Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid: Difference between revisions
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{{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: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}}
This guideline is about [[self-reference]]s and specifies which types of self-references should be avoided and which kinds are acceptable. A self-reference in an article usually mentions Wikipedia directly or tells readers to take an action on Wikipedia, such as editing the article.
Although self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project should usually be avoided, there are exceptions. Some examples of acceptable self-references are articles about Wikipedia, categories, and maintenance templates.
==Types of self-reference==
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==Self-reference tools==
{{Shortcut|WP:ITSELF}}
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 {{t|for}} and {{t|about}}, support a {{para|selfref}} parameter that gives them the same functionality as {{tlf|Self reference}}, 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>).
==See also==
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