Wookieepedia:Avoid self-references

Avoid self-references within Wookieepedia articles to the Wookieepedia project, such as:


 * This Wookieepedia article discusses ...


 * Free content projects, such as this website ...


 * Warning: Wookieepedia contains spoilers (see Template:Spoiler for alternative text)

Such self-references are entirely acceptable on talk pages or in the Wookieepedia namespace, but they are inappropriate in articles for two reasons. The first is that self-references are often considered disruptive in an encyclopedia because they distract from the topic at hand. A secondary concern is that self-references limit the use of Wookieepedia as an open source encyclopedia suitable for forking, as permitted by our license. Put simply, this policy is about remembering that the goal of Wookieepedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself, so the articles produced should be useful even outside the context of the project used to create them.

Think about print
Don't forget, we want to make the creation of a print version of Wookieepedia as easy as possible, so try to use terms such as "this article" as opposed to "this website", and certainly don't use terms such as "click here" (which make no sense when using a screen reader, for instance). You may also find it helpful to imagine you're reading the article in another encyclopedia.

Community and website feature references
While we're often inclined to mention the Wookieepedia community that we are all part of, as well as the website features we use in creating the articles, these confuse readers of derivative works. Unless substantially part of the article topic, do not refer to the fact that the page can be edited or any Wookieepedia project page or process, specialized wiki jargon (e.g. "POV" in place of "biased"), or any MediaWiki interface link in the sidebar or along the top of the screen. Articles are part of an encyclopedia, not part of the Wookieepedia project being used to create them. However, there are exceptions. An article which is still in its initial development or under dispute often will include tags such as, and to help editors further develop the article, and the text in these templates include self-references.

Neutral references
References which exist in a way which assumes the reader is using an encyclopedia without reference to the specific encyclopedia (Wookieepedia), or the manner of access (online), are acceptable. A more example is the disambiguation message This article is about X. For Y, see Z. and all of the "See also" links.

Writing about Wookieepedia itself
Wookieepedia can, of course, write about Wookieepedia, but context is important. If you read about Palpatine's life, you are not interested in reading about Wookieepedia's policies or conventions. If, however, you read about online Star Wars communities, the article may well discuss Wookieepedia as an example, in a neutral tone, without specifically implying that the article in question is being read on &mdash; or is a part of &mdash; Wookieepedia. If, in this framework, you link from an article to a specific Wookieepedia page, use external link style so the link will make sense in any context.

The following are some examples where such links can be useful:


 * Articles where Wookieepedia played a significant role in the subject of the article, for example: Padawan Massacre of Taris
 * Articles about prominent people involved in Wookieepedia, for example: Chad Barbry or Steven Greenwood
 * Articles about Wookieepedia
 * Articles where Wookieepedia is illustrative of the subject, for example: fansite

Articles are about their subjects
Wookieepedia is an encyclopedia, so our articles are about their subjects; they are not about the articles themselves. If publicity regarding an article is significant enough to include in Wookieepedia, the information would not be included in that article unless it was relevant to the topic of the article itself. For example, the controversy around the Quote:Karen Traviss page might be appropriate for the articles on Wookieepedia or the people involved in the controversy (not Karen Traviss herself, but notable debaters, such as The Dark Moose), but not for the article on Karen Traviss quotes&mdash;the incident had nothing to do with the actual things Karen Traviss said.

In the Template and Category namespaces
Limited use of self-references are sometimes found in the Template namespace and the Category namespace, such as with disambiguation and stub notices. Expanding this to other areas is not encouraged due to the need of third party users to either delete those templates or modify them to remove the Wookieepedia references.

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.

Neither Wookieepedia project pages neither user pages should be in any article categories, like Category:People in reality. Articles about notable Wookieepedians, on the other hand, can and should be.

Examples of self-references
The following are some examples of self-references in Wookieepedia's article namespace. They should at least be acknowledged or marked as self-references but not necessarily be deleted as they serve their purpose here on Wookieepedia.


 * Articles that self-reference
 * Any article in the article namespace that links to one in the Wookieepedia namespace
 * Any article in the article namespace that redirects to one in the Wookieepedia namespace (except the shortcuts in the "pseudo" WP: namespace)
 * Articles that mention or are named "article" rather than "topic" and may also refer to Wookieepedia itself. For example, "List of articles" rather than "List of topics".
 * Categories that self-reference
 * Category:Wookieepedia and its subcategories in the article namespace
 * User categories such as Category:User en and Category:Wookieepedians
 * Use of templates in the article namespace that self-reference because they link to articles in the user, talk, or Wikipedia namespace or that are special articles.
 * Various stub messages
 * Template:NPOV
 * Template:Disputed, Template:TotallyDisputed
 * Template:Vfd
 * Template:Merge, Template:Mergeto, Template:Mergefrom
 * Template:Disambig (Also the text only makes sense online)
 * Template:Fact
 * Template:Categoryless
 * Template:Spoiler
 * Template:Verify, Template:Fanon

Mark Twain probably said it best: "Every generalization is dangerous, especially this one."

Self-reference tools
In cases where a Wookieepedia page should be mentioned on Wookieepedia itself (for instance, at Wookieepedia), and this link should be kept on mirrors, the format can be used to write the link as external rather than internal, to prevent it breaking in mirrors. For instance: as opposed to Main Page.