software (especially with web browsers showing it) also count as a self-reference? ViperSnake151  Talk  22:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been thinking a bit about this too. Pictures such as this one: have unnecessary references to Wikipedia that don't function as a good example of what the device is able to do. Should such images be replaced? JosJuice (talk) 20:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd also like to see this question resolved (and as JosJuice notes, this concerns not just the Wikipedia logo, but more generally images that use Wikipedia as an example). There are tons and tons of images that do this—including many screenshots (e.g., the main image on the Firefox article), visual examples of various kinds (e.g., this graph of Wikipedia.org traffic used as an example on the Web traffic article), and other miscellaneous occurrences (e.g., this example of a postal bar code that appears in the ZIP code article)—and it's not clear whether they violate the policy. This is a common enough issue that I think this guideline ought to specifically address it. —Caesura(t) 20:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * And when it comes to browsers, I know for a fact that IE9+, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera have "neutral" built-in home pages that may be a better way to depict the browser than using than just using Wikipedia's main page. Why we don't count this as a self-reference to avoid, I will never know. ViperSnake151   Talk  00:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Scope statements?
Does the prohibition of self-reference exclude scope statements? The nutshell says articles may refer to themselves. But the lede says: "Typically, self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project should be avoided. These take several forms." And then the opening text of "Types of self-reference", having given an example of a scope statement ("This article discusses...") then discusses some uses to be avoided. I believe I understand the kind of self-references that should be avoided, and I believe that scopes statements should be (and are) tolerated, but the text is confusing. Could we have this explicityl stated? And perhaps consider an alteration to the text, perhaps something that describes the allowed uses before discussing the proscribed uses? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:27, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

If no one else is interested perhaps I'll just go in and arrange matters as I see best. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

interpretation of 'Mentioning that the article is being read on Wikipedia, or to Wikipedia policy or technicalities of using Wikipedia should be avoided where possible"
There is a discussion going on at Binary prefix about whether it is appropriate to include a self-reference on that article to WP:MOSNUM guidelines on their use. I propose the discussion be contined here at MOS. Any comments? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 05:11, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * To add a bit of context, the specific issue being discussed is that Binary prefixes has a hatnote pointing to WP:COMPUNITS, and whether or not that usage should be acceptable, as the link to the style guide is not particularly relevant to the encyclopedic article. This usage is not unique to that article - the following partial list was put together by Shreevatsa:


 * * Deletion has a hatnote pointing to Deletion policy.
 * * Manual of style (redirect to Style guide) has a hatnote pointing to Manual of Style.
 * * Dates (redirect to Date) has a hatnote pointing to Manual of Style/Dates and numbers.
 * * Formatting (redirect to Format) has a hatnote pointing to Manual of Style.
 * * Dispute resolution has a hatnote pointing to Dispute resolution.
 * * Administrator has a hatnote pointing to Administrators.


 * Also mentioned was that Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Selfref lists some additional ones.


 * So the question is should there be a policy about that sort of usage, and what should the policy be?  Rwessel (talk) 06:53, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * As an aside, this appears to be approximately the same issue as raised in the prior section (“linking from articles and disambiguators into Wikipedia and Help namespaces”). Rwessel (talk) 07:00, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * And the conclusion in the prior section was "it's fine as long as it's marked with the template."


 * Indeed, the help text for offers, as an example of its use, exactly this sort of cross-namespace link!

"for instance, Objectivity could have a selfref link ' '. "


 * In the discussion over at talk:Binary prefix some complained that the hatnote was unencyclopedic, but that does not seem to be a stated concern that this guideline is trying to address. If cross-namespace links are unacceptable even when   is used as a hatnote, then its help text needs to be updated. Jeh (talk) 08:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Likewise if it is not the intention to avoid reference to policy or guidelines in articles, the present project page needs to be updated to reflect that. At the moment there is a clear advice to avoid such references.  Am I the only editor who considers that there is no place for a reference to WP policies or guidelines in article space? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:40, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The guideline is primarily intended to address wording in prose, ie. we don't ever write "The list here on Wikipedia contains x..."
 * The hatnotes are completely standard, and do indeed just need to be wrapped in a selfref. Many of the WP:Shortcuts titles, sans "WP:", contain a selfref hatnote. Additionally certain common names for the project pages will have hatnotes, eg Binary prefix per [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&search=%22Binary+prefixes%22&fulltext=Search&ns4=1&ns5=1&ns8=1&ns9=1&ns10=1&ns11=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&redirs=1&profile=advanced]
 * Discussing non-mainspace pages, within Wikipedia articles, is done according to WP:itself (very rarely). See Citation needed or Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia for examples. –Quiddity (talk) 23:22, 5 August 2013 (UTC)


