The character ø has been used in edit summaries to mean a Null edit, except that if you can see the edit summary, then it was a dummy edit instead of a null edit.
!=
"Is not equal to". This usage comes from the relational operator in programming languages such as C and C++.
!vote
A response to a proposal, e.g. support or oppose, but in a Wikimedia context where the consensus-seeking decision process does not normally lead to a tally and a majority would not be binding. The expression is read as "not-vote", and imitates the use of the exclamation point to mean 'not' in many programming languages. See also Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion#Not-votes and the essay Don't vote on everything.
Term sometimes used in edit summaries to indicate that the edit was to sort list or other items into alphabetical order.
Actionable
In featured content promotion discussions, all objections to promotion must be actionable – that is, it must be possible to make changes (or "actions") so the specified problem can be resolved. For example, objecting on the basis that the citations need improvement is actionable because it is possible to make improvements in this area: more and better citations can be added, the citation style and syntax can be improved, etc. An example of an unactionable objection is that the topic is too controversial; Wikipedia editors can do nothing to change how controversial the topic is.
Admin
Short for Administrator. A user with extra technical privileges for "custodial" work on Wikipedia – specifically, deleting and protecting pages, and blocking abusive users. Synonym: § sysop.
The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion page. The AfD of an article refers to the discussion wherein Wikipedians consider whether an article should be kept or deleted. See Wikipedia:Guide to deletion for explanation of some terms used on AfD.
Abbreviation for "assume good faith", a guideline whereby one should not assume an unwanted or disputed edit was done maliciously. See also Hanlon's razor.
Wikipedia defines an anchor as either the starting point or the ending point of a link. In practice, usage of the term anchor at Wikipedia usually refers to the destination anchor, i.e., the landing place of a link.
Abbreviation for "anonymous user". As a user does not necessarily lose their anonymity by registering or logging in, this term should be avoided. See § IP user.
An encyclopedia entry. All articles are pages, but there are also pages that are not articles, such as this one. See also Wikipedia:What is an article.
Astroturf
Used only as a verb, astroturfing refers to attempts at creating the impression of a grassroots movement by the use of sock puppets and meat puppets to make an idea, poll, article, or deletion discussion seem to have more support than it actually has; alternatively, the practice of making entries on sites such as Wikipedia to make an idea seem to have more support. In effect, a technique for "stacking the deck".
The former Audit Subcommittee. Monitored and oversaw § Checkuser and Oversight use, and handled complaints concerning use of those privileges. Dissolved in 2016.
A newly registered user is still subject to some of the same restrictions as anonymous users – for example, inability to move articles or edit semi-protected pages, although some restrictions, such as the restriction on anonymous users creating pages, are lifted. When a user is autoconfirmed, these restrictions end. Currently, a new user must make ten edits and wait four days to be autoconfirmed.
A bad faith nomination is the nomination of a page, or more pages (usually for deletion at § AFD) for disingenuous reasons such as making a point or § Vandalism.
Balancing the Main Page
Copy editing the content on various Main Page sections such that text on the left Today's featured article/Did you know column and the right In the news/On this day column are "balanced", i.e. there is minimal blank space below both. Depending on the circumstances, this may also involve temporarily posting an additional hook or event onto one of the Main Page sections, beyond what the maximum number is stated on that particular section's guidelines.
Ban
Banning is the last-resort action by which someone is prevented from editing Wikipedia for a certain length of time, limited or unlimited. Typical reasons for banning include a long history of biased edits (violation of § NPOV), persistent adding of incorrect or doubtful material, refusal to cooperate with others, or extreme incivility and threats. Banned users are not necessarily blocked; however, it is one mechanism to enforce a ban. Any username or IP judged to be the same person can be blocked without any further reason. See also: § Block.
Banner
A banner is a template that is placed across the top of any page to indicate the page's type, details about its maintenance, etc. Banners are usually created using the mbox family of templates. They are often specifically linked to a WikiProject to indicate that the article or category falls within the jurisdiction of that project, but may also be related to article maintenance or protection. "Banner" may also simply mean the administrator who bans a troublesome editor.
A reference including only the URL (web address) with no other text (publication name, article title, date, author, etc). See Wikipedia:Bare URLs. Such references are liable to link rot and should be avoided.
Barnstar
Barnstars are a light-hearted system of awards given to Wikipedian editors by other editors to acknowledge good work or other positive contributions to Wikipedia. They take the form of an image posted to an editor's § Talk page, usually in the form of a five-pointed star. There is a wide variety of different types of barnstar, each indicating a different reason for the award having been given.
BASC
The Ban Appeals Subcommittee, where users formerly could appeal against their ban (or long-term block) after all other appeal processes have failed for them.
base name
In regard to page titles a base name (sometimes "basename") is an undisambiguated title. For example, in a title like Training Day (Potter Payper album) the base name is "Training Day". Words like "base" and "name" are very common and when used together may have other meanings in different contexts. Base name can be used to refer to the magic word {{BASEPAGENAME}}.
battlegrounding
An oppositional Talk page behavioral style; see WP:BATTLEGROUND.
The exhortation that users should try to improve articles and fix mistakes themselves by editing, rather than complain about them. See Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages.
An allusion to the essay on not warning people about things they would never have imagined doing (it just gives them ideas): Don't stuff beans up your nose.
Best practice
The ideal thing to do in a particular situation. The best practice might or might not be the typical practice, and it may be unattainable in some circumstances. If a policy or guideline does not support the best practice, the policy or guideline should be changed.
Bit
Most often refers to an account being given the administrator rights. When a user "gets the admin bit" they have just become an administrator. Also known as a "flag" or the "admin flag". See also: § Mop. See Wikipedia:User access levels for further information.
Abbreviation for Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, a now-inactive page. The verb, BJAODNed, refers to the act of something being posted on the page with that name, and was often used at Wikipedia namespace articles involving heavy user participation, such as the Reference desk or AfD/TfD pages.
Removing all content from a page. Newcomers often do this accidentally. On the other hand, if blanking an article is done in bad faith, it is § Vandalism. Newcomers often mistake blanking for deletion. If someone wants their new article removed, they should simply add {{db-g7}} or {{delete}} to it and an administrator will delete the page.
Action by an administrator, removing from a certain IP address or username the ability to edit Wikipedia. Usually done against addresses that have engaged in vandalism or against users who have been banned – see Wikipedia:Blocking policy. See also: § Ban.
A one-sentence summary of a recent news item for § ITN.
Body
The part of an article containing detailed content about the article topic, as defined by its article title, excluding the WP:LEAD, if any. The body follows the lead and may be followed by optional appendix section(s). For short articles with no lead or appendixes, the body may be the entire article, with any end matter following after.
Boilerplate text
A standard message which can be added to an article using a template. For example, {{stub}} is expanded to the following:
Bold, Revert, Discuss. A commonly-cited explanation of § Be Bold saying that the process is to make changes boldly, revert unhelpful changes, and discuss any disagreements rather than § Edit war by repeatedly counter-reverting.
Sometimes assumed to be a secretive organization responsible for the development of Wikipedia or for clandestinely enforcing certain ways of editing one disagrees with. The word is commonly used as a sarcastic hint to lighten up when discussions seem to become a little too paranoid. Discussions involving the term may have links to POV / NPOV issues, § Admin problems, or pretty much anything to do with the foundation of Wikipedia. The term TINC ("There Is No Cabal") is occasionally encountered, used humorously in such a way as to suggest that maybe there is a cabal after all. The term is comparable to the use of the term SMOF in science fiction fandom. See alsom:Cabal, There Is No Cabal, Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal, WP:CABAL.
CamelCase
CamelCase (camel case or camel-case, originally known as medial capitals) is the practice of writing compound words or phrases in which the elements are joined without spaces, with each element's initial letter capitalized within the compound and the first letter is either upper or lower case – as in "LaBelle", BackColor, or "McDonald's". See also Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia.
