Wikipedia talk:Ten simple rules for editing Wikipedia

Attribution

This article is from Logan DW, Sandal M, Gardner PP, Manske M, Bateman A (2010) Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia. PLoS Comput Biol 6(9): e1000941. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000941.
© 2010 Logan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This essay is also available as a PDF at File:Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia.pdf

Simplicity

I appreciate simplicity. If the policies get too complex, you end up needing lawyers to interpret the policies. Please keep the policies simple so that inexperienced Wikipedia editors, who may very well be experts at the edit they want to make, are not overrun by ignorant editors who are experts in Wikipedia policies. Campoftheamericas (talk) 03:04, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Attribution to Wikijournal

Hi fellows! I intend to translate this to portuguese, but I'm little confused with the attribution to the article Lysenin from WikiJournal of Science. I did not see the relation with the orginal PLOS paper. Could you help me? Cheers! Ixocactus (talk) 19:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Template:Academic peer reviewed is not displaying the correct info in this article

@Evolution and evolvability: In 2016, you replaced this article's original attribution with {{Academic peer reviewed}} but that template doesn't appear to be working correctly now: I see a reference to "Lysenin" in WikiJournal of Science instead of the correct reference. Do you see what I am seeing, and if so, can you fix it? Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Biogeographist: Aha, thanks for spotting. The template draws its information from wikidata (in this case wikidata:Q21145331), so in the absence of that Q number it was providing the default test Q number rather than indicating an error. I've now fixed! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 22:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Very nice! Thank you! Ixocactus (talk) 17:57, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

"material you own"

use material you own This should probably be use material you own the copyrights to, but I don't know if it's okay to change this page. Ovinus (talk) 10:04, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Use the material you own copyrights to Sir Waswa Emmanuel (talk) 19:47, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Ok Sir Waswa Emmanuel (talk) 19:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

We need to revise the Rule 1 Register an account

To the Wikipedia staff and users, regarding Rule 1 Register an account.

The line "Although any visitor can edit Wikipedia" needs to be changed to "No visitors can edit Wikipedia" and here's my reasoning for it. Over the past 20 years from the 2000s to the 2020s I've noticed in the news articles about visitors including POV, Pushers with Agendas, online pranksters attacking, and vandalizing Wikipedia articles and it's gotten out of control. The reason why I want to make it a requirement for people on Wikipedia to be required to be account Wikipedia members online is because our Wikipedia articles are more vulnerable to unwanted or misleading information or website spam links. In the future we need to change our Wikipedia policy so that Rule 1 Register an account needs be changed to be Rule 1 Requirement to Register an account. And also, so we can make sure that the signed users are obeying the rules.

Let me know if we can revise Rule 1 Register an account to Rule 1 Requirement to Register an account. because unsigned visitors have not been respectful on Wikipedia article edits lately in the 2020s. By the way I'm sorry I didn't read the rules earlier concerning copyright images the past few years. I'll be careful not to upload copyrighted images on Wikipedia. CrosswalkX (talk) 13:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Having a requirement for an account to edit is a perennial request - and it'll likely never pass. There is no change required here. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:55, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Merge

This should be merged with Wikipedia:Eight simple rules for editing our encyclopedia.

Immutable copies of papers published elsewhere belong on Wikisource, and can be referenced from the merged essay. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:59, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Support merge thetechie@wikimedia: ~/talk/ $ 14:25, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merge. While the names may be similar their content is different. Maybe rename one instead. 91.223.100.28 (talk) 17:59, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

How would renaming address "copies of papers published elsewhere belong on Wikisource"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:39, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merge, same as above. If you were to merge them at least combine the two. User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 06:18, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

"If you were to merge them at least combine the two." This is exactly what "merge" means. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:39, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

But sometimes things get left out. I don't want that to happen. (let's say that the two get merged and someone wants to make them 15 simple rules and not 18, then 3 rules would get left out. That is the reason for my comment.) User Page Talk Contributions Sheriff U3 18:44, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merge. I intentionally recently suggested someone read this page instead of Wikipedia:Eight simple rules for editing our encyclopedia because the latter is not as well-written and it picks a weird subset of concepts that is not as helpful to newcomers in 2024. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merge

The first one has eight points while the second one has ten points. If the points were to be combined, I could understand the merge but until the game plan is explained, I must oppose. Reader of Information (talk) 02:15, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Support merge, and theoretically combine/simplify some of these rules to try and get below 8. WP:TRIFECTA seems very close to what I'd like to have, but is missing a rule for "discuss on talk"/"defer to consensus". I've tried drafting a short ruleset at WP:Trifecta/Simple rules draft, in case anyone wants to take a look. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Soft redirect to the Wikisource; my initial proposal assumed this was a Wikipedia essay, not a published paper. Given it's a published paper, it should be in Wikisource, not on Wikipedia. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

As Andy suggested, see wikisource:Ten Simple Rules For Editing Wikipedia. Fences&Windows 12:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose merge. These are completely different pages — the eight rules one is more similar to Trifecta. Well very well (talk) 15:13, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Given that this is now on Wikisource I have redirected this page rather than merging, and will add a "see also" to the target page, pointing to the version on Wikisource. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