 * What the guideline says is that reference "to Wikipedia policy or technicalities of using Wikipedias hould be avoided where possible". If that is not what is intended I suggest it be rephrased to reduce confusion. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 15:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That means (at least partially, and for example) don't quote/link WP:NLIST when describing in article-prose the content-criteria of an article/list. If you can think of a concise way to clarify that, suggest away. (Keeping in mind the clarifications already offered by the "Nutshell" section at the page-top.) –Quiddity (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Consider replacing "to Wikipedia policy or technicalities of using Wikipedias should be avoided where possible" with "to Wikipedia policy or technicalities of using Wikipedias should be avoided unless the selfref template is used". I do not support this change because I think self-references, whether or not a special template is used, confuses readers who are not also editors. I am just syaing that if the intention is to exclude selfref from the rule, it would be helpful to say so.  Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the guideline is clear enough as it is, in light of what the intent is (the "This page in a nutshell" at the top is quite sufficient to clarify that). (In any case I think of the article body prose proper as not including the hatnotes and sections (say) "See also" and below, and the article body is the main place to focus on. But really, adding such details will only confuse matters; I'm in support of leaving the guideline page as it is.) Shreevatsa (talk) 02:43, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

"See also" links
There is a somewhat cryptic mention of "see also" links as Examples also include disambiguation links and "See also" links. Does that mean that self-references are discouraged or excepted in "see also" links? User:Nick Levinson apparently interpreted that as an exception. Someone not using his real name (talk) 16:45, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * My basis is that the guideline says that "references that exist in a way that assumes the reader is using an encyclopedia, without reference to the specific encyclopedia (Wikipedia)..., are acceptable.... Examples ... include disambiguation links and 'See also' links." Throughout the article namespace, there are numerous links to other namespaces, because of their utility. I think another guideline encourages such links, so if this guideline bars them there might be a conflict between guidelines. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Self reference to Wikipedia at Chelsea Manning gender identity media coverage
I have removed the section on Wikipedia, but editors keep adding it back again. Would appreciate input at Talk:Chelsea Manning gender identity media coverage. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Famous articles
Six months ago, an obscure French military installation attracted worldwide attention when the French military tried to get fr:wp to remove its article on the installation. Media sources worldwide concentrated on the installation, articles were created on it in dozens of Wikipedia editions, and many of them (including ours) mentioned the Wikipedia incident because it raised knowledge of the station immensely. Now, let's assume that the same thing happens with an article about something in an English-speaking country, so it's one of our articles whose deletion is being urged by the authorities. If the incident with the article itself becomes highly significant to the subject of the article, like Pierre-sur-Haute, how would we handle it? In my opinion, the best is to write as if we're not Wikipedia: when the article itself is significant, mention it to a slight extent. Nyttend (talk) 03:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Meta content in the portal namespace
It seems like most portals (including featured portals) have either a 'Things to do', 'Project collaboration' or 'WikiProject' section. Portal:United States even transcludes the whole subpage U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/to do. This is the only discussion I could find about it ("The listing of WikiProjects is excluded ... because we have determined that it is useful for portals to list related WikiProjects"), but it dates from 2006 and does not discuss 'Things to do' sections. I think it goes against our guidelines about not mixing the content we present to our readers and meta content and is more confusing to our readers than it is helpful. Nay or yay? jonkerz ♠talk 17:13, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * At Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Portals User:Nihonjoe said (see diff): ":Portals are an introduction to the topic on Wikipedia, and therefore any related project work is relevant. Additionally, that guideline applies only to mainspace, not anywhere else: "Typically, self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project should be avoided." (emphasis added) Portals are a different namespace." WhisperToMe (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The same could be said about categories which are created to categorize the topic on Wikipedia, but this does not mean we should add project-related content to content-related categories. Copyrights does not belong in Category:Copyright law, and WP:MOS should not be added to Category:Style guides for American English. The guideline is relevant to all content pages, not just articles. The real question is: are portals content