Wikipedia has a veritable "alphabet soup" of policies and guidelines. But all these policies and guidelines are elaborations on three key points.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia created by the community through collaboration , and these three basic characteristics suggest three basic guiding principles for editors. Other principles, policies, and guidelines can be viewed as more elaborate formulations of these three simple points.
Remain neutral
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and ought to just tell people about stuff, clearly, simply and honestly. Don't let your head get in the way of the project. Look at Neutral point of view (NPOV) , Verifiability , Citing sources , No original research , Biographies of living persons and the Deletion policy to see how this idea plays out in various policies and guidelines.
Don't be a jerk
Wikipedia is a community, and editors ought to treat each other – and the encyclopedia itself – with a certain level of pleasant, polite respect. Yes, we're almost all anonymous; yes, things go wrong; yes, the system is crocked up sometimes. Don't be a jerk and don't call anyone a jerk. This is put more politely by our Civility policy, as well as other things like keeping your cool , assume good faith and no personal attacks . And remember unregistered editors are human too .
Ignore all rules
Wikipedia is collaborative, so collaborate! Rules are fine when they're helpful, but rules are not a substitute for working things out with other editors and getting things done. See Consensus , Be Bold , the Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle , avoid instruction creep , the snowball clause , What Wikipedia is not , and similar.
This page is not a policy, guideline, or any other official sort of thing, but it is plain good common sense.
Trifecta userpage tags
Userpage tags for Trifecta aficionados: {{User:Seth Ilys/Trifecta }}, {{User:Lawilkin/UBX/Trifecta }}, {{User:Seppi333/Trifecta }}, {{Trifectaimap }}
Adminitis
Ain't no rules says a dog can't play basketball
Akin's Laws of Article Writing
Alternatives to edit warring
ANI flu
Anti-Wikipedian
Anti-Wikipedianism
Articlecountitis
Asshole John rule
Assume bad faith
Assume faith
Assume good wraith
Assume stupidity
Assume that everyone's assuming good faith, assuming that you are assuming good faith
Avoid using preview button
Avoid using wikilinks
Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
Barnstaritis
Before they were notable
BOLD, revert, revert, revert
Boston Tea Party
Butterfly effect
CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh?
Complete bollocks
Counting forks
Counting juntas
Crap
Don't stuff beans up your nose
Don't-give-a-fuckism
Don't abbreviate "Wikipedia" as "Wiki"!
Don't delete the main page
Editcountitis
Edits Per Day
Editsummarisis
Editing under the influence
Embrace Stop Signs
Emerson
Fart
Five Fs of Wikipedia
Seven Ages of Editor, by Will E. Spear-Shake
Go ahead, vandalize
How many Wikipedians does it take to change a lightbulb?
How to get away with UPE
How to put up a straight pole by pushing it at an angle
How to vandalize correctly
How to win a citation war
Ignore all essays
Ignore every single rule
Is that even an essay?
Mess with the templates
My local pond
Newcomers are delicious, so go ahead and bite them
Legal vandalism
List of jokes about Wikipedia
LTTAUTMAOK
No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man
No one cares about your garage band
No one really cares
No, really
No sorcery threats
Notability is not eternal
Oops Defense
Play the game
Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you
Please bite the newbies
Please do not murder the newcomers
Pledge of Tranquility
R-e-s-p-e-c-t
Requests for medication
Requirements for adminship
Rouge admin
Rouge editor
Sarcasm is really helpful
Sausages for tasting
The Night Before Wikimas
The first rule of Wikipedia
The Five Pillars of Untruth
Things that should not be surprising
The WikiBible
Watchlistitis
Wikipedia is an MMORPG
What Wikipedia is not/Outtakes
Why not create an account?
Yes legal threats
You don't have to be mad to work here, but
You should not write meaningless lists
About essays Policies and guidelines