 | This page documents an English Wikipediacontent guideline. 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: Warnings should not generally appear in articles. All articles are already covered by the Wikipedia disclaimers. |
For the purpose of this guideline, adisclaimer is some text or template within an article that editors may attempt to insert as a warning to readers. Although suchcontent warnings havefrequently been proposed, community consensus is that disclaimers donot belong in encyclopedia articles and should be deleted.
Warnings are often redundant withthe standard Wikipedia disclaimers. Were they to be permitted, they could create a false sense of security, by creating a misleading impression that all potentially problematic content is flagged, and therefore that articles without disclaimers are inherently "safe". The community consensus to ban such warnings also avoids time-consuming debates over culturally subjective issues such as what constitutes "adult content". By longstanding policy,Wikipedia is not censored.
Every Wikipedia page includes, right at the bottom, a link to theWikipedia:General disclaimer (Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity), which itself provides further links to five other standard disclaimers that apply to all articles:
Here are some examples of unacceptable disclaimers. These are not permitted in articles, whether in template form (as illustrated here) or as text:
 | Spoiler alert This article contains spoilers. |
| Warning This article containsvulgar, profane, or otherwise offensive language. |
| Content warning This article contains media that may potentially trigger seizures for those diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy. |
| Malware warning Opening this link may expose you tomalware. |
 | This article contains content that is suitable only for ages 18 and older. Viewer discretion is advised. |
Certain specific warnings are considered acceptable.