Campaigning
The inappropriate § canvassing technique of attempting to sway the person reading a notification message about an ongoing discussion, through the use of tone, wording, or intent.
"Category" or "categorize". Often pluralized as "cats" or "cats."
Category
A category is a collection of pages automatically formed by the Wikipedia servers by analyzing category tags in articles. Category tags look like this: Category:Computers. The part after the ":" is the name of the Category. Adding a category tag causes a link to the category page to go to the bottom of the tagged page and results in the page being added to the category listing, also called category page. A list of basic categories to browse through can be found at Category:Main topic classifications.
Category declaration, category tag
A category name placed at the bottom of any page and the wiki-syntax of doing this. Pages are placed into categories by the use of the category declarations. Some people refer to category declarations as category tags. A category declaration looks like [[Category:Foo bar]] where foo bar is name of the category and serves as the title of the category page.
An access level with which a user can see the IP addresses of logged-in users, usually to determine if someone is using sockpuppets to violate policy. Currently granted only to certain members of the Arbitration Committee and some other trusted users.
Child
A subpage or (more often) subcategory. Compare § Parent.
Competence Is Required. An essay commonly cited to point out that even well-intentioned editors (see Assume Good Faith) can be disruptive if they frequently get things wrong.
Circular reference
A reference which cites another page within Wikipedia which in its turn cites the first one. See "Circular reference". Often circular references create a logical fallacy. Another type of circular references is a wikilink in some page to a page which is a redirect to the first one. While mostly harmless, the latter ones are useless and annoying. See also:§ Self-link.
Circular redirect
Also called self-redirect. A redirect which wikilinks back to itself, either directly or via a chain of redirects. A special case of § Circular reference.
A descriptive string which uniquely identifies a source of information (book, article, webpage, etc.) for the purpose of verifying article content. This descriptive text may be placed at the end of the article (a general reference) or after specific material (an inline citation). Material without an inline citation is § uncited. Material that is cited may or may not be § verifiable, depending upon whether the cited source is reliable for this content and contains information that matches the article content. Synonym: a reference.
Behavior can be civil without being warm, friendly, or agreeable, as long as it provides a fair basis for social interactions and decisions (e.g., treating others as you would be treated, not lying, not being overtly rude, not trolling or provoking people just for the excitement).
The process of repairing articles that contain errors of grammar, are poorly formatted, or contain irrelevant material. See also: Wikipedia:Cleanup process.
To hide from normal display whilst retaining the material for editors to see. This is done by inserting the characters <!-- at the start of the comment text and --> at the end. These character strings are used to delimit comments in HTML code.
Commons
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files.
One of Wikipedia's main pages for editor communication. It can often be found linked to on the sidebar (on the left side in most skins), and is a page that lists important notices, the collaboration of the week, outstanding tasks that need to be addressed, and several other useful bits of information and resources. The Community Portal is useful for picking an article or topic to work on or read.
A topic that has attracted persistent disruptive editing and has been designated as contentious by § ArbCom. Wikipedia's editing policies and guidelines are enforced more strictly for a contentious topic. A list of them can be found here.
Links to unofficial copies of reliable sources (not to the original publisher) in addition to a formal citation of the reliable source. Has the advantage over books, paid websites, and websites that need registration of easy accessibility. Sometimes disputed because of violations of copyright, linking to partisan websites, possible distortions or those reliable sources, or because it may contain comments on the reputable sources other editors do not like.
Copyright violation. Usually used in an edit summary when deleting copyrighted material added without complying with Wikipedia copyright verification procedures. See also § CV, Wikipedia:Copyrights.
COTW
Collaboration of the week, an article needing improvement that is selected by vote to be the subject of widespread cooperative editing for a week.
A § Redirect which links from one type of § Namespace to another. Examples include words in the article namespace which redirect to project pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Although they are not considered standard practice, some are created to facilitate searching, especially for new users. See also § XNR, § CNR, Wikipedia:Namespace and Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects (essay).
Cruft
A somewhat dismissive term used to describe an article or group of articles that are too focused on a specific topic, covering it in too much detail for a general encyclopedia. The term is often used as a suffix for terms such as Fancruft (cruft articles, usually about fictional subjects, significant only to a specific group of fans) and Listcruft (crufty list articles). Cruft articles are often on topics such as minor characters from television series, or very specific lists of songs (such as "List of songs which includes the word 'death' in the lyrics"). Cruft is often deleted or merged into other articles by the Wikipedia community.
CS1
An abbreviation for Citation Style 1, a collection of reference citation templates that can be modified to create different styles for different referenced materials.
CSB
WikiProject Countering systemic bias or, more rarely, an adjective for a topic of concern to the WikiProject, e.g., "This does not seem to be a CSB article." Systemic bias is the tendency for Wikipedia articles to be biased towards a European or American view of things, simply because most editors are European or American.
Criteria for speedy deletion, a policy detailing the circumstances when articles etc. can be removed from Wikipedia without discussion. Also lists the templates needed to nominate something for speedy deletion.
On a user's list of contributions, (current) indicates that the article has not been edited by anyone else since the user last edited it.
Current version
The (current version) of a page is the page as it is normally seen. Other versions exist in the page history and can be viewed and permalinked but do not normally show in searches.
Moving a complete page by taking the text of the page, and putting it into the edit window for the second page. Usually done by novices to rename a page. The correct way of page renaming is the 'Move page' option. Cut-n-paste move is generally a bad idea because it splits the edit history of the page. Cut and paste moves can be fixed by administrators. See also Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves.
To import material from outside sources into Wikipedia without editing, formatting and linking (Wikifying). This is frowned upon by most Wikipedians, and is often a § Copyvio.
A page that has no links to existing other pages, except interlanguage links. Special:Deadendpages lists them, but this function is disabled in some Wikimedia projects for performance reasons.
To remove the word "also" in an article when it is unnecessary.
De-bold
To remove a phrase's bold typeface, because it is not the first reference to the title or a synonym of the topic (which should be bold), or because it is not the topic of the article at all. Common situations when one would de-bold include: bold foreign words (should instead be italicized) and bold Wikilinks (which, according to current Manual of Style, should be plain). See also un-bold.
Deleted edit
An edit that is no longer listed in an editor's contributions because the page has subsequently been deleted.
Deletionist
Someone who actively attempts to delete pages others prefer to keep. Deletionism is the idea that Wikipedia should be selective in the topics it covers and should remove articles that do not meet certain standards. Often used as a derogatory term. The term 'inclusionist' for the opposite party is less used. See also m:deletionism, m:inclusionism, and Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia.
1. (historical) Techie-speak for "tolerated in or supported by a system but not recommended (i.e., beware: may well be on the way out)".
2. The term is also used to refer to pages, templates or categories that have been orphaned or are no longer used.
3. In non-technical English, the word means, "deplored or strongly disapproved of".
Desc
Abbreviation for "description". Often used in edit summaries.
Destination
The destination of a name is the page or section to which it takes the reader in the main namespace. If the page by that name is a redirect, then the redirect target is the destination. Otherwise (typically if the page is an article or a disambiguation page) the page itself is the destination.
Usually capitalized. A user who can make direct changes to Wikipedia's underlying software and possibly also the database, often being one of the § MediaWiki developers (see next definition) or other Wikimedia Foundation technicians. Technically, it is the highest user access level, but Developer privileges are generally used only at request. Sometimes referred to by other terms such as "system administrators" or "sysadmins", to distinguish from MediaWiki developers. See also m:Developers for a list of developers and further information.
Usually not capitalized. One of the developers of the § MediaWiki software; often but not always a Wikipedia Developer (in the above sense).
De-wikify, dewikify
To remove (de-link) some of the wikification of an article. This can be done to remove self-references or excessive common-noun wikification (also known as the § Sea of blue effect).
The difference between two versions of page, as displayed using the Page history feature, or from Recent Changes. The versions to compare are encoded in the URL, so you can make a link by copying and pasting it, for instance when discussing a change on an article's talk page.
