Wikipedia:Content forks
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles should not be split into multiple articles so each can advocate a different stance on the subject. |
A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and violate one of our most important policies.
What forking is
POV forks usually arise when two or more contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page, and instead of resolving that disagreement, someone creates another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) to be developed according to their personal views rather than according to consensus. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first. This is generally considered unacceptable. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be nominated for deletion.
Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" is itself based on a POV judgement, do not refer to forks as "POV" — except in extreme cases of repeated vandalism. Instead, assert the application of NPOV policy — regardless of any POV reasons for making the fork, it still must be titled and written in an NPOV-consistent manner. It could be that the fork was a good idea, but was approached without balance — or that the person making it has mistakenly claimed a kind of "ownership" over it.
The most blatant POV forks are those which insert consensus-dodging content under a title that should clearly be made a redirect to an existing article (in some cases people have even converted existing redirects into content forks.) However, a new article can be a POV fork even if its title is not a synonym of an existing article title. If one has tried to get one's personal theory that heavier-than-air flight has never occurred inserted into existing aviation articles and other editors have rejected it as absurd, the answer is not to create an article named "Unanswered questions about heavier-than-air flight" where this theory is expounded.
In line with Wikipedia's policy of assuming good faith, the creator of the new article is probably sincerely convinced that there is so much information about a certain aspect of a subject that it justifies a separate article. There is no consensus whether a "Criticism of .... " article is always a POV fork. At least the "Criticism of ... " article should contain rebuttals if available, and the original article should contain a summary of the "Criticism of ... " article.
What content/POV forking is not
There are some things that may occur from time to time that may be mistaken for content forking, when that is not necessarily the case. Some of them are listed here. Essentially, it is generally acceptable to have different levels of detail of a subject on different pages, provided that each provides a balanced view of the subject matter.
Note that meeting one of the descriptions listed here does not mean that something is not a content fork -- only that it is not necessarily a content fork.
Project-level forking
There is a difference between article forking and the legitimate practice of project-level forking. This latter occurs when someone wishes to create their own wiki, according to their own standards and practices, but they want to use Wikipedia's content as a starting place. As long as the new project adheres to their obligations under the GFDL in exchange for use of this content, this is perfectly acceptable. Project-level forking is discussed in more detail at Wikipedia:Forking FAQ.
One such Wikipedia fork is Wikinfo, whose major difference from Wikipedia is in fact its approach to content forks: multiple articles covering a subject from different POVs are actually preferred to Wikipedia's goal of a single article covering the subject from the neutral point of view. Wikipedia's policy is that this practice is not a legitimate way for contributors to deal with a lack of consensus.
Accidental duplicate articles
While Wikipedia contributors are reminded to check to make sure there is not an existing article on the subject before they start a new article, there is always the chance that they will forget, or that they will search in good faith but fail to find an existing article, or simply flesh out a derivative article and not the main article on a topic.
Wikipedia's principle of assume good faith should be kept in mind here. One should give the benefit of the doubt to the creator of a duplicate article. Regardless of whether he or she deliberately created the fork, the result is the same: the content should be merged back into the main article.
Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles
Sometimes, when an article gets long, a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure; the new article is sometimes called a "spinout" or "spinoff" of the main article, see for example wikipedia:summary style, which explains the technique.
Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. However, the moved material must be replaced with an NPOV summary of that material. If it is not, then the "spinning out" is really a clear act of POV forking: a new article has been created so that the main article can favor some viewpoints over others.
Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View.
However, it is possible for editors to act in bad faith and make article spinouts as POV forks. For instance: Editor A tries three times to insert a statement of his POV in an article section called "Criticism of XYZ"; each time the change is reverted by other editors. So he announces that he is spinning off a new article called [[Criticism of XYZ]], and for the initial text of this article, he uses the "Criticism of XYZ" section of the main XYZ article -- with the disputed statement that he could not get accepted by consensus. This is a POV fork; Editor A is trying to get around the fact that his changes have not met consensus by inserting them in a different location.
Articles whose subject is a POV
Different articles can be legitimately created on subjects which themselves represent points of view, as long as the title clearly indicates what its subject is, the point-of-view subject is presented neutrally, and each article cross-references articles on other other appropriate points of view. Thus Evolution and Creationism, Capitalism and Communism, Biblical literalism and Biblical criticism, etc., all represent legitimate article subjects. As noted above, "Criticism of" type articles should generally start as sections of the main article and be spun off by agreement among the editors.
Related articles
Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork. As an example, clearly Joséphine de Beauharnais will contain a significant amount of information also in Napoleon I of France, this does not make it a fork.
Temporary subpages
One technique sometimes used to reach consensus on difficult articles is to create a temporary copy which people can then edit to show others proposed refactorings, rephrasings, or other changes. This can be helpful for controversial subjects or controversial changes; editors can show others exactly what their vision for a proposed change is -- without the controversy of having that new proposed version automatically replace the existing version.
However, just as "spinout" articles have sometimes been mistaken for POV forks, temporary subpages have also sometimes been mistaken for POV forks. Care should be taken on both sides to minimize such mistakes. New drafts should be written in the "user:" or "talk:" namespace and not in the main namespace, however accidents happen and those who think they have found a POV fork, in turn, should check to see whether the article title indicates a temporary subpage and whether the talk page of the main article indicates that this is a place to work on consensus rather than to dodge it.
Please turn categories off for temporary subpages. For example, if you want to write a temporary subpage for the article George W. Bush then make sure that you turn off all the categories for this article. You can turn off a category by placing <nowiki> before the category and </nowiki> after the category. For example <nowiki> [[Category:Presidents of the United States|Bush, George W.]] </nowiki> turns off this category. Alternatively, place colons : before a given cat to "turn it off" like so [[:Category:Turned off cat]] and yet have them still be clickable. Turning off all categories is required to ensure that temporary subpages are not mistakenly seen as official Wikipedia articles when browsing through a category.