Wikipedia:No disclaimers: Difference between revisions
→Why people say they should be used: punctuation fix for formatting consistency |
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* The user does not know where objectionable or disturbing content may appear, and it may therefore catch them off-guard. |
* The user does not know where objectionable or disturbing content may appear, and it may therefore catch them off-guard. |
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* Once you've seen an offensive image, you can't just pretend you never saw it. |
* Once you've seen an offensive image, you can't just pretend you never saw it. |
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== Exceptions == |
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=== Current fiction === |
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{{seemain|Wikipedia:Spoiler}} |
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In certain circumstances, it may be considered appropriate to use notices to warn about recently released, or soon-to-be-released, fiction, which may contain unexpected plot details and may not have had time to develop the real-world perspective that we look for in encyclopedia articles. See the guideline page [[Wikipedia:Spoiler]] for details. |
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==Previous discussions== |
==Previous discussions== |
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Revision as of 13:11, 27 December 2007
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia style 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: Disclaimers should not be used in articles. All articles are covered by the five official disclaimer pages. |
The Foundation does have a legal need for a disclaimer, but it is already at the bottom of this page and every page. See the link on this page that points to Wikipedia:General disclaimer. These links cover the Foundation's legal needs adequately.
From time to time, editors insert disclaimer text into an article or propose a new disclaimer template - for instance, "This article contains profanity". While the consensus is that these should not be used, the frequent occurrence of these attempts demonstrates the need for a clearer exposition of why they should not be used.
When spotted, such text should be removed. Templates that try to do the same should be removed from all mainspace articles and then speedily deleted. The only exceptions to this are Category:Temporal templates.
What are disclaimers?
For the purpose of this guideline, disclaimers are templates or text inserted into an article that duplicates the information at one of the five official disclaimer pages:
- General disclaimer
- Use Wikipedia at your own risk
- Wikipedia does not give medical advice
- Wikipedia does not give legal opinions
- Wikipedia contains spoilers and content you may find objectionable
Templates that provide content warnings but do not duplicate these disclaimers, such as {{current}}, {{disputed}}, or {{POV}} are permitted.
Why they should not be used
- Redundant with the Disclaimer link at the end of every page.
- Hard to define which articles should have a disclaimer (it is difficult to define an "adult content" article, for instance, given that it varies dramatically by culture).
- Wikipedia is not censored.
- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a how-to guide.
- The lack of the disclaimer on certain pages as opposed to others might open Wikipedia to lawsuits.
- By the time you see them, it's too late — the article has already been loaded.
Why people say they should be used
- People might be upset by seeing certain content on Wikipedia. (For a discussion of this see Wikipedia is not censored above).
- The user does not know where objectionable or disturbing content may appear, and it may therefore catch them off-guard.
- Once you've seen an offensive image, you can't just pretend you never saw it.
Previous discussions
A small list of previous discussions is at Wikipedia talk:Risk disclaimer#More disclaimer templates.
Some older discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Risk disclaimer, or at the templates for deletion archives.