Wikipedia:Profanity
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This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here, and Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Before making any major changes to these guidelines, please use the discussion page to ensure that your changes reflect consensus. |
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Words and images that would be considered offensive, profane, or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers should be used if and only if their omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternatives are available. Including information about offensive material is part of Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission; being offensive is not.
In original Wikipedia content, a profanity should either appear in its full form or not at all; words should never be bowdlerized by replacing letters in the word with dashes, asterisks, or other symbols. However, when quoting relevant material from external sources, rendering a quote as it was originally spoken/written trumps our style guidelines. If necessary, you may indicate that the blanking was in the original quote by saying so in some way outside of the quote, for example by using "[censorship preserved]" or "[sic]".
Discussions about whether to include an offensive image or profanity are often heated. As in all discussions on Wikipedia, it is vital that all parties practise civility and assume good faith. Words like "pornography" or "censorship" tend to inflame the discussion and should be avoided. Objective terminology is more helpful than subjective terminology.
