Wikipedia:Editorial discretion

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcut WP:EDITDISC

This page in a nutshell: Common sense and Wikipedia policy dictates that editors must practice discretion regarding the proper inclusion of relevant and well-sourced content.

Editorial discretion allows editors to evaluate sources, balance claims, and otherwise distill bodies of information into accurate, verifiable and comprehensive articles; accordingly with

may determine, among other things, whether a given source or claim is appropriate for article inclusion; meeting Wikipedia policies and guidelines is necessary to allow inclusion, but not necessarily sufficient to warrant inclusion. It's up to Wikipedia's editors to use editorial discretion to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The content of any particular article is subject to editorial discretion developed via consensus.

, which means we can write almost an unlimited amount on any topic. Still, there are limits on what we ought to include, and especially how we ought to write it.

The way we make these decisions is through the consensus process, which can take place with or without explicit discussion. The normal editing process is itself a process of developing consensus;

.

It is not

to make judgement calls on what content to include or not include, how to frame an issue or claim, or what claims and subjects are suitable for Wikipedia. We are not here to robotically compile facts and citations according to a strict set of rules, we are here to create and edit an encyclopedia. This task requires the application of judgement and discretion in order to create a neutral and readable encyclopedia.

The policy on

is sometimes misconstrued as a blanket prohibition on any application of judgement or critical thinking by editors. The intent of that policy was never to turn editing into an unthinking task, and our articles into mere compilations of published data.

The most important (and readily citable) claims should go in the

. This doesn't exclude using these sources, but it's always prudent to remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

While

, that doesn't mean that every potentially offensive image should be included. It's within the realm of editorial discretion for editors to decide not to include an image. The debate should weigh the value of the image against the potential offense caused. Simply being offensive to a group of people is not a good reason to remove an image, but if the image is both offensive and of low encyclopedic or educational value in its current context, then it is valid to consider removing it.

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