Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid: Difference between revisions

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{{redirect|WP:SELF}}

{{about|text that mentions Wikipedia (i.e., a "self-reference")|the guideline on autobiographies|Wikipedia:Autobiography|self-published sources|WP:SPS|the guideline against using Wikipedia articles as references|WP:CIRCULAR}}

{{style-guideline|MOS:SELFREF|WP:ASR|WP:SRTA|WP:SELF|type=style guideline}}

{{guideline in a nutshell|Wikipedia's [[free content]] is reused in many places: do not assume that the reader is reading Wikipedia, or indeed any website. Articles may refer to themselves, but they shouldn't refer to Wikipedia in a non-neutral fashion except under special circumstances.}}

{{style}}

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===''Note that ...'', ''It is important to ...'', ''What is ...?'', ''Surprisingly ...'', ''Of course ...''===

{{anchor|Note that ...|Note that|NOTETHAT}}

{{shortcut|WP:4WALL|WP:4THWALL}}

{{main|Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Instructional and presumptuous language}}

{{see also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Editorializing}}

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{{anchor|Think about print}}

{{Shortcut|WP:CLICKHERE}}

Although [[WP:NOTPAPER|Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia]], articles should be written in a manner that facilitates transmission in other forms such as print, spoken word, and via a [[screen reader]]. So terms such as "this article" are preferable to "this webpage", and phrases like [[Click here (user interface message)|"click here" should be avoided]]. In determining what language is most suitable, it may be helpful to imagine writing the article for a print encyclopedia.

===''Free content projects, such as this website ...'' (writing about Wikipedia itself)===

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* Articles where Wikipedia, or an individual incident related to it, is illustrative of the subject, such as [[virtual community]], [[encyclopedia]] and [[Streisand effect]]

===''This article was criticized by ...'' (articles are about their subjects, not this website)===

{{See also|WPWikipedia:Navel-gazing}}

{{anchor|Articles are about their subjects}}

{{Shortcut|WP:SUBJECT}}

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so its articles are about their subjects; they are <em>not</em> about the articles themselves. This means that even if an article itself becomes famous, that article should not report this about itself.

For example, a discussion of [[Stephen Colbert (character)|Stephen Colbert]]'s call for vandalism of the [[ElephntElephant]] article might be appropriately mentioned in the article on ''[[The Colbert Report]]'', but not in the article inon sakopelephants, because elephants have nothing to do with Stephen Colbert. Protests regarding depictions of Muhammad in Wikipedia's [[MuhdMuhammad]] article are <em>not</em> addressed in that article (which is about the prophet Muhammad), but rather in the article [[Depictions of Muhammad]].

A mention of Wikipedia by a notable person is unlikely to justify a mention in their Wikipedia article; such a mention would have to reflect its [[WP:DUE|importance in the person's overall body of work]]. For example, a radio host mention INGmentioning that he read his Wikipedia biography is not normally an important event in his overall career. On the other hand, the media attention surrounding [[John Seigenthaler#Wikipedia biography incident|John Seigenthaler]]'s Wikipedia entry became [[Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident|significant]] in his public life.

If it may be helpful to the community to link to [[WP:press coverage|press coverage]] about an article, this can be done in the article's talk page using the [[Template:Press|<nowiki>{{Press}}</nowiki>]] banner template.

==In templates and categories {{anchor|In the Template and Category namespaces}}==

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The self-reference template, {{tlx|selfref}}, is used to mark pieces of text and links that wouldn't make sense on copies of Wikipedia. This gives the ability to programmatically remove all such references or transform them into external links. Thus, the end product can have all of its self-references removed automatically for users, such as forks and mirrors. This template is most often used as a [[Wikipedia:Hatnote|hatnote template]] to help guide editors from an article to a related Wikipedia policy or guideline page in the [[Wikipedia:Project namespace|Wikipedia project namespace]].

Many hatnote templates that ''do'' contain helpful preset text and linking, such as {{ttlx|for}} and {{ttlx|about}}, support a {{para|selfref}} parameter that gives them the same functionality as <code>{{tlf|Self referenceselfref}}</code>, making them better options in most circumstances.

In cases where a Wikipedia page should link to Wikipedia itself (for instance, at [[Wikipedia]]) and this link should be kept on mirrors, the format {{tlx|srlink|link}} can be used to write the link as external, rather than internal when outside of Wikipedia, to prevent it breaking in mirrors. For instance: {{srlink|Main Page|Wikipedia's Main Page}} (made by <code><nowiki>{{srlink|Main Page|Wikipedia's Main Page}}</nowiki></code>) as opposed to [[Main Page|Wikipedia's Main Page]] (<code><nowiki>[[Main Page|Wikipedia's Main Page]]</nowiki></code>).

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* [[Wikipedia:Double redirects]]

{{Style wide}}

[[Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (content)|Self-references to avoid]]