This page is considered anofficial guideline on Wikimedia Commons.

It illustrates standards or behaviors which most editors agree with in principle and generally follow. Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use thediscussion page to propose major changes.

This page in a nutshell: Wikimedia Commons is a repository for public domain and freely-licensed educational media content. It is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, or book, and it is not Wikipedia. It is also not a personal web host, social network, or advertising platform. Wikimedia Commons does not censor content but may delete low-quality or non-educational explicit images. It strictly enforces copyright and licensing restrictions, even if copyright holders do not.

Wikimedia Commons is amedia file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to all. It acts as a common repository for the various projects of theWikimedia Foundation.

The project has a particularscope, and there are certain things thatWikimedia Commons is not.

While we can help supply images for one, Wikimedia Commons itself is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, or any sort of written work. Content within these categories should normally go to an appropriateWikimedia site, such asWikipedia orWiktionary for example.

For the policy, seeCOM:PS (Project Scope: Excluded educational content).

Files on Wikimedia Commons do not necessarily need to comply with Wikipedia policies and guidelines such asneutral point of view andno original research. Wikimedia Commons acts amongst other things as a common media file resource for all Wikimedia projects, and we stand apart from the rules that may be imposed locally by each of those individual projects.

For the policy, seeCommons:Project scope/Neutral point of view.

Although we do host media and images on Wikimedia Commons, all content must be withinour project's scope, which requires, among other things, that all media must be realistically useful for an educational purpose. Unless your imagesare educationally useful and in the scope of this project, Wikimedia Commons is not a place to store your vacation photo collection.

For the policy, seeCOM:PS (Project Scope: Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose).

For alternative hosts, seeCommons:Alternative outlets

Using Wikimedia Commons solely to chat with your friends, create personal profiles, etc., is outside Wikimedia Commons' scope. User pages created to assist in communication with other users for the advancement of the project are OK.

For the policy, seeCOM:PSP (Project Scope: User pages, galleries and categories).

As dictated by our scope, content which constitutes advertising or self-promotion may be deleted from Wikimedia Commons.

For the policy, seeCOM:PS (Project scope: Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose). For information about the content of your user page, seeCOM:PSP (Project scope: Non-allowable user page/gallery/category content).

Due to their educational value for the understanding of certain subjects, Wikimedia Commons may host material that some users may find objectionable, distasteful, or offensive for various reasons. Unless the image haspossible personality rights issues, is possibly illegal in the United States, or violates other Wikimedia Commons policy such as ourscope, Wikimedia Commons will not censor or remove media that users find objectionable or offensive. However, the statement "Wikimedia Commons is not censored" is not a valid argument for keeping a file that falls outside the normal permitted Wikimedia Commons scope.

For the policy, seeCOM:PS (Project scope: Censorship) andCommons:Nudity.

Low-quality pornographic images that do not contribute anything educationally useful to our existing collection of images are not needed on Wikimedia Commons. As a result, uploadedlow-quality photographs of genitalia are generally deleted quickly. Deletion of such photographs should nevertheless follow ordinary deletion procedures. If the quality is bad, we may nonetheless keep the file if we have no better file on a subject it can illustrate.

For the policy, seeCOM:PS (Project scope: Censorship) andCOM:PS: Must be realistically useful for an educational purpose. The relevant specific official guideline isCommons:Nudity.

Wikimedia Commons respects copyright and licensing restrictions regardless of whether copyright holders care about enforcing them. Uploading non-free media with excuses such as "the author won't find out", "the author would be glad that we redistributed their work", or similar statements isnot how things work on Wikimedia Commons. We take copyright seriously; any image or media with questionable authorship may get nominated for deletion, and media uploaded without proper permission or licensing information may be speedily deleted.

For the policy, seeCommons:Project scope/Precautionary principle andCommons:Deletion policy.

• Commons guidelines