This page wasn't exactly "immutable", but maybe it would be better to have a soft redirect to the real content instead of an automatic redirect to a page that says quite different things. I discovered that you blanked and redirected this today, when I was recommending the original to someone. The new target is not what I need the new editor to read. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

The current page has its own content and a "see also" for "10". A soft redirect would remove one of those options. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

A soft redirect would send the person to the content that I actually want them to read, which is not at WP:8. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I've undone the edit. This is a longstanding essay. The other essay is, em, another essay. With different content. Different audience. And the above discussion does not by any stretch of the imagination constitute community consensus. Suggest if you want to replace longstanding essays with other essays, you attain a bigger audience at VP or similar. -- Colin°^Talk 09:43, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Comment: This merge discussion hasn't been active for at least 5 months now, but I'm guessing that the intent behind it would be that the entries of both lists on both pages would become a single list. 1isall (talk/contribs) 22:49, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Support merge – per Closed Limelike Curves FaviFake (talk) 13:07, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand the merge votes. When I send people to this page, I'm usually looking at a fairly specific problem. I want them to see something like "Rule 5. Do not infringe copyright", but copyvio is not mentioned at all in Wikipedia:Eight simple rules for editing our encyclopedia. Or "Rule 6. Cite, cite, cite", which does not exist in WP:EIGHT. WP:EIGHT barely mentions reliable sources at all, and then only in the sense of "anything potentially controversial or likely to be challenged", with a focus on BLPs. I'm not telling newbies to read this because of politics articles; I'm sending newbies to this page when they're writing about medical content. I'm sending people to this page because I want them to cite everything, and because I want them to cite secondary sources instead of bleeding edge unconfirmed original research.

An actual merge of these two pages would probably result in 14 items, since there is relatively little overlap between the two. Register an account? Missing from WP:EIGHT. Any mention of the Wikipedia:Five pillars? Missing from WP:EIGHT. Link to Wikipedia:Be bold? Missing from WP:EIGHT. Recommendation to "Know your audience" and Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable? Not in WP:EIGHT. Reminder that you might be a real-world expert, but we don't care? I'm not seeing it in WP:EIGHT.

The same is true if you compare the other direction: WP:10SIMPLERULES doesn't talk about AGF, IAR, BLP, BATTLEGROUND, and so forth. The only similarities between the two is in the formatting and the page title. They are otherwise very different, non-interchangeable pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

So whichever one we send people to, they are missing something they would get if the two pages were combined. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:43, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree. However, the goal of merging seems to be making the pages even shorter (e.g., "combine/simplify some of these rules to try and get below 8"), and an actual merge will make the result longer. 10SIMPLE is about 1750 words, and EIGHT is 475 (almost entirely different) words. Combining them is not going to produce a shorter page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

The phrase you quote—or anything like it—appears nowhere in the original post where I proposed merging them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:10, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

It is the only reason given by the supporters of your proposal.

About two months after you said you were proposing a merge that was not a blank and redirect, your actual actions were to blank and redirect without merging. Do you think I should be paying more attention to your words or to your actions in this situation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

I blanked and redirected one document because it is a supposedly immutable copy of an external publication that is already hosted, more correctly, on Wikisource (a fact of which I was not aware when I made my OP). That does not preclude its content also being merged into the other document. There is no lack of congruity in the two actions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:50, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

They look incongruous to me. You wanted to merge this away, you said you wouldn't just blank it, and as soon as you found an excuse to blank it, you blanked it without merging anything. If you really wanted to merge it, you could have merged and redirected in February, instead of blanking and redirecting in February.

I would be interested in hearing why you believe that Ten Simple and Eight Simple should be merged. For example, do you think that Eight Simple needs to have a recommendation to create an account? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I didn't blank it, I redirected it. And where did I say that anyway?

They should be merged because "whichever one we send people to, they are missing something they would get if the two pages were combined."

I think what gets included in the merged version is a matter for the community to decide; that's why I started this discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:12, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

It sounds like you want a single longer page, the two merge supporters who explained their reasoning want a single shorter page, and a majority doesn't want the two pages merged at all.

Do you think it will be possible to make everyone happy here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Understand your source

This seems as good a place as any to comment. I have increasing taken to checking sourced information in wikipedia articles. It is worrying to see how many people misrepresent what the source is saying. This isn't about obvious mischief makers or troublemakers, it's about editors who cannot read and understand what a source is saying. Or, if they do understand, they are unable to re-word it so that what they write distorts or misrepresents what the original source is saying. I would say this happens around 25%-50% of the time, which is an appalling situation. I am not sure how this problem fits into the 10 rules, but it should be there somewhere. What is concerning in particular is that it isn't about somebody delving into an area they know little about, it's about editors' ability to read and understand English. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:09, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

The intended 'audience' for this essay is subject-matter experts, especially in the hard sciences. Subject-matter experts should presumably know what the source is saying, though they might struggle to explain it in plain English.