we present to our casual readers? If so, we should not display project-related material on these pages. jonkerz ♠talk 12:04, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This displays a basic misunderstanding of what portals are. For example, the featured portal criteria specifically state that while a portal should generally not refer to itself "beyond (if at all) a welcome note...aspects of portals that encourage contribution may be self-referential." As you pointed out above, the inclusion of this WikiProject and related material in portals, including featured portals, has been long established and supported (since at least 2006, according to the discussion to which you link). If you want to change this, you are going to need to get broad community consensus to do so as this has been established (and therefore de facto) and encouraged procedure for many years now. No one is suggesting that WP-space information be added to mainspace categories (and your using this is a red herring). The guideline you quoted specifically states it refers only to articles, and that has been the longtime interpretation of that statement: articles should generally not refer to Wikipedia projects individually or the overall project as a whole unless it is specifically relevant to the article. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 07:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Even though I agree with Nihonjoe that this usage of portals is widely accepted, I have always asked myself whether it's useful to have portals doing the same things as wikiprojects do. I come from wikipedia, where most portals and projects have almost zero activity. Maybe portals that have gone inactive should turn its focus to the casual reader and have its more intense editor-related sections (like to-do lists) moved to the related WikiProject. Max51 (talk) 05:52, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with above comments by . Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:51, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Portals don't do the same thing as WikiProjects do. WikiProjects are there to allow collaboration in a particular area. A portal is there to allow introduction to a particular topic, and therefore they may point to articles, images, videos, audio, and related content, as well as potential things someone could do to help if they so choose. There is nothing "intense" about the "how you can help" sections. All they do is list potential things someone can do as it relates to the portal topic. In most cases, those sections either don't require much upkeep or bots can update any content which may change (or be created). Yes, portals and the mainspace are mostly intended for the casual user, but we need to make people aware there are things they can do if we want to attract a few of those casual users into assisting with the upkeep of the encyclopedia. If someone is already viewing a portal related to a topic which interests them, pointing them in the direction of a project which falls within that area of interest may encourage them to help out. "Hey, there's a project in my area of interest! Maybe I'll pitch in." Since portals are meant to be a broad introduction to a particular topic, not telling them about projects within that topic area would make the portal weaker, not stronger. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WP Japan ! 06:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Hatnote to WP:SELFCITE?
Should a helpful direct be added to the hatnote, e.g. for the guidelines on citing one's own work, see WP:SELFCITE? WP:SELFREF and WP:SELFCITE are quite similar and could arguably cause confusion, as "citation" and "referencing" are used interchangeably throughout Wikipedia. WP:SELFPUB is different in that it concerns self-published content like blogs and forums. WP:SELFCITE concerns whether I should cite my own research published in Nature. --Animalparty-- (talk) 23:52, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Namespaces
Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_29 suggests that there's some confusion over what this page says about self-references. It's possible that some people read "The template namespace" as meaning that the existence of the template or category namespace is a self-reference (to how this website works). I've tried to make it a little clearer. In the process, I changed section heading; what we care about is the template's or category page's contents, not the fact that it's in a particular namespace. (I hope I got the anchor right, to avoid breaking any older links.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything particularly problematic about your changes, but said "confusion" doesn't exist from my POV. --Izno (talk) 01:16, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Links to, say, The Signpost
Should they be The Signpost or The Signpost? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Red Slash (talk • contribs) 03:13, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's an interal Wikipedia link, so the latter, or, my preference, . -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but could we add that "Wikipedia follows a certain spelling convention" should be replaced with "this article follows a certain spelling convention"?
This edit has been nagging at me intermittently for a few years, since it obviously violates the spirit of this guideline, but since this page is so vaguely worded ("avoided where possible" should probably be "avoided as much as possible", for example) it is almost impossible to use this guideline to justify removal of self-references.

