Wikipedia:Understanding Wikipedia's content standards

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcuts WP:STANDARDS WP:CONTSTAND

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia has no formal process for deciding what content is acceptable but, in any given situation, the three most important factors are: what the relevant content guidelines say, what publicly available sources confirm, and what is the general consensus of Wikipedia editors who choose to get involved.

New Wikipedia editors often have a difficult time understanding how decisions are made to determine what material is allowed or not. As previous readers of Wikipedia, they are already aware that the site's content can be exceptional, but also very poor. Its rules are sometimes crystal clear, and other times seemingly incomplete. Resolving these apparent contradictions and understanding the uncoordinated, emergent model of creation, revision, and exclusion of content on Wikipedia is the focus of this essay.

Among the first things new contributors have likely learned is that Wikipedia is an open collaborative project maintained by a community of volunteers who write and organize the encyclopedia according to a great many rules about appropriate content and editor behavior. But synthesizing this into a big picture version of how Wikipedia actually works can be very confusing, especially when there is so much inconsistency across the project. To understand better how any specific content one wishes to add to (or change, or remove from) Wikipedia will be received, think about it in terms of these three questions:

1. What do the rules advise?
2. What can your sources confirm?
3. How will Wikipedia editors respond?

This essay describes what you need to understand about answering these questions. It cannot answer these questions for you, nor can it address every possible circumstance, but it will put you in the right frame of mind to find the correct answers.