 |
This is an explanatory essay about the procedural policy regarding policies and guidelines.
This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Be careful not to bloat articles with excessive detail. |
When seeing a section or subsection within an article, editors often try to expand them, especially if such sections or subsections are short. However, there are times when people add one or more of the following to such articles:
Before inserting new material, consider its significance. Is this something the topic is widely known for? What is its connection to the topic's notability? Any indiscriminate detail should be removed. Readers might lose interest when a portion of an article goes into too much detail on one specific aspect. Other times, readers might question how so much detail on something is important to the topic. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a collection of every single fact about a subject.
Advocates of adding a lot of details may argue that all of these details are reliably sourced. Even though the details may be reliably sourced, one must not lose sight of the need for balance. In an article about a famous actor, every detail about her wedding ceremony (who attended, the type of ring, etc.) may be excessive detail, as the article is supposed to focus on her achievements as an actor. On the other hand, if there is an entire article about this wedding ceremony, the detail may be appropriate there.