Could we add a list of examples of what is definitely not okay?

Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 03:49, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


 * "Avoided where possible" and "as much as possible" mean the same thing, don't they? Where it is possible to avoid X, avoid X. You'd need a strong argument to say that it was "impossible" to avoid a self-reference.
 * It looks like your nagging edit has been removed since, but it saying "In the same way that Wikipedia has not yet adopted a consensus policy..." is plainly the "mentioning [...] Wikipedia policy" listed here. --McGeddon (talk) 08:17, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

linking from articles and disambiguators into Wikipedia and Help namespaces
Various articles have hatnotes linking into the Wikipedia and Help namespaces and various disambiguation pages have links into the Wikipedia namespace. There's a question about whether that violates this guideline. I started a discussion, with a couple more examples listed at a dab talk page. An argument for linking is convenience for new editors who don't know about namespaces; hatnotes are phrased and visually styled to be distinct from the body and the lead. An argument against it is that it confuses readers who don't edit, and there are many more readers than editors; and that cross-referencing, if there's to be any, should be limited to the most important ones. This seems to have been last discussed on this talk page about nine years ago. I can justify either side. Does anyone here have a view? Nick Levinson (talk) 20:47, 30 June 2013 (UTC) (Updated a link: 15:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC))


 * The reason self-references aren't allowed, according to this guideline, is so that the article still makes sense when it's removed from Wikipedia and copied onto one of the various mirror sites, or printed in a book. Cross-namespace hatnotes are fine as long as they're marked with the selfref template, so that mirrors can opt not to display them. DoctorKubla (talk) 07:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)


 * This is one reason, but the main reason is that most of these links are going to be of value to very few individuals (editors; people who play the MMO), but to our readers they are going to appear confusing, unprofessional, or both. I've penned a section to reflect this: WP:SELFREFHAT, comments welcome. – xeno talk 19:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I just removed the addition as I don't think the discussion here shows any consensus for such a prohibition. older ≠ wiser 23:41, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Restored with "under discussion" template; RFC filed immediately below. – xeno talk 23:56, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Should we be linking readers (via disambiguation notes, etc.) to the Wikipedia/Help/Manual namespaces from the mainspace?
Should we be linking readers (via disambiguation notes, etc.) to the Wikipedia/Help/Manual namespaces from the mainspace?

I've recently added what I feel is fairly obvious guidance:

"Generally, one should not include disambiguation notes from an article page to a page in the Wikipedia project or help namespace. For example, it is highly unlikely that readers looking for our encyclopedia article on retirement will want to be linked to our internal page Retirement; the link will appear confusing or unprofessional, or both. Editors should know to use the 'Wikipedia:' prefix, and should not need to be directed to the internal workings of the project via self-references at the top of articles in the article mainspace."


 * Based on comments thus far I've reworded it somewhat:

