Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia essays

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] There is nothing actionable here

The only thing which actually does more than describe what essays are is a mention that MFD can be used to delete them, which doesn't need a new guideline for. What is proposed? -Amarkov moo! 05:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Indeed. This is entirely redundant with WP:POL. >Radiant< 09:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Redundancy is non-meaningful; much of the content of Wikipedia guidelines are redundant to others. The WP:POL page only describes the "The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc." It does not do a particularly good job of delineating the utility of essays, or the misuses. The only other place where there is a description of "essays" is at Category:Wikipedia_essays, but category-space is not where guidelines should be placed. --LeflymanTalk 22:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
    • And why would we need a guideline delineating the utility of essays, or the misuses? Is there any particular problem that this proposal intends to alleviate? Is there actually such a thing as "essay misuse", and is it worthwhile to define that term? >Radiant< 08:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stop redirecting this page to the essays category, please

If there's anything wrong with this page as it stands, I'm not aware of it. If you'd like to inform me why it should be redirected, explain here.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 17:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

  • See the section above. >Radiant< 15:16, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Also, you're in essence "claiming" a common term that should point to the definition of that term. I'll fix that, at least. >Radiant< 15:17, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I saw the section above but that was when this page was proposed as a guideline, not when this page was an essay as it stands currently.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 08:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page is also wrong

Essays are not there for freedom of speech. They are there to describe how wikipedia works, just like policies and guidelines. There is something seriously fubared about everyones constant attempts to deprecate the value of essays, especially since people have not been moving or removing essay tags much at all. If we are to actually believe this essay, then we need to start removing many essay tags, as many pages so tagged do not fall under this definition! --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, Rather than tear my hair out, I've edited practically everything. Here's my comments on the original text. (emphasis mine)

Essays on Wikipedia are editor-created opinions on topics that may be relevant to the function and purpose of creating and managing an online encyclopedia. Essays have no formal standing as part of the constellation of rules and policies [1], although some essays have been cited in Articles for Deletion and Request for Comment discussions [2]. In general, essays should only be regarded only as the beliefs of the author or authors of the essay [3], which may or may not be reflective of others' ideas about Wikipedia [4]. Many essays are kept as subpages of particular users, while others have been created or moved into Wikipedia project space (prefixed by "Wikipedia:" or "WP:") to allow greater comment [5]. Being part of Project namespace does not confer more authority for essays [6]; nor does tagging as an essay prevent such content from being edited by others [7]. Like the content of user pages, essays which fail to adhere to the tenants of Wikipedia inappropriate content may be removed or brought to Miscellany for Deletion. [8]

Originally, the Wikimedia Foundations's Meta-wiki began to allow editors to describe their thoughts on Wikipedia in essay format, and many historical essays are contained at Category:Essays. There is ongoing discussion as to whether new essays should be allowed in anywhere except Meta user-space.[9]


The advantage of essays [10]

As an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not only is Wikipedia's content changing all the time, but the policies and guidelines that govern the encyclopedia are too. As such, personal opinions and input surrounding the running of the encyclopedia are highly valued, and while it is difficult for these to gain full consensus and become a policy or guideline, essays allow their authors to have freedom of speech about the encyclopedia and have a great potential to generate new ideas which may in turn have a huge positive influence over Wikipedia as a whole. Thus Wikipedia essays, if they present any views on the encyclopedia, whether positive or negative, should not be deleted as they constitute a valuable resource, unless extremely inappropriate as described above.


  1. ^ nor does anything else, WP:NOT a bureaucracy
  2. ^ and everywhere else
  3. ^ if they should only represent one person's opinion, and you're not even trying to convince others to use the described best practices in the essay, please don't waste our time, we don't want to hear about it. Keep it in your userspace!
  4. ^ so based on previous ref, this is false
  5. ^ Um, they've been moved there so that other people can read them and learn about best practices, I would think
  6. ^ Of course not, it is the consensus between editors that does. (In fact, at times some pages marked "essay" have been more important than some pages marked "policy" at some point in time. The project namespace is constantly playing catch-up with the actual consensus among editors at any point in time.)
  7. ^ NOTHING prevents editing by others, m:foundation issues #3, so that's irrelevant.
  8. ^ As per the founding agreements of WP:MfD, Don't Do That(tm), especially not for long-standing content. We want a historical record of our essays/guidelines/policies. This should be enforced more strongly. Merely closing such MfD's and giving people a slap on the wrist is clearly not good enough. I would have no problem with blocks or even bans.
  9. ^ [citation needed]
  10. ^ This entire section is wrong. Wikipedia does not support free speech. Wikipedia is WP:NOT an anarchy, or a forum for free speech. All speech on wikipedia serves the purpose of writing an encyclopedia. Accept this fact or leave.

Hopefully this covers all the points.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC) I chose an arbitrary format for criticism of text. Is there some standard one could follow?

I haven't scrutinized your changes, but they look to me to be an improvement.--Father Goose (talk) 02:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, now I've scrutinized them. This is as wrong as the other version was. But it is shorter, I'll give you that. The most clearly wrong thing is "The long term intent of any essay is that eventually it will become policy, after all." There are essays that aren't any form of guidance, and never will be, but that still belong in the Wikipedia namespace. The bits about consensus are either contradictory or a tautology, I'm not sure which, and don't explain things well.--Father Goose (talk) 08:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
It was very wrong before. Now it's just not nuanced enough yet. Feel free to {{sofixit}} further. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Roger wilco. No, I don't know who Wilco is and why we're supposed to roger him.--Father Goose (talk) 05:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)