The process of resolving the conflict that occurs when articles about two or more different topics have the same natural title. See also § Dab.
Disambiguation page, DAB page, dab page
A page that contains various meanings of a word, and refers to the pages where the various meanings are defined. In cases when there is a prevailing meaning of the term, disambiguation pages are named "subject (disambiguation)" when there is a primary topic. See (Wikipedia:Disambiguation)
A filing to the Wikimedia Foundation asking them to remove an image or other content from Wikimedia on the grounds that it constitutes a copyright violation and the host has responsibility for that under the U.S.'s DMCA law.
Double redirect
A § Redirect which leads to another redirect. Counterintuitively, this will not bring one to the final destination, so it needs to be eliminated by linking directly to the target redirect. Double redirects are generated when moving a page that has redirects leading to it. See also § Repoint.
Also, rarely "edconf". Appears if an edit is made to the page between when one opens it for editing and completes the edit. The later edit does not take effect, but the editor is prompted to merge their edit with the earlier one. Edit conflicts should not be confused with edit wars.
A humorous term for having an unhealthy obsession with the number of edits a person makes to Wikipedia, usually applied to one trying to make as many edits as possible. Often cited on Requests for Adminship regarding people who judge people on sheer edit count rather than personal merit.
Edit creep
The tendency for high quality articles to degrade over time. Articles usually achieve good article or featured article recognition because a small core of people knew the subject well and researched it carefully. Subsequently, new readers continue to alter the page. The average contribution may weaken the piece through bad copyediting, poor syntax, recitation of popular misconceptions, or giving undue weight to a subordinate topic. (By way of analogy to scope creep.)
Two or more parties continually making their preferred changes to a page, each persistently undoing the changes made by the opposite party. Often, an edit war is the result of an argument that could not be resolved on a talk page. Edit wars are not permitted and may lead to blocks. Sometimes termed "revert war", see also the § three-revert rule.
Short for "encyclopedic" or "encyclopedic value". For example, used on featured pictures discussions.
Encyclopedia that anyone can edit
A core principle of Wikipedia, enshrined in the Five pillars, is that Wikipedia is the "Encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
Eponymous
An eponymous category is a category that has the same name as an article and vice versa. For example George W. Bush and the eponymous Category:George W. Bush.
A page that consists of the generally accepted opinions of the authors, rather than verifiable fact.
Expand, expansion
To expand a template means to replace the use of a template in the § wikicode with the result of invoking the template for display to the reader. The Wikimedia software automatically replaces a template in the wikicode of an article with the result of the template invocation in the page Html so a reader may view it. For example, if you code {{Convert|15|miles|km}} in the wikicode of an article, when you view the page it will say "15 miles (24 km)" in place of the template invocation. The wikicode itself remains unchanged. The value returned by the template—what you see when viewing the article—is called the expansion of the template. See Help:Template#Terminology.
Featured article, an article that has been selected as representing "the best of Wikipedia". Articles become featured articles when a § FAC gets consensus for promotion.
Featured article review, a process for the improvement or delisting of featured articles that may no longer meet the quality standards for "featured" status, either because the featured article criteria, the article's topic, or the article itself changed. The process begins with a discussion on the article's talk page. If the issues are not resolved, a user may list the article on FAR, where a discussion takes place to help identify and address areas where improvement may be needed. After the discussion, if no consensus emerges to keep the article featured, the review moves on to the next stage, featured article removal candidates (FARC). Here, the article's "featured" status is considered for removal.
Format. Abbreviation commonly used in edit summaries to signify formatting of the page, or wikification.
FoF
Finding of Fact, one of the sections of an Arbitration Decision
Foo
A placeholder name, used to provide a generic example. Thus, "an article on the culture of Foo", means "an article on the culture of any of the places under discussion, or any that it may also apply to". When two placeholders are required, Bar is usually used as the second (e.g., "an article on the Foo of Bar"). See also Foobar.
A labeled string of text rendered at the bottom of an article page by the Wikimedia software, and linked to by one or more superscript markers (usually numeric) in the running text of the article. Footnotes are generated by embedding footnote text inside <ref> tags in the wikitext of the article. When the text string is a § Citation, then it is called a citation footnote; otherwise an explanatory footnote. See Help:Footnotes.
footnote marker – the bracketed, superscripted number, letter, or word; like these dummy examples.
footnote label – the part between the brackets; following the above example: '1', 'a', or 'Note 1'.
footnote – the full note or reference, displayed automatically in an ordered list in the Notes and references appendix of the page. Each entry begins with the footnote label in plain text.
Forest fire
A flame war which spreads, seemingly uncontrollably, beyond the pages where it began into unrelated articles' talk pages. A forest fire becomes progressively more difficult for any user to keep track of. On Wikipedia, this is less of a problem than on other wikis, due to well-established boundaries for user conduct, clear guidelines for article content, and a formal dispute resolution process. See also wildfire and MeatBall:ForestFire.
Fork
A splitting of an entity to satisfy different groups of people – in Wikipedia, this can either mean a project-wide split, in which a group of users decides to take a project database and continue with it on their own site (which is perfectly legal under the § GFDL, and one of an editor's least disputed rights), or the split of an article, usually to accommodate different POVs. The latter is often called a POV fork and generally regarded as highly undesirable.
FP
Featured pictures, a picture that has been selected as representing "the best of Wikipedia". Pictures become featured pictures when a FPC gets consensus for promotion.
A link pointing to another page within Wikipedia or its sister projects by using the wiki markup double square-brackets "[[" and "]]". Sometimes they are referred to as wikilinks or internal links. Unless otherwise specified in a user's monobook.css, these links usually show up as blue if they are working and you haven't visited them before, red if they are broken, and purple if they are working and you have visited them before; note that they do not have the arrow symbol characteristic of an external link.
Friendly notices
A contributor who sends friendly notices as a means of § Canvassing appropriately must ensure these neutrally worded notifications are sent to a small number of editors, intending to improve rather than to influence a discussion and while avoiding excessive cross-posting. See Wikipedia:Canvassing.
Full title
The § base name of an article plus any disambiguators. For example, the full title of the article at top (clothing) is top (clothing), consisting of the base nametop and the disambiguator(clothing). If there are no disambiguators, the full title is identical to the base name.
A gadget is a JavaScript tool that can be enabled from your Wikipedia preferences.
Gdanzig
An edit war over which of several possible names should be used for a place. The word is a portmanteau of Gdańsk and Danzig, the two names about which a venerable edit war ensued. See Talk:Gdansk/Vote.
"Google hits" – the number of results returned on searches for a particular word or phrase using the Google search engine. Sometimes used as a very rough assessment of notability on § AFD. See also § Google test.
glock
Short for global lock, a block where the user is banned from every WikiMedia site
gloss, glosses, glossing
In editing, a gloss is brief explanation that accompanies a text. It can also refer to the addition, modification, or deletion of hyperlinks like this one.
A wikipedia editor who primarily engages in gnoming: making minor, but helpful edits.
Godwin's Law
Godwin's Law is concerned with logical fallacies such as reductio ad Hitlerum, wherein an idea is unduly dismissed or rejected on the ground of it being associated with persons generally considered "evil".
Godwin's Law states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." It is often cited as soon as it occurs as a flag that discussions have gone on too long or gotten out of hand on a particular topic.
good hand, bad hand
Using one resource only for good things and a second, similar resource only for bad things, thereby deflecting any criticism from the first resource by attracting it with the second. In short, keeping one hand clean by using only the other hand for all dirty things.
Running sections or titles of articles through the Google search engine for various purposes. The four most common are to check for copyright violations, to determine which term among several is the most widely used, to decide whether a person is sufficiently notable to warrant an article and to check whether a questionable and obscure topic is real (as opposed to the idiosyncratic invention of a particular individual). See also § Ghits and Wikipedia:Google test.