"Consider carefully before including disambiguation notes from articles or disambiguation pages to the Wikipedia project or Help namespaces. For example, it is highly unlikely that readers looking for our encyclopedia article on retirement will want to be linked to our internal page Retirement; the link will appear confusing or unprofessional, or both. Examples of acceptable uses are major policies and guidelines (e.g. Protection policy), commonly-used acronyms and shorthand (e.g. AFD), and material to assist new users with basic site features (e.g. Editing). These references should use the Selfref template as described below."
 * Further comments invited. – xeno talk 14:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I've realized this is more of a Hatnote and Disambiguation issue rather than one related to the manual of style and have withdrawn the RfC (and may re-visit at one of those venues if necessary after taking into consideration comments here). However, further comments are invited. I've also noted we have existing guidance on this at WP:TRHAT. Thank you everyone for your input so far. – xeno talk 19:41, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Readers are typically seeking encyclopedic content; editors should know that they need to use the WP: prefix to find internal projects pages such as WP:FTC. I've been reverted, so comments invited. See here for examples of low-value links that should be removed under this guidance. – xeno talk 23:56, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Talk pages and edit summaries are notorious for using an alphabet soup of acronyms and abbreviations. The hatnotes are intended to help readers who are not familiar with the jargon and might well be bewildered by the jargon and namespaces. So long as the self-reference is reasonably ambiguous and is properly wrapped in a selfref template, I don't see the harm. older ≠ wiser 00:04, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Should Viktor Dyk direct readers to WP:DYK? Or Mock to "the Wikipedia essay section on mock outrage, see Mock"? Triple Crown? It should direct a reader to the MMO quest award WP:Triple Crown? I agree that there should not be a blanket prohibition, willing to let it slide on "FTC" and the like (unless local consensus rules it out on that page), but many of these links are just ridiculous. In most cases, we shouldn't mislead readers down the rabbit hole into our MMO, hence this suggested common-sense addition. – xeno talk 00:12, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * No. There is no reasonable ambiguity. Should DYK direct readers to WP:DYK? Yes. I don't think every single shortcut in WP namespace needs a hatnote in the corresponding article, as many shortcuts are very obscure. But many are in quite common currency. older ≠ wiser 00:24, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't plan to remove all of these links, especially ones like Protection policy -> Protection policy, and if you think the links for the alphabet soup ones are helpful I'll avoid those too; however if you look at the uses of selfref, I'm sure you will also find many examples like those I've listed here that you agree should be removed - this is why I feel we need some guidance on this topic. – xeno talk 00:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Creation of needless extra rules is intrinsically harmful. In some cases, such as Retirement, the disambig is clearly unnecessary. In others, such as Help, the disambig is clearly necessary. Determining which pages fit in which box requires intelligent decision-making by editors, and since no rule that could be written on the subject will change that need for case-by-case decision making, creating a rule is a waste of time and effort whose only contribution to the project is tying us down with red tape. Your proposal is, in short, well-meaning but in no way helpful. --erachima talk 00:11, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not a hard-and-fast rule. Please feel free to edit the addition as necessary to provide appropriate guidance. – xeno talk 00:13, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem is not with your specific phrasing of the rule, it is that this rule is simple instruction creep. --erachima talk 00:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Yet you agree we should not be linking from "Retirement" to "WP:Retirement". I don't want to have to explain in detail each time I remove one of these ridiculous links. Pants on Fire was linking to a Wikipedia essay with very few authors (Liar Liar Pants on Fire). We should offer no formal guidance on this subject? – xeno talk  00:22, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Correct. "Formal guidance" would be worthless, needless, and harmful. --erachima talk 03:41, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I disagree that it would be worthless or needless; the reason I added the section was because I needed a way to explain my removals and don't want to have to establish local consensus every time there is a disagreement, like at Talk:Triple Crown (where our article is linking readers to some little-used userspace bauble). But I do thank you for your input. – xeno talk 09:32, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm really not seeing a problem. I've checked several mainspace locations, and articles and disambiguation pages that share their name with policies or guidelines link to it using hatnotes. In my opinion, this looks clean and professional. That being stated, I agree that we should probably remove links to some of the more obscure policies. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 03:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Policies and guidelines that share their name exactly with an article: ok, especially major ones. What about little-used userspace awards like Triple Crown linking to Wp:Triple Crown? Wikipedia essays? Redirects to sections? How about. "etiquette" or "politeness"? These pages should link to our oft-debated and consensus-murky Civility policy or the WP:Etiquette page? – xeno talk 09:04, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It is not clear to me what exactly the proposal is. If it is indeed the first line of this section, then I'd say: yes, where it helps and not harms. Generally, I see no harm on disambiguation pages. I agree with erachima that it's undesirable instruction creep to prohibit hatnotes on normal articles, or even to attempt rules for their use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Bednarek (talk • contribs) 05:13, 14 August 2014‎ (UTC)
 * The proposal is to retain the addition of the section WP:SELFREFHAT in some form, collaboratively edited to provide some form of guidance we can all agree on as to "helps vs harms", and so I have some place to point to when I remove the links in the latter. Nowhere am I proposing a prohibition or hard line. However without any kind of guidance these have ballooned to a number in the hundreds or thousands and some are just ridiculous. I get the argument from CREEP but there is clearly a need for some counselling to prevent stuff like barely-cited Wikipedia essays and little-known userspace awards from being linked to from our articles and dab pages. – xeno talk 09:04, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I've reworded the guidance based on comments here. – xeno talk 14:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * An addition which I have now reverted to the status quo. --erachima talk 14:39, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Like older ≠ wiser, Michael Bednarek, and erachima said. The obscure ones are actually the toughest to find, sometimes, a hatnote at the most common search is useful. Is it WP:TRIPLECROWN or WP:TRIPLE or WP:TRIPLE CROWN, after all.   Montanabw (talk)  19:11, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It is all three of these. It is not, however, an appropriate link for readers arriving at our article disambiguation page as it is trivial information in an encyclopedic context. However let's keep discussion this specific instance at Talk:Triple Crown. – xeno talk 19:34, 14 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I have had the Pipe article on my watchlist because of frequent spamming, and my longterm interest in improving the article content. When what seemed like a helpful hatnote there was removed, I reverted it, and was politely advised by Xeno about the wider, deeper issues at WP:SELFREF.  I had previously assumed that the SELFREF issue was simply that of circular references to the same article from itself.  As an intermediate-level editor (>11,000 edits), I still remember being bewildered by some of the jargon and acronyms used by Wikipedians (e.g. AfD, RfC, "piped link", etc.). I find the explanatory hatnotes and such to be helpful, and don't quite subscribe to a hard-line view that any mention of Wikipedia innards should be absolutely taboo.  We should let curious readers have a glimpse of the workings "behind the green curtain", and not worry so much about maintaining an absolute "Iron Curtain" between the mechanisms and Wikipedia content.  This will keep readers from feeling totally excluded by a secretive "Wikipedia cabal", and may even draw in some future editors of high quality.


