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Proposal edit
How immovable are these pillars? ....
- In Not just the icons were changed--the links have been fiddled with, there were complaints that the links to the relevant policies could be clearer. For example, in the first pillar the link to WP:NOT appears only after three non essential links; the link to WP:NPOV is called "document and explain major points of view" instead of a more recognizable "neutral point of view", the link to WP:NOR is called "personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions" instead of just "no original research".
First pillar edit
First pillar current vs. proposal
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The current first pillar is especially uninspiring, as has been said before. It looks like the table of contents of WP:NOT more than a description of the first principle. In the proposal, the most fundamental policies are named first and with clear links: WP:VER, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT (WP:NPOV has its own pillar). These are the policies that define Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, and the most important to know for a new editor as well. Atón (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
First pillar discussion edit
Second pillar edit
Second pillar current vs. proposal
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The idea is to dedicate the second pillar only to a description of WP:NPOV. The other core policies (WP:VER and WP:NOR) are already described in the first pillar's proposal. By making it only about WP:NPOV the second pillar gains clarity and strength. Atón (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Second pillar discussion edit
Fourth Pillar edit
Fourth pillar current vs. proposal
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Just a shorter and more structured version of the current pillar. Atón (talk) 13:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Fourth pillar discussion edit
NOR edit
Wikipedia is an enciclopedia and, as such, its aim is to Statements based solely on editor's personal experiences or opinions must not be included in the articles. Together with Neutral Point of View and Verificability, this policy forms the basis of this project.
Primary, secondary and tertiary sources edit
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Primary sources may only be used for Editors are not allowed to make their own analysis or conclusions All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. |
For the purposes of this policy, primary, secondary and tertiary sources are defined as follows:[1]
- Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Primary sources may or may not be independent or third-party sources. An account of a traffic incident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the event; similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources.[2]
Policy: A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person[3]. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source.
- Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
- Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
- Do not add unsourced material from your personal experience, because that would make Wikipedia a primary source of that material. Use extra caution when handling primary sources about living people; see WP:Biographies of living persons § Avoid misuse of primary sources, which is policy.
- A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily independent or third-party sources. They rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them.[4] For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research.[5] Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source about the war, but where it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source about those experiences. A book review too can be an opinion, summary or scholarly review.[6]
Policy: Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source.
- Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source.[7] Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources.
Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other. Some tertiary sources are more reliable than others, and within any given tertiary source, some entries may be more reliable than others. Wikipedia articles may not be used as tertiary sources in other Wikipedia articles, but are sometimes used as primary sources in articles about Wikipedia itself (see Category:Wikipedia and Category:WikiProject Wikipedia articles).
Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages.
All articles and almost all other Wikipedia pages are coupled with a talk page (also known as discussion page), accesible via the 'Talk' tab at the top left of the screen. Here editors discuss improvements to the article or the Wikipedia page in question. User pages also have associated user talk pages, which are used to leave messages for a particular user.
To participate in an ongoing discussion, or create a new topic for discussion, you must edit the Wiki Markup of the page. For a brief introduction on how to use Wiki Markup, see Help:Introduction to editing with Wiki Markup. The process is similar to editing an article, but in talk pages some special format conventions apply—each comment must be signed and threaded conversations must be indented.
This page explains how to add a new comment to a talk page, as well as some format conventions like signatures and indentation.
The information in this page is also applicable to free-form discussion pages like the Help desk, the noticeboards and the Village Pump.
Video introduction edit
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Where to find talk pages edit
When viewing an article (or any other non-talk page), a link to the corresponding talk page appears on the "Talk" tab at the top of the page. Click this tab to switch to the talk page; you can then view the talk page and its history, and edit it if you want to add a question or comment. (The mobile version has a button at the bottom for logged-in users, while apps may have no link.)
If the "Talk" link is red, it means no talk page has been started yet. Click the red link to begin a talk page for that article and follow the instructions in Starting a new thread below.
To go back to the article page from its talk page, use the leftmost tab at the top of the page, labeled "article". For pages other than articles, this tab may say something different, like "user page" or "project page".
