This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Scope is what you can expect to find in Wikipedia and its articles. Wikipedia is not intended to include everything.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias summarize knowledge, rather than try to contain all of it. While the promotional slogan "the sum of all human knowledge" is sometimes used to describe Wikipedia or its goal, that is an exaggeration. The world's knowledge is vast. Bigger than the collections of all libraries. Larger than the works of all publishing companies combined. Greater than the Internet. It is not Wikipedia's goal to duplicate all the effort that went into creating and maintaining those resources. Instead, Wikipedia provides introductions and overviews of notable subjects, to help alleviate the need to sift through all knowledge to understand the essentials. Once readers are familiar with the basics of a subject, and its jargon, they are better prepared to study and understand the rest of it.
Wikipedia's scope, what it should and should not include, is defined in its content policies and guidelines. For details, refer to the pages listed in the navigation box to the right.
The scope of an article is the range of material that belongs in the article, and thus also determines what does not belong in it (i.e., what is " out of scope").
The title together with the lead section (ideally, the introductory sentence or at least the introductory paragraph) of an article should make clear what the scope of the article is.
All material that is notable, referenced and that a reader would be likely to agree matches the specified scope must be covered (at least in a summarize fashion).
What reliable sources say about material that is out of scope for the decided-upon subject is largely irrelevant to that article and can be removed or moved to another article.
This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Scope is what you can expect to find in Wikipedia and its articles. Wikipedia is not intended to include everything.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias summarize knowledge, rather than try to contain all of it. While the promotional slogan "the sum of all human knowledge" is sometimes used to describe Wikipedia or its goal, that is an exaggeration. The world's knowledge is vast. Bigger than the collections of all libraries. Larger than the works of all publishing companies combined. Greater than the Internet. It is not Wikipedia's goal to duplicate all the effort that went into creating and maintaining those resources. Instead, Wikipedia provides introductions and overviews of notable subjects, to help alleviate the need to sift through all knowledge to understand the essentials. Once readers are familiar with the basics of a subject, and its jargon, they are better prepared to study and understand the rest of it.
Wikipedia's scope, what it should and should not include, is defined in its content policies and guidelines. For details, refer to the pages listed in the navigation box to the right.
The scope of an article is the range of material that belongs in the article, and thus also determines what does not belong in it (i.e., what is " out of scope").
The title together with the lead section (ideally, the introductory sentence or at least the introductory paragraph) of an article should make clear what the scope of the article is.
All material that is notable, referenced and that a reader would be likely to agree matches the specified scope must be covered (at least in a summarize fashion).
What reliable sources say about material that is out of scope for the decided-upon subject is largely irrelevant to that article and can be removed or moved to another article.