 | Thisguideline is a part of the English Wikipedia'sManual of Style. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this page should reflectconsensus. When in doubt, discuss first onthis guideline's talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia'sfree content is reused in many places: do not assume that the reader is reading Wikipedia, or indeed any website. Articles may refer to themselves, but they shouldn't refer to Wikipedia in a non-neutral fashion except under special circumstances. |
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This guideline is aboutself-references and specifies which types of self-references should be avoided and which kinds are acceptable. A self-reference in an article usually mentions Wikipedia directly or tells readers to take an action on Wikipedia, such as editing the article.
Although self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project should usually be avoided, there are exceptions. Some examples of acceptable self-references are articles about Wikipedia, categories, and maintenance templates.
YThis article discusses...
NThis Wikipedia article discusses...Mentioning that the article is being read on Wikipedia, or referring to Wikipedia policies or technicalities of using Wikipedia, should be avoided in the article namespace where it is unnecessary. If mentioning a policy is necessary to disambiguate article titles or subtopics,hatnotes can serve that purpose.
These types of self-references limit the use of Wikipedia as afree content encyclopedia suitable forforking, as permitted by ourlicenses. The goal of Wikipedia is to createan encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself, so the articles produced should be useful, even outside the context of the project used to create them. This means that while articles may refer to themselves, they should not refer to "Wikipedia" or to the Wikipedia project as a whole (e.g. "this website"). And our readers already know this is an encyclopedia; it is not useful to insertcontent disclaimers, e.g., "While Wikipedia is not a dictionary ..." to an article on a jargon term.
Mentioning the Wikipedia community, or website features, can confuse readers ofderived works. Unless substantially part of the article topic, do not refer to the fact that the page can be edited, nor mention any Wikipedia project page or process, specialized Wikipedia jargon (e.g. "PoV" in place of "biased"), or anyMediaWiki interface link in the sidebar or along the top of the screen.
References that exist in a way that assumes the reader is using an encyclopedia, without reference to the specific encyclopedia (Wikipedia) or the manner of access (online), are acceptable. For instance, manylist articles explicitly state their inclusion criteria in the lead section. These are self-references that make sense onmirrors and forks and in print, and make sense in a copy of Wikipedia that contains only the article space. The template{{printworthy selfref}} can be used to mark such passages as intentional self-references that are generally printworthy and mirror-worthy, but which some reusers may wish to suppress. Other examples of permissible self-references of this sort includedisambiguation links (thetemplates for which suppress their appearance in printed copies), and "See ..."cross-references (which may or may not be printworthy, depending upon whether they are inter-article;seeTemplate:Crossreference/doc).
The templates that render self-referencing messages for the maintenance needs of developing articles, such as{{stub}},{{npov}}, and{{refimprove}}, are unavoidable (and may permissibly include things like "Edit this page ..."), but articles should normally avoid self-referencing templates such as{{shortcut}} and the others.
Avoid "breaking thefourth wall" toaddress readers directly in anunencyclopedic tone, eitherinstructional oropinionated. This includes the pedagogical style of posing rhetorical questions to the reader (worst of allin headings). Neutral cross-references, e.g.(See alsoCymric cat.), are permissible (and best done with the{{crossreference}} template), but are often best reworded (TheCymric cat is a recent breed developed from the Manx.).
AlthoughWikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, articles should be written in a manner that facilitates transmission in other forms such as print, spoken word, and via ascreen reader. So terms such as "this article" are preferable to "this webpage", and phrases like"click here" should be avoided. In determining what language is most suitable, it may be helpful to imagine writing the article for a print encyclopedia.
Articles about online communities may well discuss Wikipedia as an example, in a neutral tone, without specifically implying that the article in question is being read on—or is a part of—Wikipedia. In this framework, if you link from an article to a specific Wikipedia page, use external link style, so the link will make sense in any context. The{{srlink}} template will do this for you.
Such pages may include:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so its articles are about their subjects; they arenot about the articles themselves. This means that even if an article itself becomes famous, that article should not report this about itself.
For example, a discussion ofStephen Colbert's call for vandalism of theElephant article might be appropriately mentioned in the article onThe Colbert Report, but not in the article on elephants, because elephants have nothing to do with Stephen Colbert. Protests regarding depictions of Muhammad in Wikipedia'sMuhammad article arenot addressed in that article (which is about the prophet Muhammad), but rather in the articleDepictions of Muhammad.
A mention of Wikipedia by a notable person is unlikely to justify a mention in their Wikipedia article; such a mention would have to reflect itsimportance in the person's overall body of work. For example, a radio host mentioning that he read his Wikipedia biography is not normally an important event in his overall career. On the other hand, the media attention surroundingJohn Seigenthaler's Wikipedia entry becamesignificant in his public life.
If it may be helpful to the community to link topress coverage about an article, this can be done in the article's talk page using the{{Press}} banner template.
Self-references are sometimes found in thetemplates and thecategories. Some of these are necessary or intrinsic to the purpose of the page, as with disambiguation information at the top of category pages and in{{stub}} templates, which encourage readers to edit the page. Unnecessary self-references are not encouraged in templates or categories, due to the need of third-party users to either delete those templates or modify them to remove the Wikipedia references. For example, all{{navbox}} templates should provide a list of related articles, but none of them should label these pages as "Wikipedia articles" or as "Related articles on this website".
When forced to use templates like this, you should use them in a way such that the article still makes sense when the template is removed, in order to facilitate automated removal.
Wikipedia project coordination pages should be underCategory:Wikipedia administration, not in categories that contain main-namespace articles by topic. (A small number of articlesabout Wikipedia are in the mainstream categories and this is OK.) User pages may be categorized underCategory:Wikipedians, but not in any of the subcategories underCategory:People.
The self-reference template,{{selfref}}, is used to mark pieces of text and links that wouldn't make sense on copies of Wikipedia. This gives the ability to programmatically remove all such references or transform them into external links. Thus, the end product can have all of its self-references removed automatically for users, such as forks and mirrors. This template is most often used as ahatnote template to help guide editors from an article to a related Wikipedia policy or guideline page in theWikipedia project namespace.
Many hatnote templates thatdo contain helpful preset text and linking, such as{{for}} and{{about}}, support a|selfref= parameter that gives them the same functionality as{{selfref}}, making them better options in most circumstances.
In cases where a Wikipedia page should link to Wikipedia itself (for instance, atWikipedia) and this link should be kept on mirrors, the format{{srlink|link}} can be used to write the link as external, rather than internal when outside of Wikipedia, to prevent it breaking in mirrors. For instance:Wikipedia's Main Page (made by{{srlink|Main Page|Wikipedia's Main Page}}) as opposed toWikipedia's Main Page ([[Main Page|Wikipedia's Main Page]]).
