Wikipedia:Glossary

Glossary

This is a glossary of terms commonly used on Wikipedia. For more help, see Wikipedia:Help, Wikipedia:FAQ, or Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ. For abbreviations often used in edit summaries, see Wikipedia:Edit summary legend. For common shorthands used in Articles for Deletion (AfD), see the Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. For a list of common abbreviations used within Wikipedia see Wikipedia abbreviations. For common abbreviations and slang phrases outside Wikipedia, see List of Internet slang phrases. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Glossaries.

!$@

 

– en:, de:, ja:, etc.

The English-, German-, Japanese-, etc.-language Wikipedia. Often used in edit summaries to indicate changes to interwiki links. For a full list of codes, see ISO 639. For a full list of Wikipedias, see m:Complete list of language Wikipedias available.

ø

The character ø is sometimes used in edit summaries to indicate a null edit.

!=

"Is not equal to". This usage comes from the relational operator in such languages as C.

!vote

Read as "not-vote" (the exclamation mark means 'not' in many programming languages). Something that looks like a vote but should not be considered a vote. The term !vote is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. See also Wikipedia:Discuss, don't vote.

+

Used to show minor addition to text. Used in edit summaries.

0–9

1RR

Voluntary or imposed (sometimes by ArbCom) one-revert rule. See also Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary#One-revert rule.

2RR

Voluntary or imposed two-revert rule

3RR

Abbreviation for three-revert rule

0RR

Voluntary or imposed zero-revert rule. See Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary#Zero-revert rule.

A

Abcdise, ABCDise, Abcdize, ABCDize

Term sometimes used in edit summaries to indicate that the edit was to move list or other items into alphabetical order.

Admin

Short for Administrator. A user with extra technical privileges for "custodial" work on Wikipedia – specifically, deleting and protecting pages, and blocking abusive users. See also sysop.

AfC, AFC

The articles for creation project which reviews some articles created via the Article wizard.

AfD, AFD

The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion page. The AfD of an article refers to the discussion wherein Wikipedians consider whether an article should be kept or deleted. See Wikipedia:Guide to deletion for explanation of some terms used on AfD.

AGF

Abbreviation for "assume good faith", a guideline whereby one should not assume that an unwanted or disputed edit was done maliciously. See also Hanlon's razor.

AIV

Abbreviation for "Administrator intervention against vandalism", a place and procedure for notifying Wikipedia administrators about chronic vandalism.

AMA

Abbreviation for "Association of Members' Advocates", an advocacy scheme by and for Wikipedians. It failed to achieve widespread acceptance and was closed down.

AN

Abbreviation for "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard", a discussion location for Wikipedia administrators

Anchor

An HTML term for code that lets you link to a specific point in a page, using the "#" character. You can use them to link to a section of a page, e.g., Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links and URLs.

ANI

Abbreviation for "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents", where Wikipedia administrators discuss issues which may or may not need urgent administrator attention

Anon

Abbreviation for "anonymous user". As a user does not necessarily lose his or her anonimity by registering or logging in, this term should be avoided. See IP user.

AOTW, AotW

Abbreviation of Wikipedia:Article of the week, the former appellation of Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week.

ArbCom, Arbcom, ARBCOM

Abbreviation for Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee

Arbitration

The final step in the dispute resolution process. See also Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee.

Archive

A subpage of a Talk page to which some parts of the discussion are transferred, to reduce the size of the Talk page. Rarely, the term may refer to the Wikipedia:Historical archive page, for outdated historical material. See also: Help:Archiving a talk page.

Armwaving

Same as Handwaving.

Article

An encyclopedia entry. All articles are pages, but there are also pages that are not articles, such as this one. See also Wikipedia:What is an article.

Astroturf

Used only as a verb, astroturfing refers to attempts at creating the impression of a grassroots movement by the use of sock puppets and meat puppets to make an idea, poll, article, or deletion discussion seem to have more support than it actually has; alternately, the practice of making entries on sites such as Wikipedia to make an idea seem to have more support. In effect, a technique for "stacking the deck".