 * On the other hand, it is possible to go overboard with confusing pointers to obscure Wikipedian internals, as illustrated by some of the more-extreme examples above. It is important to have a concise explanation of the SELFREF issue, with a shortcut like WP:SELFREFHAT, so that edit summaries and the like can efficiently point to it.  The proposed location in the MoS seems suitable, as it is grouped with an explanation of the larger SELREF issues and the use of the Template:Selfref.  I feel comfortable with text suggesting that an editor think about appropriateness and use good editorial judgment, subject to the editorial consensus of others, rather than attempting to rigidly prescribe rules about this.  I do think that a clear explanation of the issue and an advisory guideline will help bring new editors up to speed, when they do encounter the related issues.  Leaving the subject without any lasting explanation and guidance is like leaving a pothole in the road unfilled and unsigned, allowing an unending succession of unwary new arrivals to fall into it.  We need to treat new editors well, and help them to become fluent as painlessly as possible, while allowing more-experienced editors to help them efficiently by pointing them to a clear explanation and guidance.  Reify-tech (talk) 15:12, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

It would appear that the implicit or explicit result of this discussion was "Let's just not talk about it, shall we?" As a result I've just spent a some time trying to run down where this is covered. Wouldn't it be better to at the very least say somewhere on this page, "Yes, this is certainly a thing. Editor's choice; have at it"?--NapoliRoma (talk) 19:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Links to WikiProjects in templates
User:Robsinden recently removed a wikilink to WikiProject Science Fiction citing this page as a reason ("we do not link to wikiprojects from article space per WP:SELFREF").

So, while I do agree that WikiProjects are at a kind of meta level of Wikipedia I do think that it might be useful to link to them in the templates that cover their scope 1:1. They're just small links/icons that don't disrupt the reader and they might lead to increased participation.

What do you think about such links on templates?

--Fixuture (talk) 21:17, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I would agree with him for the same rationale. While I'm sympathetic to a desire for increased participation, there's been a conscious drive away from such things being in the main-space (e.g. "hidden" categories). --Izno (talk) 23:49, 14 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Per this very guideline: self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project should be avoided. Seems clear enough to me.  --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:02, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree with Izno and Rob. Kaldari (talk) 21:43, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Is "not a policy" useful?
Not a policy is a new template that has been added to a few articles. For example Signature has the following at the top:
 * Note: This page is not a policy or guideline.  The policy page for this topic is located at Signatures.
 * Note: This page is not a policy or guideline.  The policy page for this topic is located at Signatures.