Signing your comments edit
When you post a message on a talk page you should always sign and date your comment so other editors can identify you and follow the thread of the conversation. To do this easily, type four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comment, or just click the signature button 
on the row of buttons above the edit box. Once you save the edit, this will be automatically converted into a user signature with a link to your user page, your user talk page, and a time/date stamp. (You can customize your signature using your user preferences.)
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If you choose to contribute without logging in, regardless of whether you have an account, you should still sign your posts. In this case your IP address will take the place of your username, and will link to your contributions history.
Starting a new thread edit
To discuss a topic that’s not already covered on the article or talk page, start a new thread.
- Click on the “New section” link at the top of the talk page screen.
- Be sure to enter a section header in the “Subject/headline” box with a suitable title, preferably not something generic like "Question" or "Problem".
- Sign. At the end of your post, type four tildes (~~~~), which will automatically add your user name and the date.
- Click “Save page”
A new section can also be started by editing the whole page or an existing section, going to a new line and typing == Heading ==, replacing "Heading" with a suitable title, but make sure to add new discussions at the bottom of the page. A new section automatically adds the heading to the "Contents" box on pages with at least four sections.
Replying to an existing thread edit
To respond to a discussion already in progress:
- Click the “Edit” link on on the right end of the bar of the section you want to reply to.
- Add your comment below the last entry in the discussion. If you want to respond to a specific comment, you can place your response directly below it. Use a colon (:) to indent your message to create a threaded message. See Indentation below for more information on indenting talk pages with colons.
- Sign. Type four tildes (~~~~), which will automatically add your user name and the date.
- Click “Save page”
Indentation edit
Indentation is used to keep talk pages readable. Comments are indented using one or more initial colons (:), each colon representing one level of indentation. Each comment should be indented one more level than the comment they are replying to. For example:
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== Header == The first posting in a section will have no colons before it. ~~~~ :The reply to the first posting is indented one level. ~~~~ ::The reply to the second comment should be indented one more level. It doesn't matter if it's made by the same editor who did the first posting, it still gets indented one more level. ~~~~ |
Header
The first posting in a section will have no colons before it. Editor 1 (talk) 10:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC) |
Avoid placing double line breaks (i.e. empty lines) between indented lines of text, since this can create problems for users of screen reader software (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility § Indentation).
Some pages (deletion discussions, for example) use asterisks rather than colons for indentation. Generally colons and asterisks should not be mixed; if you see asterisks are being in use in a page, use them as well.
Notifications edit
You can address specific users direcly either by leaving a message in their user talk page or by mentioning them in any other talk page (see mentioning users below). In both cases, they will be notified with an alert. Alerts are displayed by a bell and a red badge—indicating the number of recent notifications—at the top right of the screen, next to the username.
The details of the received alerts can be seen by clicking the bell icon or visiting Special:Notifications. Note that only registered users can receive notifications.
User talk pages edit
Mentioning users edit
You can notify other editors in a discussion by linking to their user page in your post. To do this easily you can use the template {{Reply to|Username}}, which renders @Username:. For example, to reply and notify Editor 1 you should use the following code:
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@Editor 1: Message text. Username (talk) 10:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC) |
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Make sure to sign your post in the same edit in which you use this template, otherwise it won't work. Note that you cannot directly type the "@" symbol to notify a user, you must use this template or manually create a wikilink to their user page. |
You have new messages edit
You will be notified when someone else edits your user talk page or notifies you with the {{Reply to}} template. Since 30 April 2013, registered users have received this notification through the Wikipedia:Notifications system (see image right); unregistered users still receive notifications with the old-style Orange Bar. Registered users wishing to add back the functionality of the Orange Bar notification may do so through this script.
For users not editing with an account (unregistered users), the alert below is automatically displayed on all pages until you view your user talk page. If you click "new messages" it will direct you to the bottom of your talk page. If you click "last change" it will show you the last edit done to your talk page.
