Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a social networking site

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.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, an online community of people interested in building a high-quality encyclopedia in a spirit of mutual respect. Wikipedia is not, however, a social networking site.

[edit] Discussions

Social networking sites are places where people meet and converse with each other online. A primary example is MySpace. Wikipedia is in no way such a website. While it does have forums for discussion such as the village pump and talk pages, these pages should be used to improve the encyclopedia. Users are expected to contribute to the encyclopedia, and not treat it like a forum.

[edit] User pages

User pages are given to Wikipedia users, and they are allowed to express themselves appropriately on them. However, it is expected of Wikipedia users to do so in a manner that may assist the project and not bring it into disrepute. Statements such as promoting illegal activities (illegal in the United States), hosting copyrighted materials, spouting hatred towards anyone, or political grandstanding should never be put on your Wikipedia user page. This includes creating userboxes and categories meant for use on userpages that promote the same agendas.

Wikipedia users who also make no constructive edits other than to their own user page, user talk page, or the user pages and user talk pages of others face a block as well as their user page deleted if when notified of such do not change their actions.

[edit] See also