Is that desirable? Johnuniq (talk) 03:03, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * for works just fine for that scenario. --Izno (talk) 11:57, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is awful. It subjects readers to Wikipedia process in a very confusing way.  I'm not a big fan of having links to editor cruft in mainspace in general, and this is even more cryptic than what I've seen before.--NapoliRoma (talk) 17:13, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree, and agree.  E Eng  06:39, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Self-referential hatnote in the article namespace need to be wrapped in the self ref template. While the equivalent css class or whatnot could be added to the Not a policy, I'd rather keep it simple and just use the existing template. As for other namespaces, aren't there already other templates that adequately distinguish essays from policies? older ≠ wiser 10:44, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The point here is that the hatnote shouldn't be in the article at all, even hosted here at Wikipedia. It puzzles the typical reader to point to behind-the-scenes stuff.  E Eng  17:22, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, I agree the way this is phrased is confusing when placed in article space. older ≠ wiser 17:58, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree with Izno and NapoliRoma. The documentation for the template should be changed to prohibit use in article space. Kaldari (talk) 21:42, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It is a new template which is only used in articles (Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Not a policy), apart from mentions of the template such as this discussion. My reading of the above comments is that the template should be deleted. Johnuniq (talk) 09:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete for the above reasons (confusing readers, WP:SELFREF). For is IMO an unsuitable replacement in situations like Vandalism on Wikipedia where selfref should be used (and already is for another hatnote there). At Signature, it's entirely unnecessary because the WP:Signatures subject is covered at Signature (disambiguation). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:29, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I nominated the template for deletion: Templates for discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 10:58, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Links to template space from navboxes
Would be grateful for some input at Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. -- wooden superman  14:06, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The word "Wikipedia" as an example
This is similar to the (apparently unresolved) question above*</Sup> about browsers still screenshots. In articles about coding schemes (barcode in particular), is it acceptable to use "Wikipedia" as an example of an arbitrary word to show how it is coded? As I read the policy, it should be, as the example still makes perfect sense in print or on a mirror; at worst someone will wonder why the word was chosen, but they will not be confused on the real topic of the article. But some of the editors who commented above appear to feel otherwise. Even if it is acceptable, would it be better to use the name of the coding scheme? Here there is no fair use issue. Matchups (talk) 03:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC) ''However, see the immediately following note invoked by the asterisk I now add to user User:Matchups' otherwise intact contrib. --JerzyA (talk) 15:36, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * *Note: The asterisk I just added, to the (now years earlier, but --surely-- then'' spatially "immediately preceding") question
 * [that pr. q. having now long since been moved, likely into a digital archive associated with that now-old "talk"-contrib]
 * surely had the anticipatory purpose of clarifying that
 * the substance of the "question" mentioned there (probably) would be (and has been), preserved (in some sense), both in the WP-page's edit history and in other archives, even if "elsewhere".
 * I deem that probably accurate clarity worth while, past practices not always having been as had been intended ... and future ones being of course similarly aspirational.
 * --JerzyA (talk) 15:36, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's primarily that I find it exceptionally tacky to use "Wikipedia" as an example when another word would do. Since the word "Wikipedia" is unrelated to the article, I could be a devil's advocate and suggest that we use "Britannica" as the example word as it has just as much to do with barcodes as does the word "Wikipedia". —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 02:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If we had to pick an example word to recommend, it should be either an inherently funny word or "lorem". (I'd suggest "Slartibartfast" or "Jabberwocky" or "duck" :) -- Quiddity (talk) 03:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, it does not make much sense to use the word "wikipedia", maybe a common English word or something else is much better. --SF007 (talk) 22:49, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Is "all other things being equal, an illustrative image that does not refer to Wikipedia is preferable to one that does" worth a line in the guidelines here? I've just reverted someone who suggested that an article about an Australian biscuit should have a picture of Jimbo Wales eating one, because this "adds Wikipedia-related content" to the article, as if this would be a good thing. --McGeddon (talk) 09:32, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * We probably have long had a meta-rule that says "Writing perfect rules is a swell idea, as is teaching your giant squid to dance the cha-cha-cha." --JerzyA (talk) 17:03, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Referring to other sections in article
Should one refer to other section in the same article?