You can find a bell and a tray icon at the top right of the screen, next to your username. These icons, grey by default, turn black when you recieve a new notification. A red or blue badge indicates the number of new notifications.
  
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A bell with a red badge indicates that you have a new alert. This means that someone has mentioned you in a conversation (using a suitable link to your user page) or left a message in your user talk page. You also recieve an alert if one of your edits is reverted. |
 
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A tray with a blue badge indicates that you have recieved a notice from Wikipedia, or someone has thanked one of your edits. |
For more information on notifications see mw:Help:Notifications
User talk pages edit
Advanced edit
Subpages and archiving edit
Sometimes particular topics generate a disproportionate amount of traffic on a talk page. It may be decided to remove discussion of those topics to a subpage of the talk page. To do this, create a page titled "Talk:Xxx/Yyy", where "Talk:Xxx" is the name of the main talk page, and "Yyy" indicates the topic of the subpage. Leave a note at the top of the main talk page linking to any subpages.
On talk pages that generate significant amounts of discussion, old discussions are often archived to keep the size of the talk page at a manageable level. This may be done either manually or with the help of a bot. An archive box with links to the discussion archives is normally placed at the top of the current talk page.
Assorted talk page boxes and graphics edit
Quotations edit
To highlight quoted material of other editors' comments or from an article or source, you may use the template {{talk quotation}} (a.k.a. {{tq}}). By default, the template will change the given text to serif typeface and green color
. For block quotations that break onto their own line, or contain paragraph breaks, you can use {{talkquote}} instead. Please note that these two quotation templates should not be used on articles; their use is restricted to talk pages and Wikipedia process pages, e.g. noticeboards.
Talk page graphics and icons edit
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See also edit
- Help:Introduction to talk pages (quick introduction)
- "Communicating with Your Fellow Editors" (a chapter in Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, very recommended read)
- ^ This University of Maryland library page provides typical examples of primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
- ^
Further examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, investigative reports, trial/litigation in any country (including material — which relates to either the trial or to any of the parties involved in the trial — published/authored by any involved party, before, during or after the trial), editorials, columns, blogs, opinion pieces, or (depending on context) interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; ancient works, even if they cite earlier writings (lost or otherwise); tomb plaques; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos and television programs. For definitions of primary sources:
- The University of Nevada, Reno Libraries define primary sources as providing "an inside view of a particular event". They offer as examples: original documents, such as autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, and speeches; creative works, such as art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry; and relics or artifacts, such as buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry, pottery.
- The University of California, Berkeley library offers this definition: "Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs). They reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period".
- Duke University, Libraries offers this definition: "A primary source is a first-hand account of an event. Primary sources may include newspaper articles, letters, diaries, interviews, laws, reports of government commissions, and many other types of documents."
- ^ And any exceptional claim would require exceptional sources.
- ^ University of California, Berkeley library defines "secondary source" as "a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is generally at least one step removed from the event".
- ^ The Ithaca College Library compares research articles to review articles. Be aware that either type of article can be both a primary and secondary source, although research articles tend to be more useful as primary sources and review articles as secondary sources.
- ^ Book reviews may be found listed under separate sections within a news source or might be embedded within larger news reports. Multiple coverage in book reviews is considered one of the notability criteria for books; book reviews should be considered as supporting sources in articles about books. Avoid using book reviews as reliable sources for the topics covered in the book; a book review is intended to be an independent review of the book, the author and related writing issues than be considered a secondary source for the topics covered within the book. For definitions of book reviews:
- Princeton's Wordnet 2011 scholarly definitions repository defines book review as "a critical review of a book (usually, [of] a recently published book)."
- VirginiaTech University Libraries provides the following definition: "A book review is an article that is published in a newspaper, magazine or scholarly work that describes and evaluates a book... Reviews differ from literary critiques of books. Critiques explore the style and themes used by an author or genre."
- ^ While it is a tertiary source, Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source for Wikipedia articles; see WP:Verifiability § Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it, and WP:Identifying reliable sources § User-generated content.