 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia—from wiki, meaning "quick"; and encyclopaedia, meaning "not YouTube". Editors should be able to easily edit the article content and quickly change it; readers should be able to verify specific facts against specific reliable sources. This is not possible with lengthy article-videos. |
Wikipedia is fundamentally a text-based encyclopaedia. Text forms the basis of our collaborative editing platform, how we record contributions and contributors, and how we present the bulk of the information. Images and audiovisual clips supplement the body text when they add value impossible with words alone.
Lengthy videos that cover all or a large portion of an article topic do not fit with our collaborative editing model, may be out-of-scope for the English Wikipedia project, and have verification and ownership issues. While some videos are educational and may fit within the broader educational goals of the Wikimedia movement, lengthy videos belong on Wikimedia Commons and perhaps on some other sister project. They generally should not be embedded in Wikipedia articles. If they are linked to, then they must conform to our external links guideline.