Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts MOS:SELFREF WP:SRTA WP:SELF

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's free content is reused in many places: do not assume that the reader is reading Wikipedia, or indeed any website. Articles may refer to themselves, but they shouldn't refer to Wikipedia in a non-neutral fashion except under special circumstances.

This guideline is about self-references and specifies which types of self-references should be avoided and which kinds are acceptable. A self-reference in an article usually mentions Wikipedia directly or tells readers to take an action on Wikipedia, such as editing the article.

Although self-references within Wikipedia articles to the Wikipedia project should usually be avoided, there are exceptions. Some examples of acceptable self-references are articles about Wikipedia, categories, and maintenance templates.

Y This article discusses...

N This Wikipedia article discusses...

Mentioning that the article is being read on Wikipedia, or referring to Wikipedia policies or technicalities of using Wikipedia, should be avoided in the article namespace where it is unnecessary. If mentioning a policy is necessary to disambiguate article titles or subtopics,

These types of self-references limit the use of Wikipedia as a

Mentioning the Wikipedia community, or website features, can confuse readers of derived works. Unless substantially part of the article topic, do not refer to the fact that the page can be edited, nor mention any Wikipedia project page or process, specialized Wikipedia jargon (e.g. "PoV" in place of "biased"), or any MediaWiki interface link in the sidebar or along the top of the screen.

References that exist in a way that assumes the reader is using an encyclopedia, without reference to the specific encyclopedia (Wikipedia) or the manner of access (online), are acceptable. For instance, in the article on the

Avoid "breaking the fourth wall" to address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone, either instructional or opinionated. This includes the pedagogical style of posing rhetorical questions to the reader (worst of all in headings). Neutral cross-references, e.g. (See also Cymric cat.), are permissible (and best done with the {{crossreference}} template), but are often best reworded (The Cymric cat is a recent breed developed from the Manx.).

Although

Articles about online communities may well discuss Wikipedia as an example, in a neutral tone, without specifically implying that the article in question is being read on—or is a part of—Wikipedia. In this framework, if you link from an article to a specific Wikipedia page, use external link style, so the link will make sense in any context. The {{

Such pages may include:

• Articles where Wikipedia played a major role in the subject of the article, for example: Uncyclopedia
• Articles about prominent people involved in Wikipedia, for example: Jimmy Wales
• Articles about Wikipedia
• Articles where Wikipedia, or an individual incident related to it, is illustrative of the subject, such as virtual community, encyclopedia and Streisand effect

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so its articles are about their subjects; they are not about the articles themselves. This means that even if an article itself becomes famous, that article should not report this about itself.

For example, a discussion of Stephen Colbert's call for vandalism of the Elephant article might be appropriately mentioned in the article on The Colbert Report, but not in the article on elephants, because elephants have nothing to do with Stephen Colbert. Protests regarding depictions of Muhammad in Wikipedia's Muhammad article are not addressed in that article (which is about the prophet Muhammad), but rather in the article Depictions of Muhammad.

A mention of Wikipedia by a notable person is unlikely to justify a mention in their Wikipedia article; such a mention would have to reflect its

Self-references are sometimes found in the templates and the categories. Some of these are necessary or intrinsic to the purpose of the page, as with disambiguation information at the top of category pages and in {{stub}} templates, which encourage readers to edit the page. Unnecessary self-references are not encouraged in templates or categories, due to the need of third-party users to either delete those templates or modify them to remove the Wikipedia references. For example, all {{navbox}} templates should provide a list of related articles, but none of them should label these pages as "Wikipedia articles" or as "Related articles on this website".

When forced to use templates like this, you should use them in a way such that the article still makes sense when the template is removed, in order to facilitate automated removal.

Wikipedia project coordination pages should be under Category:Wikipedia administration, not in categories that contain main-namespace articles by topic. (A small number of articles about Wikipedia are in the mainstream categories and this is OK.) User pages may be categorized under Category:Wikipedians, but not in any of the subcategories under Category:People.

The self-reference template, {{

Many hatnote templates that do contain helpful preset text and linking, such as {{for}} and {{about}}, support a |selfref= parameter that gives them the same functionality as {{Self reference}}, making them better options in most circumstances.

In cases where a Wikipedia page should link to Wikipedia itself (for instance, at

• Help:Printing, includes a partial list of page elements that are hidden on printable versions of pages
• Wikipedia:Printability, an essay about the printworthiness of redirect pages
• Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects
• List of Wikipedia articles with self-references
• List of Wikipedia articles with circular references
• Wikipedia:Verifiability § Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it – Do not use articles from Wikipedia as reference sources
• Wikipedia:Double redirects