Wikipedia talk:Guidance for younger editors

Minimum age

What's the minimum age for adding personal information, like age, location, real name, without getting suppressed? CreatorTheWikipedian2009 (talk) 18:22, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

That's a loaded question with about a half-dozen different answers, all variants of "it depends on the situation". The very simplistic answer is that there is no minimum age; I have suppressed content posted by 11-year-olds and I have suppressed personal information written by 40-year-olds (though admittedly the older one gets the less likely they are to post personal information).

However, to get to the hidden question in your question, the WMF considers anyone under 16 to be a minor, which means the OS team treats any personal content from someone below this threshold as suppress-on-sight. If someone is over this age, and posts simple/non-trackable information such as a DOB or general location, it will likely stay un-suppressed, but again I have suppressed information about college-age students and older where they simply gave too much personal information which would allow someone to actually know their physical location.

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, but at the same time they shouldn't know how to find you. The advice I usually give is to think about what you really want people to know about you; things like your location and real name will very, very, very rarely fall into that category. Primefac (talk) 01:05, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Ok, what simple/non-trackable information? CreatorTheWikipedian2009 (talk) 09:02, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I am not going to give you an answer to that. Different people find different types of information to be public enough to share, and if I give you a list you'll give exactly that information anyway. Think about if you met a total stranger on the street; what would you feel comfortable sharing with them? Primefac (talk) 00:08, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know. CreatorTheWikipedian2009 (talk) 08:41, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

late reply but i believe its 16 on the age part ~2026-90349-5 (talk) 20:18, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

"Many young editors forget our purpose and obsess over popularity, fame, attention, and more"

C'mon, now. Is this really accurate? Seems like an over-generalization of an entire group of editors, in my opinion. — ^EF⁵ 01:23, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Yeaj I think it should be changed. FaviFake (talk) 18:10, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

That is true of many editors, whatever their age. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:36, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger: that's true, but pinning the problem on young editors specifically is, as I stated above, a bad-faith interpretation of a large group of people. ^EF⁵ 13:44, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

No legal way of your password to yourself if you are under 18

My parents want to have a look at my phone and I can't legally refuse so I have to give my phone which means giving my Wikipedia password. So should this essay say parents are exempt from the password. Can Parents Legally Do This? ~2025-36403-94 (talk) 23:36, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I added some info in the page. Thank you for the suggestion ~2025-36455-95 (talk) 23:47, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

All rules here and in real life apply to free will. The rules don't apply when coercion is involved. Johnuniq (talk) 06:01, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Reduce number of banners at the top

This article is intended for people less familiar with Wikipedia UI. I think the use of three banners at the top might hamper that goal. Is it possible for us to trim them down? Abandeali (talk) 05:25, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Hrm... second and third banners do somewhat mirror each other. Primefac (talk) 22:30, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

just made this as simple as possible. Moxy🍁 23:53, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate the goal of simplifying, but I added back the essay banner. Since we have so many pages in the Wikipedia namespace that reflect widely varying levels of consensus, it's helpful to clearly indicate essay/guidance/policy status in a standardized way. Dreamyshade (talk) 00:44, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

This page should be protected

This page isn't even protected. Us temporary accounts can edit it. It should be protected that only confirmed users can edit. Someone else needs to do this. ~2026-37427-43 (talk) 03:02, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

many page watchers here Wikipedia:Give 'em enough rope Moxy🍁 03:26, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

The last time an unregistered user edited this page was January, and the edit wasn't reverted, so... no; we don't preemptively protect pages. Primefac (talk) 11:37, 18 July 2026 (UTC)