Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an essay, a page containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints, and they may be heeded or not based upon your judgement and discretion. It should be read in conjunction with Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines policy.

Essays on Wikipedia are pages that typically address some aspect of working on or with Wikipedia. Such pages are categorized into Category:Wikipedia essays. Essays may range from personal or minority views to statements that enjoy a wide consensus amongst Wikipedia editors. Unlike policies and guidelines, no formal attempt to gauge their consensus has been made.

Essays that are in the Wikipedia project space (prefixed by "Wikipedia:" or "WP:") should ideally represent a consensus amongst the broad community of Wikipedia editors. Those that reflect the beliefs of a limited number of editors should be edited to present a view more representative of the community. Poor candidates for broadening should be userified — relocated to a subpage of the user that authored them.

The Wikimedia Foundation's Meta-wiki was envisioned as the original place for editors to comment on and discuss Wikipedia, although the "Wikipedia" project space has since taken over most of that role. Many historical essays can still be found within Meta's essay category.