Wording that is excessively fulsome, adulatory or glowing in a biographical article, to the point of violating § NPOV.
Handwaving, armwaving
An assertion not supported by evidence; most frequently seen in articles for deletion discussions, when editors may assert that a subject is notable, but fail to make a convincing case. Such arguments are usually given less weight. See also Handwave.
Refers to using {{hat}} (Template:Hidden archive top) to close and collapse a discussion to discourage further editing, without removing it completely from the page.
History
All previous versions of an article, from its creation to its current state. Also called page history. See also: Help:Page history.
Describing an article which, in the opinion of some Wikipedians, is so closely tied to a particular point of view as to be inherently in violation of Wikipedia policy and unable to be made neutral. Other Wikipedians consider the accusation "hopelessly POV" as being merely an excuse to suppress certain points of view.
An abbreviation for "I Am Not a Lawyer", indicating that an editor is about to give their opinion on a legal matter as they understand it, although they are not professionally qualified to do so, and may not fully understand the law in question. May be generalized to other fields, e.g., IANAA (administrator), IANAD (doctor).
A user who is of the opinion that Wikipedia should contain as much information as possible, often regardless of presentation or notability. There are varying degrees of Inclusionism – radical Inclusionists vote "Keep" on every § AfD they come across, while more moderate ones merely express their desire for a wide variety of topics to be covered, even if they do not fit the standard criteria for inclusion in an encyclopedia, or if the articles in question have quality problems.
A link to a sister project; this can be an interlanguage link to a corresponding article in a different language in Wikipedia, or a link to a project such as Wikibooks, Meta, etc. The abbreviations iw or i/w are often used in edit summaries when an interwiki link has been added or changed.
Link farms are articles or sections of articles consisting entirely of external or internal links. Some pages consisting of internal links are acceptable (such as disambiguation pages and list articles); others are likely to be candidates for deletion, as are any consisting entirely of external links.
Link rot
Because websites change over time, many external links from Wikipedia to other sites cannot be guaranteed to remain active. When an article's links becomes outdated and no longer work, the article is said to have undergone link rot.
To delete a category and turn the contents into a list. Sometimes used in § CFD discussions as shorthand for "this group of articles would be better if presented as a list, rather than as a category".
Lk
Landmarks: Major landmarks; also used as an abbreviation for "link" (see above).
a symbol that is recognized by the MediaWiki software and, when seen in the non-commented text of the page, triggers the software to use the symbol directly instead of displaying it or transcluding a page with that name.
Main Page
The page to which every user not specifying an article is redirected. The Main Page contains links to current events, presents certain articles (like a featured article of the day and links to Wikipedia's newest articles), and serves as an entry point to browsing all articles by topic or other classification. Links to sister projects and other-language Wikipedias are also a prominent feature on the Main Page. Due to its high exposure, all content on the Main Page is protected.
The main article § Namespace (i.e., not a talk page, not a "Wikipedia:" page, not a "User:" page, etc.).
Malplaced disambiguation page
When a page title like "Foo" redirects to a page named "Foo (disambiguation)", the "Foo" title is said to be "malplaced". In this case, "Foo (disambiguation)" should be moved to the "Foo" title. See Wikipedia:Malplaced disambiguation pages
An account created only for the illegitimate strengthening of another user's position in votes or discussions. Unlike a § Sock puppet, the account is used by another person. Meat puppets are treated exactly like sock puppets in most cases, making the distinction between them largely academic.
Common edit summary used by many Wikipedians. Generally used for minor edits that no one is expected to care about. Also use (in edit summary or directly in talk page posts) in response to posts the editor feels are uninteresting or pointless, or proposals not worth considering.
Merge
Taking the text of two pages, and turning it into a single page. See Help:Merging.
Mergist
A user who adheres to the principle of Mergism, which is a compromise between the § Inclusionist and § Deletionist principles. A Mergist is of the opinion that while many topics merit inclusion, not every topic deserves its own article, and tries to combine these "side" topics into longer, less specific articles.
A separate wiki ([1]) used to discuss general Wikimedia matters. In the past, this has been called Metapedia, Meta Wikipedia, Meta Wikimedia, and many other combinations.
A page that provides information about Wikipedia. Meta pages are more correctly referred to as project namespace pages. Meta pages should not be confused with a page on Meta-Wikimedia.
A minor edit is one the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. An edit of this kind is marked in its page's revision history with a lower case, bolded "m" character (m).
Mirror
A website other than Wikipedia that uses content originally from Wikipedia as a source for at least some of its content. See also Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.
Mop
A term used to refer to administrator duties (compare Janitor). Often seen in the phrase to give someone a mop (i.e., to make someone into an administrator).
often found in compound forms such as "MOSNUM" ("Manual of Style/Dates and numbers") and "MOSCAPS" ("Manual of Style/Capital letters"). See also § NC.
seen in § edit summaries to indicate that a change has been made to make an item comply with Wikipedia's Manual of Style
Move
Changing the name and location of an article because of a misspelling, violation of naming convention, misnomer, or inaccuracy. Involves either renaming the page or moving it and constructing a redirect to keep the original link intact. See also Help:Renaming (moving) a page.
Move war
An edit war in which two (or more, but almost always two) editors move a page back and forth. This may be the result of a dispute over the proper title for the page, or a dispute over whether the page should be in article space or moved into draft space for improvement.
On the Recent changes page, N (upper case, bold) – with a red exclamation mark – N! indicates a new page or article that has not yet been patrolled.
N/a
An abbreviation for new article, often used in edit summaries. Easily confused with the common non-Wiki use, "not applicable" or "not available".
NAC
An abbreviation for non-admin closure. Signifies a closure of a discussion which was performed by someone without § Admin privileges.
Namespace
A way to classify pages. Wikipedia has namespaces for encyclopedia articles, pages about Wikipedia (project namespace), user pages (User:), special pages (Special:), § Template pages (Template:), and talk pages (Talk:, Wikipedia talk:, and User talk:), among others. See also Wikipedia:Namespace.
Name drop
A concern in Notability discussions when a source mentions a subject only by name without going into any other detail
Navbox, Navigation template
A navbox is a type of template placed at the bottom articles to enable the reader to navigate easily to other articles on related topics. See also: § Infobox, § Taxobox.
NC
Found in edit summaries to indicate that a change has been made to make an item comply with Wikipedia's standard naming conventions. See also § MOS, Wikipedia:Article titles.
Newbie test, Noob test
An edit made by a newcomer to Wikipedia, just to see if "Edit this page" really does what it sounds like. Newcomers should use Wikipedia:Sandbox for this purpose. See also Wikipedia:Introduction.
NN, non-notable
Abbreviation found in comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and in edit summaries, indicating that the article's subject is not notable enough for a Wikipedia entry. A subject is non-notable if editors agree not to have an article about this subject. Their decision is usually based on things like not finding enough reliable sources to write a decent encyclopedia article, but it can also be based on things like a desire to present a small subject as part of a larger one.
nom
Short for "nomination" or "nominator". Often found on deletion process pages as part of the phrase Delete per nom, indicating a voter's assent to and/or agreement with the main nomination for deletion.
NOR
The Wikipedia policy that No Original Research is allowed in citing sources in articles.
A characteristic held by article subjects that qualify for separate, stand-alone articles. A notable topic is one that "is suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Note that "notability" is a property of a topic, and has nothing to do with the quality of an article, or whether an article exists for the topic.
Notice board
A page that acts as a forum for a group of users, who use it to coordinate their editing. Most notice boards are by geographic location, like the UK Wikipedians' notice board; a notable exception is the Administrators' noticeboard.
NPA
No Personal Attacks. A special case of civility, saying that criticism must be directed at content and editing behavior, not at editors personally.
NPOV
Neutral point of view, or the agreement to present possibly subjective content in an objective, neutral, and substantiated manner, so as not to cause edit wars between opposing sides. As a verb, to remove biased statements or slanted phrasing. As an adjective, it indicates that an article complies with Wikipedia's NPOV policy.