Autoconfirm

A newly registered user is still subject to some of the same restrictions as anonymous users – for example, inability to move articles or edit semi-protected pages, although some restrictions, such as the restriction on anonymous users creating pages, are lifted. When a user is autoconfirmed, these restrictions end. Currently, a new user must make ten edits and wait four days to be autoconfirmed.

Autofellatio

In the outside world, "Autofellatio" means just what the article says. On Wikipedia, Autofellatio is connected to several issues, including censorship (by removing a photograph of the act that used to be on there) and vandalism (by inserting said photograph into user pages) and trolling (by igniting flamewars for or against the inclusion of said photograph). Because of this, and the term's otherwise obscurity, Autofellatio has become an internal Wikipedian meme.

AWB

Wikipedia:Auto Wiki Browser, a semi-automated Wikipedia editor.

B

WP:BAD

See BJAODN.

Bad faith nomination

A bad faith nomination is the nomination of a page, or more pages (usually for deletion at AFD) for disingenuous reasons such as making a point or vandalism.

Ban

Banning is the extreme, last resort action by which someone is prevented from editing Wikipedia for a certain length of time, limited or unlimited. Typical reasons for banning include a long history of biased edits (violation of NPOV), persistent adding of incorrect or doubtful material, refusal to cooperate with others, or extreme incivility and threats. Banned users are not necessarily blocked, however, it is one mechanism to enforce a ban. Any username or IP judged to be the same person can be blocked without any further reason. See also:

Balancing the Main Page

Copy editing the content on various Main Page sections so the text on both the left Today's featured article/Did you know column and the right In the news/On this day column are roughly about equal ("balanced"), so there are no large blank spaces at the bottom of either column. Depending on the circumstances, this may also involve temporarily posting an additional hook or event onto one of the Main Page sections, beyond what the maximum number is stated on that particular section's guidelines.

Block.

Banner

A banner is a template that is placed across the top of an article's talk page or at the top of a category to indicate specific details relating to the article or category's maintenance. They are often specifically linked to a WikiProject to indicate that the article or category falls within the jurisdiction of that project, but may also be related to article maintenance or protection. "Banner" may also simply mean the administrator who bans a troublesome editor.

Bar

A placeholder name. See Foo

Barnstar

Barnstars are a light-hearted system of awards given to Wikipedian editors by other editors to acknowledge good work or other positive contributions to Wikipedia. They take the form of an image posted to an editor's talk page, usually in the form of a five-pointed star. There is a wide variety of different types of barnstar, each indicating a different reason for the award having been given.

BASC

The Ban Appeals Subcommittee, where users can appeal against their ban (or long-term block) after all other appeal processes have failed for them.

Be Bold, be bold, BOLD, WP:BOLD

The exhortation that users should try to improve articles and fix mistakes themselves by editing, rather than complain about them. See Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages.

BEANS

Don't stuff beans up your nose

BJAODN

Abbreviation for Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, a now-inactive page. The verb, BJAODNed, refers to the act of something being posted on the page with that name, and was often used at Wikipedia namespace articles involving heavy user participation, such as the Reference desk or AfD/TfD pages.

Blanking

Removing all content from a page. Newcomers often do this accidentally. On the other hand, if blanking an article is done in bad faith, it is vandalism. If blanking is done to a vandalized brand-new page, it is maintenance, and the page will be deleted by an administrator within a few hours if no dispute arises. {{Delete}} should be added to the blanked page to draw attention to it, rather than just blanking it. Newcomers often mistake blanking for deletion.

Block

Action by a sysop, removing from a certain IP address or username the ability to edit Wikipedia. Usually done against addresses that have engaged in vandalism or against users who have been banned – see Wikipedia:Blocking policy. See also: Ban.

BLP

Abbreviation for Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons — official Wikipedia policy, whereby articles about living people must be handled with great care.

Blue link, bluelink

A wikilink to an article that already exists shows up blue (or purple if it has been recently visited by that reader/editor). See also Sea of blue, red link, Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery.

Boilerplate text

A standard message which can be added to an article using a template. For example, {{stub}} is expanded to the following: