Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. It should be read in conjunction with Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines policy.

Essays on Wikipedia are editor-created pages that typically address some aspect of creating and managing an online encyclopedia. They 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; those that are poor candidates for broadening should be 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.