Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

This page documents a procedural policy of Wikipedia. It documents various processes by which the English Wikipedia operates.

Shortcuts WP:PG WP:P&G WP:RULES WP:POLICY WP:GUIDELINE

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are pages that serve to document the good practices accepted in the Wikipedia community. This policy describes how our policies and guidelines should normally be developed and maintained.

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia. There is no need to read any policy or guideline pages to start editing. The five pillars are a popular summary of the most pertinent principles.

Although Wikipedia generally does not have hard-and-fast rules, policies and guidelines are standards all users should normally follow, with guidelines providing guidance in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should be applied using reason and common sense. Technically, the policy and guideline pages are not the policy and guidelines in and of themselves. The actual policies and guidelines are behaviors practiced by most editors.

This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages of the English Wikipedia. It does not cover other editions of Wikipedia.