Stiles Wiki:What is an article?: Difference between revisions

{{Information page|WP:ARTICLE|WP:WIAA}}

{{for|the guideline on definite and indefinite articles in article titles|Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite or indefinite article at beginning of name)}}

{{See also|Wikipedia:FAQ}}

A '''Wikipedia article''' or '''entry''' is a page on this site that has [[encyclopedia|encyclopedic]] information on it. A [[Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles|well-written]] encyclopedia article:  

* identifies a [[Wikipedia:Notability|notable]] topic,  

* [[Wikipedia:Summary style|summarizes]] that topic comprehensively,  

* is written in an [[Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Information style and tone|encyclopedic style of language]],

* has been well [[Wikipedia:Basic copyediting|copyedited]],  

* contains [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|references]] to [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources|reliable sources]], and  

* contains [[Help:Links#Wikilinks (internal links)|wikilinks]] to and [[Wikipedia:Orphan|is linked to]] by other articles or [[Wikipedia:Sections|article sections]] about [[Wikipedia:Hatnote#Linking to articles that are related to the topic|related topics]].   

Most articles consist of paragraphs and images (perhaps with other types of audiovisual media). However, articles may also be formatted as [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists|stand-alone lists]] or tables (not to be confused with [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation pages]], which are purely navigation aids). These lists or tables are also considered articles for Wikipedia's purposes and are included in the [[Wikipedia:Mainspace|Main/Article namespace]], the one without a title prefix followed by a colon (<code>:</code>).

The following items are ''not'' counted as articles (see also {{section link|Wikipedia:Administration|Data structure and development}}):

* [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation pages]],  

* [[Help:Template|templates]], including [[Wikipedia:Navigation boxes|navboxes (aka navigation boxes)]],  

* [[Wikipedia:User pages|user pages]],  

* [[Wikipedia:Drafts|drafts]],

* [[Wikipedia:Portal|portals]],

* [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines|Wikipedia policies and guidelines pages]] (along with everything else in the <code>[[WP:Wikipedia namespace|Wikipedia:]]</code> namespace).

{{Wikipedia article creation}}

See [[Wikipedia:Article titles]] to learn how we title articles.

{{main|Wikipedia:Content assessment}}

Articles range greatly in quality, from as high as [[WP:FA|featured articles]] to as low as [[WP:CSD|candidates for speedy deletion]]. Some articles are quite lengthy and rich in [[wp:content|content]] while others are shorter (possibly [[Wikipedia:Stub|stubs]]) or of lesser quality.

{{Shortcut|WP:NS0|WP:MAINSPACE|WP:ARTICLESPACE}}

{{Main|Wikipedia:Administration#Data structure and development}}

"Articles" belong to the '''main namespace''' of Wikipedia pages (also called "'''article namespace'''" or simply "'''mainspace'''").

The '''main namespace''', '''article namespace''', or '''mainspace''' is the [[Wikipedia:Namespace|namespace]] of Wikipedia that contains the encyclopedia proper—that is, where  "live" Wikipedia articles reside, as opposed to [[Wikipedia:About the Sandbox|Sandbox]] pages.

The main namespace is the default namespace and does not use a prefix in article page names. This is distinct from other namespaces, where page names are always prefixed by an indicator of the particular namespace in which the page resides. For example, all [[Wikipedia:User page|user pages]] are prefixed by <code>"'''User:'''"</code>, their [[Wikipedia:Talk page|talk pages]] by <code>'''"User talk:"'''</code> [[Wikipedia:Template namespace|templates]] by <code>'''"Template:"'''</code> and various types of internal administrative pages by <code>'''"Wikipedia:"'''</code> (such as this page). Thus, any page created ''without'' such a prefix will automatically be placed in the article namespace.

The main namespace does not include any pages in any of the specified [[wikipedia:namespace|namespace]]s that are used for particular purposes, such as:

* the ''Wikipedia'' namespace, for material about meta subjects related to Wikipedia and is where [[WP:PAG|policies and guidelines]], [[WP:ESSAYS|essays]], [[WP:INFOPAGES|information]], and process pages reside, as well as other "meta" topics about editing Wikipedia (examples, [[WP:VERIFY]] and [[Wikipedia:Statistics]]);

* the ''Wikipedia talk'' namespace, for discussing what the content of pages in Wikipedia space should be, and interpretations of them  (for example, [[Wikipedia talk:VERIFY]] and  [[Wikipedia talk:Statistics]]);

* the ''user'' namespace for pages that are used by individual Wikipedia writers (example, [[User:Example]]).

* the ''MediaWiki'' namespace, which is used to define shortcuts and other text strings used around Wikipedia (example [[MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning]])

* the [[Main Page]] (a [[WP:Portal]])

* thousands of [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation pages]], which are used to resolve naming conflicts;

* many millions of [[Wikipedia:redirect|redirect]] pages, including [[Wikipedia:Soft redirect|soft redirects]], which are used to re-route one page to another page;

Every page in the main namespace can have a companion [[Wikipedia:Talk page|talk page]], and these belong to the "Talk" namespace, i.e., the page names start with the prefix "Talk:", followed by the name of the page in the main namespace. For example, "[[Talk:Wikipedia]]" is the talk page for Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia|article on itself]].

[[Special:AllPages]] has a list of all pages in the article namespace and [[Wikipedia:Statistics]] for statistics on Wikipedia and its growth.

The automatic definition used by the software at [[Special:Statistics]] is: '''any page that is in the article namespace, is not a [[Wikipedia:Redirect|redirect page]] and contains at least one wiki link'''. ''The statistics software currently has no method of detecting disambiguation pages, however; nor does it disregard [[Wikipedia:Stub|stub]]s (but in any case, many articles tagged as stubs are quite substantial) or stub lists (lists templates with little or no content)''.

*[[Wikipedia:Administration]]

*[[Wikipedia:Who writes Wikipedia?]]

*[[Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia]]

* [[Wikipedia:Subpages]]

* [[Wikipedia:Featured article criteria]]

* [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-05-20/In_focus|What ''counts'' as an Article]] (from English Wikipedia's newsletter, ''[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost|The Signpost]]'')

{{Wikipedia technical help|collapsed}}

[[Category:Wikipedia FAQs]]