A lot of your edits seem to be in history, geography, politics, and similar subjects. Are you finding the problems in those articles? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, they are my areas of interest. However, as I said, the problem is not subject specific. One cause seems to be editors with a preconceived opinion about something and then looking for a source to confirm that opinion. They will find a source that broadly mentions the subbject, usually with a couple of key words, and then don't read it properly before adding it to a sentence they have just written. Whatever, it is interesting to see how often sources do not actually confirm what is written. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 19:45, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Here is an example. To summarise, many Cornwall related article say that the Cornish language and people are officially recognised by the UK government as endangered or as a minority national group. They use as a source a European treaty that the UK is party. This is wp:synth. The UK govt does not recognise Cornish, it recognises the treaty. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:23, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

• SYNTH is about combining sources to produce a conclusion that isn't in any source, which means that SYNTH requires the Wikipedia editor to use at least two sources. If the only source they're using is "a European treaty that the UK is party", then it's not SYNTH, because one source + nothing = not a combination of multiple sources.
• I'm not sure that "recognizing a treaty" is a typical English idiom. Is the UK a party to the treaty? Or is this just something they recognize as existing?
• Also, as I've learned in other contexts, "government" doesn't mean the same thing in the UK and the US. So I think that to figure out the truth value of any statement about "the UK govt", you'd have to tell me whether you mean "the state" or "the Starmer government" or something else.

But mostly I wonder whether the problem could (and should) be solved by changing the "They use as a source" bit. Why not use other sources? For example:

• "In 2014, the Cornish were officially recognised by the UK government as a 'national minority' under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities."[1]
• "In 2014, the UK government recognised the Cornish as a national minority."[2]
• "Similarly, in 2014 'national minority status' was granted to the Cornish by the British government..."[3]

One of the important things about Wikipedia:No original research is that OR requires that there be no source in the entire world that says this. OR is conclusively disproven by the existence of any single source "somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online" (to quote the policy), regardless of whether that source is cited in the article at this time. I've just given you three books that say this, and there appear to be plenty more available; therefore, it cannot be OR.

If the editors are writing "the Cornish people are recognised by the UK government as having 'national minority status'", and they list the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities itself inside the little blue clicky number, then (on the assumption that said document does not actually say "the Cornish are hereby recognized by the UK government" somewhere in it), then that statement is improperly cited, but it is not any type of original research. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt reply. My "to summarise" remark could have been been written in more depth for those who don't understand what was being said, I suppose. However, plenty of readers will take from my summary the underlying message, without any great struggle. 'Recognise the treaty' is for effect, to contrast with 'recognise the language'. Its meaning is quite clear. The meaning of the 'UK govt' is also quite clear but I understand that some people might interpret it in their own way. Perhaps 'The Crown' would be better, although that might be unnecessarily precise in context here, and even create further further confusion for some readers. There are numerous sources being used to confirm the UK govt, or the Crown, has given Cornish an official status. Those sources all work their way back to the European Charter, which is why I mentioned that charter, without adding the sources. Your (3) link is useful (I cannot copy and paste, so readers can check themselves.) Using it to show that Cornish has been granted official status in the UK as you seem to be doing (which can only be done by the govt/Crown), is not what it says. It is sources like this that say one thing that are combined with sources that say something else such as, for example, 'Cornish has official status in the UK just like Welsh' that creates a synthesized statement of supposedly referenced fact. Note such phrases in your source 3: "ostensibly affording..." and "under the aegis of..." I'm glad that you too recognise the importance of choosing words carefully. I pay special attention to that skill when editing an article main page and am less precise on a talk page. But, back to my point, you have neatly illustrated how easy it is for editors, even experienced editors, to misrepresent what a source is saying. I will now check to see if this page is in fact the best place to raise my concerns. The title suggest it is. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:00, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if your original explanation was incomplete. What I see in this conversation looks like moving the goalposts:

• You complained that "many Cornwall related article say that the Cornish...people are officially recognised by the UK government as...a minority national group"
• I provide you with a book that says "the UK government recognised the Cornish as a national minority", which is so close to the statement you're complaining about that someone might argue that it's Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing.
• Now you say that the real problem is twofold:
  1. a book that literally says Cornish is recognized thusly by the UK government does not mean what it says, and
  2. Wikipedia editors are saying "Cornish has official status in the UK just like Welsh" – a comparison that was not mentioned in your original statement – and that therefore this source doesn't verify that specific comparison and therefore no reliable source in the entire world has ever made that comparison (=because that's what SYNTH and OR actually mean).

If you'd like to try a different forum, then Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard is the best place to ask about specific article content, and Wikipedia talk:No original research is the best place to ask about how to make the policy clearer to people like you.

I suggest that in future conversations, that every time you write words like "is original research", you mentally substitute the words "has never been published in any reliable source, in any language, anywhere in the world, ever", and see if your sentence still means what you intend. If it doesn't, then you should not claim that it's OR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 2 September 2025 (UTC)