Wikipedia:The value of essays
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This is an information page that describes a communal consensus on some aspect or aspects of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is intended to supplement and/or clarify a process or some guidance. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines; where something is inconsistent with this essay, please defer to those. |
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| Essays in a nutshell |
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On Wikipedia, an essay is a page written in Wikipedia project namespace describing the processes on Wikipedia at the point-of-view of one or more users. Essays can be written by anyone and can give instructions or advice, can be long or short, serious or funny.
There are currently several thousand essays, and this number is expected to grow. Each essay varies in popularity and how much it is followed.
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Questions about essays[edit]
Are essays policy?[edit]
Essays do not automatically become policy or guidelines just because they are written. All it takes is one person to write an essay, and there it is. Unlike a policy or guideline, which requires a clear consensus before it can take effect, and will be in a proposed state until then, an essay does not need consensus to exist; it just is. Rather, following the instructions or advice given in an essay is optional, assuming that this choice be made wisely.
Some essays at one time were proposed policies or guidelines, but they could not gain consensus for a long time, so they were converted into essays. Other pages that began as essays later became policies or guidelines.
Can essays override policy?[edit]
No. Essays do not override existing policies and guidelines. They are just an addendum to existing ones. Essays do not serve the function of creating new policies or guidelines or rendering existing ones meaningless. As policies and guidelines can have multiple interpretations, essays serve to show various interpretations of policies and guidelines that are already being somehow followed.
How meaningful are essays?[edit]
Essays are not policy or guidelines that must be followed, but they are likely worthy of consideration. An editor who takes the time to write an essay probably understands the project namespace well enough and has enough knowledge and experience in editing Wikipedia that the essay has been written in good faith. Essays usually are based on reform, gaps one sees must be filled in, or other improvement viewed as necessary in Wikipedia's procedures. An essay may also provide advice on how to apply a particular policy or guideline to a specific situation. Essays edited by multiple editors might be given extra consideration as this is a clear sign that the viewpoint exists from more than just one editor.
How can I tell how worthy an essay really is?[edit]
The answer is you can't. No essay has any special status of having more worth than another. You can, however, see how popular an essay is.
- By looking on page stats, you can see how many times the essay page has been viewed in each month and on each day. To get an accurate figure, you must enter the actual full title as it appears at the top of the page and not any redirects or shortcuts.
- You can also see how often the essay has been cited in discussions by going to the essay page and clicking on "What links here." With this feature, you can check how often the essay itself or a shortcut to an individual section has been cited by others. To examine linkage of a shortcut, you can click "what links here" from the shortcut, which is useful because shortcuts often represent targeted redirects to sections of essays.
- Attached to each essay is a discussion page. This will show how much discussion has been held pertaining to that essay, and what the discussion has been about. This does not show in numbers how popular an essay is, but it does let you know the impression others have of the essay.
- Editing itself can show that others have interest in the essay, but the lack of editing does not mean others do not have interest. If a page goes for a long period of time without editing, this is not necessarily due to a lack of interest. This can very well be because the page simply does not need editing.
Editing essays[edit]
Essays, like all other Wikipedia pages, can be edited. They can be expanded, reduced, modified, merged, split, replaced with random obscenities or even deleted if deemed necessary (via WP:MfD; this is extremely rare). Few essays are protected in any way, allowing them to be edited by IP editors too. All the same guidelines that apply to editing articles apply to essays. Essays are not owned; no special permission is needed to edit them. Good judgment and understanding of their meaning and area(s) of coverage is strongly encouraged.
Unlike policy and guideline pages, bold edits intelligently made to essays without a discussion are less likely to be reverted.
Expansion to essays is highly welcome. It is strongly encouraged that if you want to create an essay, that you attempt to see if an existing essay essentially giving the same message or one in which your proposed message can be inserted already exists. Some new essays, however, are created resembling other essays as POV forks, which is acceptable in essay writing.
Linking essays[edit]
Currently, many essays are orphaned. It is important if you create or improve an essay that you try your best to see that it is not orphaned and it does not form a walled garden with several other essays.
Essays can be linked from other essays or other relevant policy or guideline pages, since they often pertain in one way or another to policy and guidelines. See Wikipedia:Drawing attention to new pages for instructions on how to make links to your newly created or discovered essay.
Essays in deletion discussions[edit]
A question that has often arisen is whether or not an essay is valid for making a point in a deletion discussion.
The outcome of a deletion debate is determined not by votes, but by Wikipedia policy and guidelines. So where does an essay figure in?
Like policies and guidelines, essays are likewise useful in making a point for your cause. But if you do, simply stating "Keep per [[WP:ThisEssay]]" or "Delete per [[WP:ThisEssay]]" will not help your cause. Your point-of-view will have a better chance of being factored into the outcome if you state the reason why you believe the essay you cite matters. You may even use an essay as a rationale to propose an article for deletion if you give a good reason. WP:HAMMER is a classic example of this.
If someone has cited an essay (or part of) as a reason for their cause, someone else might state that what they cited was "just an essay" and therefore is meaningless in the discussion. Truth is, essays are not meaningless and will be factored into the outcome if expressed well. If you want to counter an essay cited by someone else, the best way to do so is to cite another policy, guideline, or essay along with an explanation as to why your opinion is more worthy.
For a list of good essays to use in a deletion discussion, see Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines to cite in deletion debates#Useful essays (and parts of essays).