A null edit is made when an editor opens the edit window of a document then re-saves the page without having made any text changes. This is sometimes done as a lazy way to purge – to update the functioning of templates (which require articles containing them to be edited in order for any changes to take effect). The term also applies to making a very small, non-substantive change (e.g., removing an unneeded blank line or adding one) in order to get the article history to register a change, for the purpose of leaving an edit summary that responds to a previous one.
Nupedia
A Wikipedia predecessor project that shut down in 2003. It is currently inactive and there are no plans to resurrect it. See also: WP:Nupedia and Wikipedia.
Abbreviation for Overcome By Events or Overtaken By Events.
Office actions
May refer to administrative interventions on Wikipedia by WMF staff. See Wikipedia:Office actions.
OP
Abbreviation for § Original post (or "Original poster"). Can also stand for Open Proxy. Or, in the context of § IRC, "op" can refer to "ChanOp" (Channel Operator), and to "get ops" or "be opped" means to attain a higher access level within a channel.
Open tasks
A § Template (found at {{opentask}}) that lists several more or less janitorial tasks that are pending or needed. It is found on the § Community Portal as well as on many user pages. The term is also occasionally used within individual WikiProjects to refer to work which has been discussed but which still needs to be completed.
Open Ticket Request System
Refers to the people and software that surround the handling of email sent to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Original post, original poster
In a discussion § Thread, refers to the topic/person/message which started the discussion. Depending on context, OP may stand for either "original post" (the message which started the thread), or "original poster" (the person who started the thread). Often used on Wikipedia's discussion pages and commonly seen on the WP:Reference desk.
Original research
In Wikipedia, original research (sometimes abbreviated OR) is material that has not been published already by a reputable source. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not the appropriate place to publish original research, nor can Wikipedia articles be used for substantiation of Wikipedia's own article content. Do not confuse original research with § uncited content. If someone can find a published reliable source for the content, it's not original research.
Any individual topic within Wikipedia; the web page without the top, bottom and sidebars. Pages include articles, stubs, redirects, disambiguation pages, user pages, talk pages, files, documentation and special pages.
A pejorative applied to articles that are either completely unintelligible or totally irrelevant. Patent nonsense is one of the more obvious but less common reasons for speedy deletion.
A request to have fellow Wikipedians review and help improve an article. Wikipedia has a page specifically for posting such a request and offering up your work for review.
Permastub
Any § Stub article which is unlikely to grow to a more respectable size; an article on a subject about which little can ever be written. These articles are often potential candidates for merging into larger articles.
Permcat
A permanent § Category – that is, a category into which an article is assigned to aid reader navigation, as opposed to a temporary assignment relating to a process such as § Cleanup or stub sorting.
A link to a specific version of a Wikipedia page, which will not reflect later edits to the page.
A comment on a page such as § RFA or § AFD may be accompanied by the note "per nom", which means "for the reasons given by the nominator". Similarly, a comment may be noted "per X" where X is the name of one of the other commenters, or a reference to some page that explains the reasoning. See also Wikipedia:What does "per" mean?
Personal attack
A comment that is not directed at content, but rather insults, demeans or threatens another editor (or a group of editors) personally, with obvious malice. To maintain a friendly and productive atmosphere, personal attacks are forbidden per Wikipedia § Policy and may be grounds for blocking in serious and/or repeated cases. See also: Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks.
A rewritten and improved version of the Phase II software. It was eventually renamed to MediaWiki. Wikipedia currently uses MediaWiki version 1.44.0-wmf.1 (fbc8c4f) (see also Special:Version). See also Wikipedia:MediaWiki, m:MediaWiki.
Phase IV
A dream proposal for the next generation of Wikipedia software made back when complete rewrites were in vogue. Development is now focused on incremental progress. See also m:Wikipedia4.
A link where the text displayed in the article is not the name of the link target. Such links are created using the pipe character "|" e.g., [[Target article|Displayed text]]. The pipe trick is a software feature that generates the displayed text for the editor in certain circumstances. Piped links may also be used to sort pages in categories by other than their name, e.g., if [[Category:Foo|Bar]] is placed on an article, the article will be listed alphabetically at "Bar" in category "Foo", irrespective of its title. See also Help:Pipe trick, and m:Help:Piped link § Automatic conversion of the wikitext.
"Thou shalt not deliberately skew any page, nor create or nominate for deletion any page, nor in any other way vandalize Wikipedia, in order to try to prove your point!". See also Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point.
A heuristic for assessing the relevance or legitimacy of prospective article topics, which holds that any topic more notable than the most obscure species of Pokémon may deserve a Wikipedia article.
Point of view. Originally referred to each of many perspectives on an issue, which may need to be considered and balanced in an encyclopedic article. Today, more often used as a synonym for "biased", as in "That reply was POV, not neutral".
POV warrior
An editor who aggressively distorts coverage of certain topics to suit their biases despite community norms of neutrality and the Wikipedia policy of § NPOV.
Prejudice
As in, "delete without prejudice" and variations, based on the legal term. Deletion without prejudice indicates there is a problem with the present version of the article (e.g., lack of sources) and re-creation of the article is viable if that problem is fixed. Deletion with prejudice indicates that there's a problem with the subject of the article, and that it should not be recreated in any form (although deletion review can overturn this).
Primary landing page
The page at the base name, to which wikilinks to that name will therefore link.
Process page
A § Wikispace page dedicated to discussion and (usually) voting on specific pages or users, or for similar administrative reasons. Examples include § CFD, § RFA, and § AFD.
Prod, PROD
Proposed deletion. A process by which articles that do not qualify for § speedy deletion but are able to be uncontroversially deleted can be removed from Wikipedia without going through a full § AfD process. Can be used as a verb (To prod an article). See also Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
The project namespace is a namespace dedicated to providing information about Wikipedia. Pages in the project namespace always start with "Wikipedia:".
From "prose" and "timeline": chronological list of events narrated in a prose form, usually a lot of paragraphs that begin with a date or time ("On January 21, 2008, 'proseline' was added to the Wikipedia glossary page..."). Usually occurs in articles about ongoing events where editors are adding information as it becomes available. Generally seen as bad style that should be avoided.
Protected page
This term indicates a page that cannot be edited except by administrators, or in some cases, established users. Usually this is done to cool down an edit war. See also Wikipedia:This page is protected.
Protologism
A word still in the embryo stage of language development and remains too obscure to be classified as a neologism. A successful protologism becomes a neologism. The term protologism has been adopted as jargon for use within Wiki communities, but is not in common usage outside this context. "Protologism" itself can be considered either a protologism or neologism. Coined by Mikhail Epstein from Greek protos, first + Greek logos, word. See also protologism and list of protologisms.
The Random page link is on the left of each page for most skins. It will take you to a Wikipedia article that is chosen by a computer algorithm without any deliberate pattern or meaning to the choice.
A group of volunteer editors who examine § Recent changes logs for vandalism and other undesirable edits.
Re
Abbreviation for Remark, Reply, or Regarding.
Re-creation
A posting of the same or substantially the same text as a deleted article by a new user, or of the same text or different text of a deleted article by the original creator. Sometimes misspelled "recreation".
Recent changes
A dynamically generated page (found at Special:Recentchanges) that lists all edits in descending chronological order. Sometimes abbreviated as RC. Recent changes are checked regularly by editors doing RC patrol, which means checking all suspicious edits to catch § Vandalism as early as possible. Other ways of watching recent changes are the Recentchanges IRC channel, or CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter, which announce changes in realtime.
A page title which, when requested, sends the reader to another page. This is used for synonyms and ease of linking. The name of the redirected page is shown under the title of the resulting target page. For example, impressionist might redirect to impressionism. For an introduction to what a redirect is, see Help:Redirect. For the guidelines on handling redirects on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Redirect.
