Scratchpad:Essays

Essays, as used by Wikipedia editors, typically contain advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. The purpose of an essay is to aid or comment on the encyclopedia but not on any unrelated causes. Essays have no official status, and do not speak for the Wikipedia community as they may be created without approval. Following the instructions or advice given in an essay is optional. There are currently about 2,000 essays on a wide range of Wikipedia related topics.

About essays
Although essays are not policies or guidelines, many are worthy of consideration. Policies and guidelines cannot cover all circumstances, consequently many essays serve as interpretations or commentary of perceived community norms for specific topics and situations. The value of an essay should be understood in context, using common sense and discretion. Essays can be written by anyone and can be long monologues  or short theses, serious or funny. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. An essay, as well as being useful, can potentially be a divisive means of espousing a point of view. The Wikipedia community has historically tolerated a wide range of Wikipedia related subjects and viewpoints on user pages.

The difference between policies, guidelines, and some essays on Wikipedia may be obscure. Essays vary in popularity and how much they are followed and referred to. Editors should defer to official policies or guidelines when essays, information pages or template documentation pages  are inconsistent with established community standards and principles. Avoid "quoting" essays as though they are policy—including this "information page". Essays, information pages and template documentation pages can be written without much—if any—debate, as opposed to Wikipedia policies that have been thoroughly vetted by the community (see WP:Local consensus for details). In Wikipedia discussions, editors may refer to essays provided that they do not hold them out as general consensus or policy. Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion. See How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance and Policy writing is hard for more information.

Essays are located in the Wikipedia namespace (e.g., Reasonability Rule) and in User namespaces (e.g.,  User:Coffee/Why we're here). The Help namespace contains page which provide factual information on using Wikipedia and its software (see below). The essay and WikiProject advice versus the guideline, MoS-guideline and policy templates give an indication as to a page's status within the community. Some essays at one time were proposed policies or guidelines, but they could not gain consensus overall; as indicated by the template Failed proposal. Other essays that at one time had consensus, but are no longer relevant are tagged with the template Historical. Current essay policy nominations are indicated by the banner proposed. See Template messages/Wikipedia namespace for a listing of namespace banners.

Wikipedia essays
Typically addresses some aspect of working in Wikipedia. They have not been formally adopted as a guideline or policy by the community at large, but typically edited by the community; and many often have a significant degree of influence during discussions (e.g., Tendentious editing). Essays may be moved into userspace as user essays, or even deleted, if they are found to be problematic. According to Wikipedia policy, "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace."

User essays
These are similar to essays placed in the Wikipedia namespace; however, they are often authored/edited by only one person, and may represent a strictly personal viewpoint about Wikipedia or its processes (e.g., User:Jehochman/Responding to rudeness). Writings that contradict or subvert policy are somewhat tolerated within the User namespace. The author of a personal essay located in his or her user space has the prerogative to revert any changes made to it by any other user, within reason.

WikiProject advice pages
WikiProjects are groups of editors who like working together. Advice pages written by these groups are formally considered the same as pages written by anyone else, that is, they are essays unless and until they have been formally adopted as community-wide guidelines or policies. WikiProjects are encouraged to write essays explaining how the community's policies and guidelines should be applied to their areas of interest and expertise (e.g., WikiProject Bibliographies).

Historical essays
The Wikimedia Foundation's Meta-wiki was envisioned as the original place for editors to comment on and discuss Wikipedia, although the "Wikipedia" project space has since taken over most of that role. Many historical essays can still be found at Meta.Wikimedia.org.

Wikipedia how to, information, and supplemental pages
Wikipedia's how-to, supplemental and information pages are typically edited by the community. They provide technical and factual information or supplement guidelines and policies in greater detail. Where "essay pages" offer advice or opinions through viewpoints, information pages are intended  to supplement current consensus in an impartial way (e.g.,  Administration).

Creation and modification of essays
Before creating an essay, it is a good idea to check if similar essays already exist. Although there is no guideline or policy that explicitly prohibits it, writing redundant essays is discouraged. Avoid creating essays just to prove a point or game the system. Essays that violate one or more Wikipedia policies, such as spam, personal attacks, copyright violations, or what Wikipedia is not tend to get deleted or transferred to user space.

You do not have to be the one who originally created an essay in order to improve it. If an essay already exists, you can add to, remove from, or modify it as you wish, provided that you use good judgment. However, essays placed in the User: namespace are often—though not always—meant to represent the viewpoint of one user only. You should not normally edit someone else's user essay without permission. To be on the safe side, any edits not covered by REFACTOR and MINOR should not be made without agreement with the author. More radical edits should be discussed with them on the talk page. If the original author is no longer active or available, then a consensus should be sought from the other editors who have edited the essay. Another option is to just write a different essay.

Finding essays
Essay directory -  lists about 800 essays to allow searching for key words or terms  with your browser. The gist of user written essays can be found at Essays in a nutshell. Essays can also be navigated via categories, the navigation template (as seen below), or Special:Search  (as seen below; include the words "Wikipedia essays" with your other search-words).