After this edit and the explanation in the edit summary, I would like to know what our policy is regarding referring to other sections in an article?

Personally, I agree that it can be useful, and I would do it in the form of an internal link, e.g. in the case of the example above.

I would not use phrases like "see Herodium below" or "for more information read Herodium below" etc., which I consider unwanted self-references.

Per WP:CLICKHERE I would surely not use "see here" or "for more information read here".

Do we already have a guideline about this? I didn't see it here, but perhaps we have something elsewhere? And if we don't, I think we should add something about this here. Debresser (talk) 10:15, 31 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I think this is the guideline even if there is not some particular text (spirit, not words). I agree that  is reasonable and your other example is not. I might in this case even prefer   or   per one or another of our guidelines on redirecting; should an article be written, we would prefer to link directly there automatically rather than have to find and change the anchor link. --Izno (talk) 13:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Click to enlarge, in image caption
Comments are invited at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Captions. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:43, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Edit count linking to the list of Wikipedians by number of edits?
There is currently a discussion whether the article Edit count should have a "See also" link to List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Input welcome at Talk:Edit count. – Uanfala (talk) 19:39, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Sagan standard
If we could get some more eyes on, there's an editor there repeatedly re-adding a naked self-ref that I'd attempted to remove. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:53, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not as cut-and-dried as you make it sound, and you'd do better to join the discussion at WT:Manual_of_Style, raising this specific example. <b style="color:red;">E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 05:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Will do, and thanks for the feedback. It was more surprising that even after they acknowledge reading this page that they still chose to restore it naked without any selfref wrapper or using the  parameter for for... nevermind that our readers don't likely understand why we'd be putting a link like that front and center. Thank you for the pointer to that other discussion. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 05:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Is explaining terminology of the article permissible?
Can, or should, an article use phrasing such as "To simplify matters, the referents of wa and ga in this section are called the topic and subject respectively" (as seen in Japanese grammar)?

In other words, can an article decide or explain the terminology that the article will proceed to use thereafter?

Whether the answer is "yes/no/it depends", I'd propose that such an explanation should be added as a section in this "Manual of Style/Self-references" page. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, at MOS:CONVERSIONS the example is given that an article on American football should not tiresomely convert every measurement in yards to metric, but instead just explain in a note what a yard is and leave everything in yards. But then our article American football tiresomely converts everything from yards to meters, so go figure. Certainly there will be math articles that explain notational conventions (though I can't name any just now), but of course math articles take a somewhat unusual narrative approach ("Suppose that XYZ and ABC; then JKL must be ...").So in summary I don't really have an answer for you, other than to say I think some editors are much too huffy about the "presumption" of addressing the reader, and that you should just do what you think best and see how other editors respond. There's probably some hatnote template you're supposed to use for that, but if there is I can't find it. Maybe knows. <b style="color:red;">E</b><b style="color:blue;">Eng</b> 21:03, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I've definitely seen mathematics articles that say something similar about what convention they'll be following in situations where there is more than one reasonable choice — if this is something you care about, there's a new move-discussion at Talk:Trapezium and Trapezoid that you might want to participate in, without much need for mathematical expertise. But I don't know of any hatnotes for that purpose. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a very common thing in technical writing. I'd expect that many editors who know specialist subject material will use that style of specifying conventions practically by instinct. Thinking about sections and whole articles as structured prose with a logical flow of ideas, rather than as line-by-line pileups of facts, is a good thing that we should encourage. Moreover, it doesn't run into the problems that actually make self-references bad. It doesn't get in the way of reusing the content on another site, and it makes just as much sense when printed on paper as when read on a screen. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Overall, this seems like an acceptable practice. Thanks for the community response! — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 00:53, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Discussion of allowing self-reference in list article criteria
I reverted the addition of an exception to WP:SELFREF for list article criteria, and have started a discussion here. Feel free to join the discussion! — hike395 (talk) 13:08, 28 July 2022 (UTC)


 * There is a new proposal on the table for resolving a contradiction between MOS:SELFREF and WP:SALLEAD. Please feel free to join in the discussion here. Thanks! — hike395 (talk) 11:56, 13 August 2022 (UTC)