Several meanings, depending on context. Sometimes used as a synonym for § Source or as a synonym for § Citation. In the plural, References may refer to the dedicated section found near the bottom of almost every Wikipedia article, where the § Footnotes are rendered. Because of the multiple meanings, it's not always clear how to entitle the article section that contains the footnotes or references; for a discussion, see MOS:NOTES.
A source that editors are willing to "rely on" for a particular statement: This link to his Twitter account is a reliable source for this material about what he posted that day. All sources are reliable for some statements (e.g., "His reply on Twitter contained four words"); no source is reliable for any or all types of statements (e.g., a 1997 biology textbook is not a reliable source for last year's Eurovision winner). See WP:RSCONTEXT.
A source that is likely to be accepted by editors for most normal uses in an article, due to its generally desirable characteristics, such as a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy: Before you start the article, see if you can find some reliable sources. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources (shortcut: WP:RS).
Rename
"Renaming" may refer to a variety of operations on Wikipedia, including a § page move; see Help:Rename.
Render
How a page appears on the computer screen, used especially on Wikipedia (in the form "rendered page") when discussing how changes an editor makes in the edit window will appear once the page is saved. In the context of the World Wide Web, rendering is the operation performed by the user's browser of converting the Web document (in HTML, XML, etc., plus image and other included files) into the visible page on the user's screen.
Repoint
To change the destination article of a § Redirect, either to avoid a § Double redirect or to change the redirect so it leads to a more appropriate article. The term § Retarget is also frequently used.
Req
Abbreviation for "Request".
Rescope
To change the subject matter of an article, a template or (most frequently) a category to one that is more acceptable for editorial or encyclopedic purposes. If by doing so the subject area is broadened, the term upscope is sometimes used.
Abbreviation for Revision deletion. Not to be confused with § Delrev, which is short for Deletion review, a completely different process.
Revert
An edit that reverses edits made by someone else, thus restoring the prior version. The term is sometimes used to imply that something more stringent than undoing was done, such as a § rollback. See also Help:Reverting.
Wikipedia:Requests for comment, part of the dispute resolution process. A request for comment is an informal process for soliciting input from Wikipedians about a question of article content or a user's conduct.
Remove. Used in edit summaries to indicate that a particular piece of text or formatting has been deleted.
RM
A requested move (WP:RM), a formal process to propose and discuss the renaming of a page.
Rmv
1. Remove (§ Rm) vandalism. Used in edit summaries when good edits were made after vandalism, requiring the editor to sort out the vandalism, as opposed to a simple reversion. See also § Rvv.
Accusatory term for a Wikipedia § Administrator, suggesting that the accused person systematically abuses their administrative access. Such accusations are rarely found to be justified or particularly productive. See also § Rouge admin.
A class of users who can use the § Rollback feature. This feature is automatically enabled for all administrators.
Rouge admin
A misspelling of "§ Rogue admin" occasionally used by vandals and trolls. Now used jokingly by many Wikipedia administrators, usually to describe themselves performing actions that the affected users may not like (such as blocking vandals and deleting bogus pages).
Round-robin move
Page move that swaps the titles of two pages using a third location as a temporary container. See WP:ROUNDROBIN
Replace word1 with word2. Used in edit summaries. It is a reference to the command for "find and replace" in languages such as sed and Perl. "s/word1/word2/" means "replace all occurrences of word1 with word2" (s stands for "substitute").
Salt, salted
(From "salting the earth".) Administrators can prevent the creation of pages through the page protection interface and if so the page title is said to have been "salted." This is useful for articles that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated with undesired content. See also WP:SALT.
Sandbox
A sandbox is a page users may edit however they want. Though it is meant to help users experiment and gain familiarity with § Wiki markup, the public sandbox at Wikipedia:Sandbox is often filled with strange things and patent nonsense. In addition to the public sandbox, users may create private sandboxes on subpages of their user page.
Scap
A scap occurs when § MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, is updated. Scap stands for "sync-common-all-php", the internal script used to deploy the update.
The undesirable result of placement of two or more wikilinked terms adjacent to each other, with no intervening plaintext, so they look like a single link, as in [[Ireland|Irish]] [[Chess]] [[Championship]] (IrishChessChampionship).
Section editing
Using one of the '[edit]' links to the right of each section's title, one can get an edit window containing only the section of the page that's below the [edit] link. This makes it easier to find the exact spot where one wants to edit, and helps you avoid an § Edit conflict. You can turn section editing off in your preferences under the "Enable section editing via [edit] links" option.
A Wikilink contained in an article that points the reader to that same article, e.g., linking Vice President in the article "Vice President". Such links are automatically displayed as strongly emphasized text rather than links, but the more complex case of a link which redirects to the same article is not, and should be de-wikified in most cases. See also: § Circular reference, § Internal link.
Self-ref
When used in terms like "no self-refs", this refers to the guideline Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid whereby articles should generally not refer to the Wikipedia project directly or implicitly. Self-ref can also refer to the template {{selfref}}.
An editor self-reverts when they revert or undo an edit they had previously made. This may be because the editor was merely making a test, or because the editor later realised their edit was faulty, or because they wish to show good faith after a three-revert rule violation. See § Revert.
To place an article within a more specific category, e.g., placing a biography article from Category:Kenya into Category:Kenyan people. In addition, sh cat in edit summaries.
Sheep vote
A vote on Wikipedia that seems to be cast just to go along with the flow. E.g., on RfA, this can typically be a vote such as "Support because x, y, and z are supporting." The opposite is called a § Wolf vote.
From fantasy literature; see silver bullet, sometimes the only or preferred method of killing monsters. In deletion discussions, Delete with a silver bullet implies the page to be deleted is a monster.
Skin
The appearance theme in Special:Preferences. Currently, four are available: Cologne Blue, Modern, Monobook, and Vector.
An informal term for an account that appears to be dormant. May become active at any time as long as it is compliant with Wikipedia policy and guidelines, but sometimes becomes an issue in § Sockpuppetry. Also sleeper account.
A contraction of "slight merge" or "selective merge", sometimes used in Articles for deletion discussions. This is for when a topic deserves mention in another article, but not to the extent and detail that is already included (a partial merge and redirect).
Snap
To § Retarget a double redirect to point to the ultimate target.
Sometimes entries on process pages are closed early when it becomes obvious they have "a snowball's chance in Hell" of passing the process. This removal is "per the Snowball clause". The verb "snowballing" is sometimes used for this action. Later showball keep came into the usage in AfD pages, by an analogy.
snow close
A verb meaning to close a discussion, per the snowball clause. Can be used as a noun ("The Willy on Wheels RfA was an instant SNOWCLOSE") or a verb ("The Main Page AfD nomination was SNOWCLOSEd after two minutes").
Sockmaster
The first account of a user that operates multiple sockpuppet accounts
Another user account created secretly by an existing Wikipedian, generally to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument. Also, particularly on § AfD, a friend of an existing Wikipedian who has created an account solely for the purpose of supporting that Wikipedian in a vote (this special case is often called a § Meat puppet). It is not always possible to tell the difference.
A very short article or page that essentially points the reader in the direction of another page. Used in cases where a normal redirect is inappropriate for various reasons (e.g., it is a cross-wiki redirect). Contrast: § redirect.
A device to make an article file alphabetically (in a category or other list of articles) other than by the article title, e.g., "John Smith" under "Smith, John", or "The Who" under "Who, The". Can be assigned to a specific category, or as a {{DEFAULTSORT:}}. See also Help:Category § Sort key.
The person, place, or thing that the information in an article came from. The source might be reliable or unreliable for that particular information. Frequently, in discussions, the word source is specifically used to mean one of these specific aspects of a source:
The work itself (the article, book: "That book looks like a useful source for this article.") and works like it ("An obituary can be a useful biographical source", "A recent source is better than an old one")
The creator of the work (the writer, journalist: "What do we know about that source's reputation?") and people like them ("A medical researcher is a better source than a journalist for..").
