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. |
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia, by its nature, is an engine for discerning relevance. |
On Wikipedia, relevance is simply whether a fact is in the right article, based on whether it pertains to the article's subject. Usually this is obvious. When not obvious, relevance is decided by the editors of the article, based on what is considered likely to be useful to readers. The give and take between editors functions as a social-engine for discerning relevance. Wikipedia policy maintains the health of that social engine but does not itself act as an engine for discerning relevance.
In Wikipedia, rules constrain the social environment in which editors participate so that editors remain free to determine what is relevant. There are no rules for determining what is relevant, however the below, by their obviousness, exist as guiding principles (virtual rules) for discerning relevance.
In most cases, material must simply be about the subject of the article to be relevant. In special cases, an indirect connection to the subject is also acceptable—see common exceptions, below.
Sometimes an article's content evolves beyond its original subject. If any content is relevant to other, existing, articles, the content should be moved into those articles. Alternately, a new article can be created to hold the merged content. If the article's subject expands to a broader scope, the article can be renamed (via the move tab) to reflect the new scope.
Ultimately, the content of articles in Wikipedia becomes more relevant through the give and take of editing articles. The basics:
The above rules exist at other policy and guideline pages, including: Wikipedia help and policies and guidelines.
Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, and there is little limit to the amount of information it can hold. However, adding as much information as possible is not necessarily an improvement.
Making claims of relevance by using similar concepts like "it is important" does not establish relevance. Claiming an indirect connection is usually not sufficient either. "Relevance" should also not be confused with "notability"; topics and facts within an article are not required to meet the standards of notability guidelines.
Normally, material must be directly about the subject of the article. However, two types of indirectly-related material are often acceptable:
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