Wikipedia:Noticeboards
This is aninformation page. It is not anencyclopedic article,nor one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines;rather, its purpose is to explain certain aspects of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect differing levels ofconsensusandvetting. |
NoticeboardsonWikipediaare places where editors can ask questions and request assistance from people who are familiar with the policies and guidelines covered by each individual board. They are to be used for specific problems that editors encounter in writing and maintaining Wikipedia articles. Posting a message to a noticeboard can also be an appropriate early step inresolving disputes on Wikipedia.Noticeboards are best used for simple and urgent matters. If an editor needs a more complex response, and is willing to wait for it, theWP:Requests for commentprocess may be more suitable.
Noticeboards are not places to advocate for change to Wikipedia's existing policies. Instead, such suggestions should be taken directly to the talk page of the applicable policy or guideline. Noticeboards are also not good places to recruit more editors to work with you. If you want to edit collaboratively, try posting a message at a relevantWP:WikiProjectinstead.
If you need general help with creating and editing articles on Wikipedia, tryWikipedia:Questions.New editors may find theWikipedia:Contributing to Wikipediapage a valuable resource. If you want feedback on an article that you have planned, or that you have recently made major changes to, try theTeahouseorhelp desk.
If you have a question about an encyclopedic subject, leave a note for theWikipedia:Reference desk.
Suggestions for success
[edit]Posting a message at a noticeboard does not guarantee a response. Editors are more likely to respond to straightforward questions from friendly, productive editors. If you want to increase your odds of receiving a constructive response, try this:
- Messages should be concise.Long diatribes or sprawling monologues are likely to be ignored or dismissed as"Too long, didn't read".Provide links to the relevant articles and diffs. Try to frame your issue as a specific, direct question: "Can this source be used to support this statement?" "Is this an acceptable external link for this article?" "Do you think this editor's account should be blocked for vandalism?" Some noticeboards have standardized formats for common requests; read and follow the directions to the best of your ability.
- Be civil.Sarcasm, slurs, and snide remarks should be avoided at all costs. If you are dealing with a heated dispute or are very frustrated, make an effort to present your question with a calm, detached, professional demeanor. See Wikipedia's pages oncivilityandpersonal attacksfor additional advice. If the editors that respond to you disagree with you, don't argue with them — but do, if necessary, correct any factual misunderstandings or request further clarification.
- Sign and dateall contributions, by appending four tildes "~~~~" to the end of every message. This simplifies page administration by allowing automatic archiving of older messages.
- Watch the page.Editors responding to your message are most likely to reply at the noticeboard.
Responding to requests
[edit]Any editor familiar with the relevant policies, guidelines, or procedures is encouraged to respond to requests on noticeboards. Responses that are direct, informed, concrete, and specific are particularly appreciated by editors that post questions. Some questions benefit from responses by multiple editors. Replies are generally given at the noticeboard; if you respond on another page, it may be helpful to leave a link to your response for the convenience of other editors at the noticeboard.
List
[edit]
Select the noticeboard most closely connected to the question you have. Avoid posting the same situation to more than one noticeboard at a time. If an issue crosses boundaries, such as aWP:BLPissue involvingvandalism,then choose one or the other, and if necessary, post a very brief message at the other board to point interested editors to the first noticeboard.
Incidents for administrator attention
[edit]- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard:coordinating and discussing tasks carried out by Wikipediaadministrators.
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents:for reporting incidents requiring urgent attention by administrators.
- Wikipedia:Administrative action review:A noticeboard where administrative actions by administrators and the use of other advanced user rights can be discussed and reviewed by the community.
- Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring:for reportingedit warringandthree-revert ruleviolations.
- Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism:for reportingvandalismrequiringimmediateadministrator intervention.
Bureaucrats, VRT, Arbitration
[edit]- Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard:to assistBureaucratson project-related activities.
- Wikipedia:VRT noticeboard:Wikimedia'svolunteer response team(VRT) handles copyright permissions, email inquiries from the public, reuse inquiries, article errors, and a wide range of non-public inquiries.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard:for announcements and statements made by theArbitration Committee.
- Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard:for discussing the aforementioned announcements and statements made by the Arbitration Committee.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests:request Arbcom cases, clarification and amendment.
- Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement:request administrator enforcement of Arbcom decisions.