The publication (for example, the newspaper, journal, magazine: "That source covers the arts.") and publications like them ("A newspaper is not a reliable source for medical facts").
The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press: "That source publishes reference works.") and publishers like them ("An academic publisher is a good source of reference works").
sp
Short for spelling correction or space. Used in edit summaries.
SPA
Short for Single Purpose Account. If that single purpose is disruptive (e.g., vote stacking, or attacking some user) the account tends to be indefinitely blocked.
The inappropriate canvassing technique of attempting to sway consensus by posting an excessive number of messages to individual users, or to users with no significant connection to a community discussion.
Speedy
Abbreviation for § Speedy delete (or "speedy rename" as appropriate). Can also be used as a verb – e.g., "I think the article should be speedied". "Speedy" on Wikipedia does not mean "now, immediately", but rather something that can be done without further discussion.
Speedy delete
Deletion of a page without prior discussion. Pages can be speedily deleted only under very specific circumstances; see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion for those.
Speedy keep
The closing of a vote on a deletion wikispace page (like § AFD) before the normal end of the voting period. This happens when the nomination has been faulty (e.g., a § Bad faith nomination) or when there is overwhelming evidence that the page should be kept (e.g., overwhelming support for keeping it, or a history of deletion attempts that all ended the same way).
Split
Separating a single page into two or more pages.
Sprot
Short for semi-protect [ion]. Articles that are semi-protected cannot be edited by unregistered or newly registered users.
The inappropriate § canvassing technique of notifying editors off-wiki about ongoing Talk page discussions.
Steward
A user who has been empowered to change any user's status on any Wikimedia Foundation project, including granting and revoking Administrator status and granting § Bureaucrat status. See also Wikipedia:Administrators § Stewards.
Stillborn
Having failed to initiate. Used in deletion discussions, for instance of a WikiProject that never had members except its originator.
Strike out, strike-through
To place text in strikeout (HTML <del>...</del> or <s>...</s>) tags. This is very rarely used in articles, but is relatively common in votes and discussions when a contributor changes their opinion. As not to cause confusion, the outdated comments are struck out (like this). The inserted material (HTML <ins>) tag is sometimes used with it to show a replacement for the struck material (like this). Generally, one should strike out only one's own comments. Some editors prefer to simply remove or alter their updated material, though this is discouraged if others have responded to it and their responses would no longer make sense after the change. Note: <strike> will not exist in HTML 5/XHTML 2, so <s> is recommended.
Stub
An article considered too short to give an adequate introduction to a subject (often one paragraph or less). Stubs are marked with stub templates, a specific type of § Cleanup template, which add the articles to stub categories sorted by subject matter. See also Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub and Wikiproject Stub Sorting.
Stubify
To turn an article into a stub because majority of it was unusable
Sub-article
1. An article that has been split from an original, larger main article to keep the main article readable and to better develop the sub-topic of the split into a richer article in its own right. Contrast § Subpage. See also Wikipedia:Summary style.
2. A page in multi-page list that was split to reduce list article size. See also Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists.
Subject page
In mainspace, this is the article page as opposed to its § Talk page. In other namespaces the subject pages are the content pages as opposed to their talk pages.
A page connected to a parent page, such as Page name/Arguments. You can create subpages only in certain namespaces. Do not use subpages in the main article space. Contrast § Subarticle. See also Wikipedia:Subpages.
Short for "substituting" a template which permanently copies the substituted content and breaks the link with the source template page. Contrast § Transclusion, a live updated reference to the source template page.
A very short § Stub article, typically only one sentence.
Succession box
A type of § Template, usually placed at the foot of an article, linking to articles on the immediate predecessors of and successors to the subject of the article. Thus, for example, an article on the tenth president of § Foo would be linked by succession box to articles on the ninth and eleventh presidents. Compare § Infobox.
Suckpoppet
Sockpuppet or Sockpuppetry, silly typo occasionally used esp. in deletion discussions to indicate the page under discussion is of illegitimate origin and should be deleted
SUL
Abbreviation for "Single user login", which refers to the process of unifying individual accounts with the same name across Wikimedia projects into one global account.
A problem that arises during arbitration when conduct that would normally get a non-administrator banned only gets an administratordesysopped. It is named after the Super Mario Bros. video game: when Super Mario gets hit, he turns back into small Mario; when small Mario takes the same hit, he dies. There is an essay about the problem.
a term used in reference to a formal discussion closure that ought to reflect community opinion as shown in the discussion, but that instead reflects the opinion of the closer.
In Wikipedian terms, this refers to the preponderance of Wikipedia articles relating to subjects specific to English-speaking and/or Western countries, as opposed to those from the rest of the world. It may also refer to a bias for articles that may be of particular interest to those who have an affinity towards computers and the Internet, since they are more likely to edit Wikipedia. See also WikiProject Countering systemic bias.
A metadata item attached to an entity, such as File copyright tags like 'license' or 'source'.
A § template call that marks a page as having some property, such as needing maintenance, or marks part of a page, or marks a place in a page, such as the the beginning of a closed discussion
A page reserved for discussion of the page with which it is associated, such as the article page. All pages within Wikipedia (except pages in the Special namespace, and talk pages themselves) have talk pages attached to them (accessed via the "Talk" link at the top).
A humorous term for an editor who involves themselves in discussions on other users' talk pages (often after a previous conversation with that user has left the page on the editor's Watchlist). TPS involvement should be constructive or humorous, and is distinguished from § Wikihounding.
A smaller group of editors in a WikiProject dedicated to a more specific field within the scope of the parent project. Task forces are located on WikiProject subpages. They generally have a less formal bureaucratic structure than full-fledged WikiProjects. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces.
A type of § Infobox, a taxobox is a taxonomy table positioned on the right side of an entry for a species or organism (or for a genus or family), giving a chart of the kingdom, phylum, etc. of the creature. Taxoboxes are also used for similar standardized tables.
To delete a list or category and turn the contents into a § Template, usually either a § Navbox or § Infobox. Sometimes used in § CFD discussions as shorthand for "this group of articles would be better if presented in template form rather than as a category." See also: listify.
A talk page discussion, usually with more than two indented replies. May refer to either a complete second level section (i.e., a section with heading surrounded by ==) of posts as is defined by talk page archiving bots. For this type of thread, the age is the time interval from the most recent post to current time. It can also refer to an individual sequence of indented paragraphs.
Short for "template". Also the name of a specific template, {{tl}}, which provides a template link, i.e., links a page to a template without allowing the template's code to operate on that page.
TNT
The essay Wikipedia:Blow it up and start over, which states that a page that is hopelessly irreparable but could be useful can be deleted and replaced by a new one, or the action of carrying out its doctrine.
TOC
An article (or other page)'s table of contents, which lists the subsection headings within the page. This is usually close to the top left of the page, but may be placed at the top right, floated, or omitted entirely.
Talk page access. When an editor is blocked, they typically retain the ability to write on their own talk page, as that is the first resort for appealing their block or requesting clarification about it. However, a blocked editor who abuses this privilege can have their talk page access removed as well.
Transclusion is the inclusion of the content of a document into another document by reference. On Wikipedia, it is done (typically for templates) by enclosing the pagename in curly brackets, e.g. Template:Nac is transcluded by typing {{Nac}}. Typically, transclusion uses the template functionality of MediaWiki to include the same content in multiple documents without having to edit those documents separately. See also Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits.
Translation
The English-language Wikipedia should have only pages in English. Non-English pages, listed on Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English, are subject to deletion unless translated. See also: Wikipedia:Translation for requests for translations into English of pages from foreign-language Wikipedias.
Said of Arbitration Committee members whose term does not expire in a given year and hence not up for re-election. Perhaps derived from french "wikt:tranche", to cut.
Troll
A user who incites or engages in disruptive behavior (trolling). There are some people who enjoy causing conflict, and there are those who make a hobby of it. However, these are few and one should alwaysassume good faith in other editors. Calling someone a troll in a dispute is a bad idea; it has an effect similar to calling someone a Nazi – no further meaningful debate is likely to occur. See also m:What is a troll?
