User:BappleBusiness/Favorite pages

I have to remind some people of some policies and guidelines all the time. So I'm starting a collection of them right here on my user page! I also cite some essays that seem like common sense to me, so I'm including some here. Also, if I'm ever a hypocrite by breaking the principles in these pages, please point it out!

My subpages

• User:BappleBusiness/Don't let dogs play basketball: The lack of a Wikipedia policy prohibiting an action doesn't mean that action should be tolerated.

Directories and simple explanations

• Help:Introduction, for newbies
• WP:Five pillars, the fundamental principles of Wikipedia
• WP:Project namespace, for help understanding the different types of pages (e.g., policies, guidelines, essays, help pages) in the project namespace
• WP:List of policies, including brief summaries
• WP:List of guidelines, including brief summaries
• Help:Contents
• WP:Manual of Style/Contents
  • WP:Simplified Manual of Style
• Category:Wikipedia information pages
  • Category:Wikipedia supplemental pages
  • Category:Wikipedia how-to
• WP:Essay directory
• Category:Wikipedia humor
• Help:Cheatsheet, a guide to formatting codes

Policies, guidelines, and help pages

• WP:Make technical articles understandable: the content in articles in Wikipedia should be written as far as possible for the widest possible general audience.

• WP:Article size, an overview of the key issues concerning article size
  • WP:SIZERULE: Articles with less than 1 kB of readable prose size should be either expanded or combined with a related page. Articles with over 50 kB of readable prose size may need to be divided, and those with over 100 kB of readable prose size almost certainly should be divided.
• WP:Parenthetical referencing: Inline parenthetical referencing is deprecated on Wikipedia.
• WP:Verifiability: Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable through WP:Reliable sources before you can add it.
• WP:NOTPAPER: Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, but a digital encyclopedia project, so there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover or the total amount of content. However, keeping articles to a reasonable size is important for Wikipedia's accessibility.
• WP:Short description: Most pages should have a concise explanation of the scope of the page, primarily to help users identify the desired article. These descriptions currently appear in Wikipedia mobile and some desktop searches.
  • WP:Shortdesc helper, a gadget for adding, editing, and importing short descriptions
  • WP:SDNOTDEF: A short description is not a definition of the article's subject or a summary of the lead.

Manual of Style

• MOS:Gender-neutral language: Use gender-neutral language where it can be done with clarity and precision.

• MOS:NOBACKREF: Section headings should not redundantly refer back to the subject of the article (e.g., Early life, not Smith's early life).
• MOS:AVOIDBOLD: If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the first sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it.
• MOS:INOROUT: Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark. This follows the "logical quotation" style.
• MOS:WAW: Use italics when writing about words as words, or letters as letters.
  • For help understanding this distinction, see Use–mention distinction.

Explanatory supplements

• WP:Dos and don'ts, information pages that summarize Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and formatting standards in bullet points
• WP:Use common sense: Instead of following every rule, it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing.
  • This principle is based in WP:Ignore all rules, putting it above any policy.

• WP:REFERS: For the vast majority of articles, the introduction should be using a term (Computer architecture is a theory…), rather than mentioning it (Computer architecture refers to a theory…).
  • For help understanding this distinction, see Use–mention distinction.

• WP:Silence and consensus: A weak consensus can often be presumed until disagreement becomes evident.
• WP:Status quo stonewalling: Insistence on keeping a current version, just for the sake of keeping the current version, is disruptive.

Essays

• WP:Editors can change their minds: If an editor changes their mind, don't hold it against them.

• WP:But I'm an administrator!: No editor's argument should be given more weight over another's due to length of tenure or user access level.
• WP:Forgive and forget: Stop fighting. Forgive editors, apologize, and move on.

Humor

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanlon's razor

• WP:Assume stupidity: Assume that people who work on the project do not have a clue about what they are doing.
• WP:Silly Things, a collection of the best humorous occurrences in Wikipedia's history

Resources

• WP:Peer review, where editors can receive feedback on how to improve an article they are working on or receive advice about a specific issue

Other

• MW:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements, the MediaWiki project redesigning the default skin on desktop
  • Vector 2022 has been developed