Encyc:General disclaimer
Summary: The things you read on this website might not be true. Encyc may contain half-truths, errors, and lies. Use at your own risk.
Encyc is not always reliable! Traditional encyclopedias employ trained professionals to check the facts. Encyc has no such workers on its staff. Encyc is written by volunteers.
Encyc is an exercise in free speech, to see what happens when knowledge enthusiasts, with very minimal supervision, are allowed to write articles that they believe will be useful for visitors to the website. No effort is made to determine the accuracy of these articles, and it is left to the reader to use their own judgement. Everything contained within this wiki must be looked at with skepticism.
Understanding these limitations, some readers might find this wiki to be useful in spite of its inherently unreliable nature. That's why we're here.
Wikipedia's disclaimers
Encyc also generally agrees with Wikipedia's disclaimer. Most of this is common sense.
General disclaimer
Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups working to develop a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection to alter its content. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.
That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields.
No formal peer review
We are working on ways to select and highlight reliable versions of articles. Our active community of editors uses tools such as the Special:Recentchanges and Special:Newpages feeds to monitor new and changing content. However, Wikipedia is not uniformly peer reviewed; while readers may correct errors or engage in casual peer review, they have no legal duty to do so and thus all information read here is without any implied warranty of fitness for any purpose or use whatsoever. Even articles that have been vetted by informal peer review or featured article processes may later have been edited inappropriately, just before you view them.
None of the contributors, sponsors, administrators, or anyone else connected with Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of any inaccurate or libelous information or for your use of the information contained in or linked from these web pages.
No contract; limited license
Please make sure that you understand that the information provided here is being provided freely, and that no kind of agreement or contract is created between you and the owners or users of this site, the owners of the servers upon which it is housed, the individual Wikipedia contributors, any project administrators, sysops or anyone else who is in any way connected with this project or sister projects subject to your claims against them directly. You are being granted a limited license to copy anything from this site; it does not create or imply any contractual or extracontractual liability on the part of Wikipedia or any of its agents, members, organizers or other users.
There is no agreement or understanding between you and Wikipedia regarding your use or modification of this information beyond the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL); neither is anyone at Wikipedia responsible should someone change, edit, modify or remove any information that you may post on Wikipedia or any of its associated projects.
Trademarks
Any of the trademarks, service marks, collective marks, design rights or similar rights that are mentioned, used or cited in the articles of the Wikipedia encyclopedia are the property of their respective owners. Their use here does not imply that you may use them for any other purpose other than for the same or a similar informational use as contemplated by the original authors of these Wikipedia articles under the GFDL licensing scheme. Unless otherwise stated Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites are neither endorsed by nor affiliated with any of the holders of any such rights and as such Wikipedia cannot grant any rights to use any otherwise protected materials. Your use of any such or similar incorporeal property is at your own risk.
Personality rights
Wikipedia contains material which may portray an identifiable person who is alive or deceased recently. The use of images of living or recently deceased individuals is, in some jurisdictions, restricted by laws pertaining to personality rights, independent from their copyright status. Before using these types of content, please ensure that you have the right to use it under the laws which apply in the circumstances of your intended use. You are solely responsible for ensuring that you do not infringe someone else's personality rights.
Jurisdiction and legality of content
Publication of information found in Wikipedia may be in violation of the laws of the country or jurisdiction from where you are viewing this information. The Wikipedia database is stored on a server in the State of Florida in the United States of America, and is maintained in reference to the protections afforded under local and federal law. Laws in your country or jurisdiction may not protect or allow the same kinds of speech or distribution. Wikipedia does not encourage the violation of any laws; and cannot be responsible for any violations of such laws, should you link to this domain or use, reproduce, or republish the information contained herein.
Not professional advice
If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial, or risk management) please seek a professional who is licensed or knowledgeable in that area.
Risk disclaimer
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY FIND IN WIKIPEDIA MAY BE INACCURATE, MISLEADING, DANGEROUS, ADDICTIVE, UNETHICAL OR ILLEGAL.
Some information on Wikipedia may create an unreasonable risk for readers who choose to apply or use the information in their own activities or to promote the information for use by third parties.
None of the authors, contributors, sponsors, administrators, vandals, or anyone else connected with Wikipedia, in any way whatsoever, can be responsible for your use of the information contained in or linked from these web pages.
Please take all steps necessary to ascertain that information you receive from Wikipedia is correct and has been verified. Check the references at the end of the article. Read the article's talk page and revision history to see if there are outstanding disputes over the contents of the article. Double-check all information with independent sources.