Material in an article that is not followed by an inline citation. The uncited material may be § verifiable (editors could locate a reliable source that supports this material, if they tried to) or § unverifiable (nobody can find a reliable source that directly supports this material).
Undisambiguated
An article title without a disambiguator is said to be the undisambiguated title or base name. For example Joker (film) is a disambiguated title, while the title Joker is undisambiguated.
Saying something is unencyclopedic implies that it would not be expected to appear in an encyclopedia, and thus in Wikipedia. (One must remember however that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, hence does not have the space/length limitations of a paper encyclopedia).
Unnecessary disambiguation
Adding a § Disambiguator to a basename in a title of an article when it is not necessary to disambiguate this title from other titles on WP, either because it is the only use of that basename as a title on WP, or because the article's subject is the primary topic for that basename.
Material in an article for which editors are unable to find any reliable sources that could be cited to support it. Unverifiable information may be § cited (e.g., to an unreliable source or to a source that doesn't support the material) or § uncited. Determining whether material is truly unverifiable may require substantial effort.
Un-wiki
Going against the character of a Wiki. Usually, saying something is "un-wiki" means it makes editing more difficult (or impossible).
Acronym for Undisclosed Paid Editing. See WP:COI for conflict of interest concerns.
Upmerge
A term frequently used on categories for discussion, it means "merge into parent category". In the case of stub types, this usually means to keep any associated template but to link it with the parent category rather than the category under discussion. In contexts such as WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals, creating an upmerged template means a stub template, only, feeding into a more general stub type.
A small box which is stored in the template space, and which includes a small piece of information about a user (such as "This user likes cheese"). Many users use userboxes on their user page, although some look down upon it. See also Wikipedia:Userboxes.
Userfy
Wikipedia:Userfication is the process by which material posted in a Wikipedia article, project, or template space is moved into the user space: into a user page or § Subpage. A common case is where an inexperienced user who is not a notable person has created an article about themself. The article would be deleted after userfying – moving its content to a user page.
A personal page for Wikipedians. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used by Wikipedians to communicate with each other via the user talk pages. The process of Registration does not generate user pages automatically. A user page is linked to as [[User:SomeUserNameHere|SomeUserNameHere]] and appears as SomeUserNameHere.
One who engages in significant amounts of § Vandalism. (Adjective: Vandalic)
Vandalbot
Some kind of § Bot being used for vandalism or spamming. Recognizable by the fact that one or a few IP-addresses make many similar clearly vandalistic edits in a short time. In the worst cases, these have created or vandalized hundreds of pages in several Wikipedias in only minutes. See also m:Vandalbot.
Deliberate defacement of Wikipedia pages. This can be by deleting text or writing nonsense, bad language, etc. The term is sometimes improperly used to discredit the views of an opponent in edit wars. Vandalism can be reported at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism.
Something that people are "able" to "verify". Specifically within the meaning of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy, it is information that someone (although not necessarily you) could, with enough effort and expense, determine has been published in a § reliable source, even if no source is provided in the article. Contrast § uncited.
VFD
Used to refer to the "Votes for deletion" page. Although this has been replaced with § AFD (WP:AFD), you may still see the term in older talk pages.
The main community forum of Wikipedia (found at Wikipedia:Village pump), where proposals, policy changes, technical problems and other internals are announced and discussed in front of a wider audience than a topic-specific page would have.
The inappropriate § canvassing technique of attempting to sway § Consensus by selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion, and thus encouraging them to participate in a discussion.
An unusually long paragraph, presenting a solid block of text. Used in a negative sense, and most typically in the context of opinions in a discussion. See also Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read (TLDR, TL:DR, WP:TLDR).
A set of pages or articles that link to one another but aren't interlinked with the rest of the encyclopedia.
Watcher
An editor who has a particular page on their watchlist. Example usage: "User:Jimbo Wales has over 3,000 watchers."
Watchlist
A set of pages selected by the user, who can then click on Watchlist in the links next to the user's username to see recent changes to those pages. See also Help:Watching pages.
Any website that allows easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language. Wikipedia is the most well known example of a wiki.
WikiBlame
A tool for searching past versions of a particular article for a particular string of text. Usually used to determine who added the string of text. It is an external tool, available at wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblame.php or via the "Revision history search" link on the article's history page.
A Wikipedian who beautifies wiki entries by organizing messy articles, and adding style, color and graphics. The efforts of WikiFairies are normally welcome, though they do not necessarily create new articles or affect the substantive content of the articles they edit. WikiFairies are considered to be basically friendly, like WikiGnomes. See also § WikiOgre.
The singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work, with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Note that editors can and do follow others in good faith with constructive intent; it is the manner and motivation which distinguishes wikihounding.
Markup-language code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient like a more powerful BBCode: for example, it uses three apostrophes on either site of text to create '''boldfaced text''' instead of <B>boldfaced text</B>.
Properly Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF), a non-profit organization that provides a legal, financial, and organizational framework for Wikipedia and its sister projects and provides the necessary hardware. Contrast § MediaWiki.
Pages intended to be the main pages for readers and editors interested in a specific area of knowledge, helping them to find the information on the specific topic and, for editors, to be inspired to develop the articles connected with it. Such editors might want to join a related § WikiProject. See also Wikipedia:Portal.
An active group of Wikipedia editors working together to improve a specific group of articles and files, usually those on one or more related topics. This often includes standardizing the content and style of the articles using an agreed upon standard format.
The members of a WikiProject might work to improve and maintain a § Wiki portal of the same or related name.
Wikiquette
The etiquette of working with others on Wikipedia. See also Wikipedia:Etiquette.
Articles or sections created to promote a product or meme. Spamming also includes adding extraneous or irrelevant links to promote an outside site, particularly for commercial purposes. No type of spamming is allowed on Wikipedia.
A Wikipedia sister project. It is a wiki-based, species directory which provides a solution to the problem that there is no central registration of species data in Wikipedia. Wikispecies provides a central, more extensive database for taxonomy. Wikispecies is aimed at the needs of scientific users rather than general users.
Wikistress
Personal stress or tension induced by editing Wikipedia, or more often by being involved in minor conflict with another editor. Some users maintain a Wikistress meter on their user page. See the Wikistress template, the Bosch Wikistress Meter, and Wikistress.
WikiTerrorism
A melodramatic term for the act of purposely trying to damage Wikipedia on a large scale. It can be vandalism, but it could include trolling, edit warring, or anything that could disrupt Wikipedia on a large scale. WikiTerrorism could also be "blitzing" Wikipedia, or vandalizing several articles in rapid succession. Such actions should be reported immediately to administrators and will usually be blocked. Some may consider this term in bad taste or hyperbolic.
A Wikipedia sister project to create a free online dictionary of every language. Note that it is not spelled Wikitionary; there is no I between the K and the T.
A vote on Wikipedia which seems to be cast just to go against the flow. E.g., on RfA, this can typically be a vote such as "Oppose because x, y, and z are supporting." The opposite is called a § Sheep vote.
Generic term for the collection of deletion discussion pages such as MfD, AfD, CfD, RfD, FfD, et al. where the "X" stands in for Miscellany, Article, Category, Redirect, File etc.; "fD" stands for " for deletion" (or discussion in some cases).
^Wikipedia's definition of an anchor at Help:Link is in accordance with the definition of the W3C, which says: "A link has two ends -- called anchors -- and a direction. The link starts at the 'source' anchor and points to the 'destination' anchor." The anchor in Html is the text enclosed by an A tag, and the starting point is the location of the A tag that defines the link. This 'source anchor' sense is rarely used at Wikipedia, which is inconsistent in how it does refer to source anchors, using various terms such as "link text", "link label", or "display text" of a wikilink.
For a listing of current collaborations, tasks, and news, see the Community portal. For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see the Dashboard.