Other administrator assistance
[edit]- Wikipedia:Closure requests:is for posting requests to have an uninvolved editorassess, summarize, and formally close a discussionon Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:Requests for oversight:suppress edits that breach somebody's privacy, or defame somebody.
- Wikipedia:Requests for page protection:for requesting that a page, file or template be protected.
- Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations:for requesting for an investigation on whether two or more Wikipedia accounts are beingabusively operated by the same person.
- Wikipedia:Requests for permissions:for requesting changes inuser access levels
- Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxiesseeks to identify, verify and block open proxies and anonymity network exit nodes.
- Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention:for usernames that are such blatant and serious problems that they need to be immediately blocked.
- MediaWiki talk:Titleblacklist:title and user name blacklist requests.
Mergers, splits, and moves
[edit]- Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers:lists proposals merge articles
- Wikipedia:Proposed article splits:lists proposals to split articles
- Wikipedia:Requested moves:for requesting the retitling (moving) of an article, template, or project page on Wikipedia (butnot a category)
- Wikipedia:Requests for history merge:proposals for mergers of page edit-histories
- Wikipedia:Requests for page importation:requests that pages beimported with edit-historyfrom otherWikimedia Foundationwikis to English Wikipedia
Content dispute resolution
[edit]- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/All:an informal process for requesting outside input concerning disputes, policies, guidelines, article content, or user conduct.
- Wikipedia:Third opinion:Third opinion (3O) is a means to request an outside opinion in a content or sourcing disagreement between two editors.
- Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard:to help resolve general disputes between editors.
- Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard:about maintaining Wikipedia's high standards for statements aboutliving peoplein any kind of article.
- Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard:aboutWP:Conflicts of interest.
- Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard:about selection and location ofWP:External links(linksnotused to verify article content).
- Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard:aboutWP:Fringe theories.
- Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard:about achieving and maintaining aneutral point of viewin articles.
- Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard:aboutsynthesisand other kinds ofWP:Original research.
- Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard:about identifying and correctly usingreliable sourcestoverify article content
Copyright and spam
[edit]- Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations:to identify users who have repeatedly introduced copyright violations.
- Wikipedia:Copyright problems:for listing and discussing possible copyright problems involving text on Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:Media copyright questions:a place for help with image copyrights, tagging, non-free content, and related questions.
- Wikipedia:Files for discussion:for reviewing compliance withnon-free content criteriafor media.
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam:for reports ofspam.
- MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist:spam blacklist requests.
- MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist:spam whitelist requests.
User and article sanctions
[edit]- Wikipedia:General sanctions:sanctions for editing certain articles inappropriately.
- Wikipedia:Editing restrictions:restrictions on particular users' behavior.
- Wikipedia:Long-term abuse:summarises a limited number of long term abusers.
Other editor assistance and debates
[edit]- Wikipedia:Teahouse:a friendly place to help new editors become accustomed to Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:Help desk:for questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style:for questions about Wikipedia writing style (tone, spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, layout, images, linking, etc.)
- Wikipedia:Education noticeboard:discussions relating to student assignments and the Wikipedia Education Program.
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk:for questions about article submissions to Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request:requests for sharing the vast resources available to Wikipedians.
- Wikipedia:Village pump:a set of pages used to discuss the technical issues, policies and operations of Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab):to discuss ideas and solutions to issues before proposing them to the community.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy):to discuss existing and proposed policies.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals):to discuss new proposals that are not policy-related.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (technical):to discuss technical issues.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous):for messages that do not fit into any of the other categories.
- Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF):to discuss topics and ideas related to theWikimedia Foundation
- Wikipedia:Discussions for discussion:for discussion closers to discuss their evaluation of consensus in preparation for closing specific discussions.
Other support
[edit]- Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard:a message board for coordinating and discussingbot-relatedissues on Wikipedia (also including other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software).
- Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard:for coordination and discussion ofedit filteruse and management.
- Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors:to report an error you have noticed on today's or tomorrow's Main Page.
See also
[edit]- For ongoing discussions and current requests, seeWikipedia:Dashboard.
- Wikipedia:Village pump
- Wikipedia:Negotiation
- Wikipedia:Mediation
- Wikipedia:Requests
- Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects
- Wikipedia:Regional notice boards