If an article contains suggestions regarding dangerous, illegal or unethical activities, remember that anyone can post this information on Wikipedia. The authors may not be qualified to provide you with complete information or to inform you about adequate safety precautions and other measures to prevent injury, or other damage to your person, property or reputation. If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial, marital or risk management) please seek a professional licensed or knowledgeable in that area.
Wikipedia is not uniformly peer reviewed; while readers may correct errors or remove erroneous suggestions, they have no legal duty to do so. All information found on the site is without any implied warranty of fitness for any purpose or use whatsoever.
No consequential damages can be sought against Wikipedia, as it is a voluntary association of individuals fored to create freely licensed online educational, cultural and informational resources. This information is being given to you gratuitously and there is no agreement or understanding between you and Wikipedia regarding your use or modification of this information beyond the GNU Free Documentation License.
DO NOT RELY UPON ANY INFORMATION FOUND IN WIKIPEDIA WITHOUT INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION.
Medical disclaimer
Wikipedia contains articles on many medical topics; however, no warranty whatsoever is made that any of the articles are accurate. There is absolutely no assurance that any statement contained or cited in an article touching on medical matters is true, correct, precise, or up-to-date. The overwhelming majority of such articles are written, in part or in whole, by nonprofessionals. Even if a statement made about medicine is accurate, it may not apply to you or your symptoms.
The medical information provided on Wikipedia is, at best, of a general nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a medical professional (for instance, a qualified doctor/physician, nurse, pharmacist/chemist, and so on). Wikipedia is not a doctor.
None of the individual contributors, system operators, developers, sponsors of Wikipedia nor anyone else connected to Wikipedia can take any responsibility for the results or consequences of any attempt to use or adopt any of the information presented on this web site.
Nothing on Wikipedia.org or included as part of any project of Wikimedia Foundation Inc., should be construed as an attempt to offer or render a medical opinion or otherwise engage in the practice of medicine.
Legal disclaimer
Wikipedia contains articles on many legal topics; however, no warranty whatsoever is made that any of the articles are accurate. There is absolutely no assurance that any statement contained in an article touching on legal matters is true, correct or precise. Law varies from place to place and it evolves over time — sometimes quite quickly. Even if a statement made about the law is accurate, it may only be accurate in the jurisdiction of the person posting the information; as well, the law may have changed, been modified or overturned by subsequent development since the entry was made on Wikipedia.
The legal information provided on Wikipedia is, at best, of a general nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a licensed professional, i.e., by a competent authority with specialised knowledge who can apply it to the particular circumstances of your case. Please contact a local bar association, law society or similar association of jurists in your legal jurisdiction to obtain a referral to a competent legal professional if you do not have other means of contacting an attorney-at-law, lawyer, civil law notary, barrister or solicitor.
Neither the individual contributors, system operators, developers, or sponsors of Wikipedia nor anyone else connected to Wikipedia can take any responsibility for the results or consequences of any attempt to use or adopt any of the information or disinformation presented on this web site.
Nothing on Wikipedia.org or of any project of Wikimedia Foundation Inc., should be construed as an attempt to offer or render a legal opinion or otherwise engage in the practice of law.
Content disclaimer
In its encyclopedic function, Wikipedia contains millions of articles on a vast array of topics. A relatively small fraction of these topics are frequently censored by educational, governmental, corporate, parental and other filtering schemes.
- Some Wikipedia articles discuss words or language that are considered profane, vulgar or offensive by some readers. See Wikipedia:Profanity for more information.
- Articles may contain audio, visual, or written representations of people or events which may be protected by some cultures.
- Wikipedia contains many different images, some of which are considered objectionable or offensive by some readers. For example, some articles contain graphical depictions of violence, or depictions of human anatomy.
- Many articles contain frank discussion of controversial topics. Some subjects that are discussed have criminal applications in some jurisdictions. Others contain information on dangerous or otherwise risky activities (see Wikipedia:General disclaimer and Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer).
- Wikipedia contains spoilers.
- Wikipedia may contain triggers for people with post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Wikipedia may contain images and videos which can trigger epileptic seizures and other medical conditions.
- It should be noted that as Wikipedia is open to contributions from the public, there may at any time be graffiti present on Wikipedia.
- There may be medical, legal or other information that is normally also the subject of professional opinions; Wikipedia is not a substitute for seeking the help of a professional. Please note: Wikipedia does not give legal advice or medical advice.
Wikipedia's current policy is to include such content, provided it breaches neither any of our existing policies (especially Neutral point of view) nor the laws of the state of Florida in the United States, where Wikipedia is hosted. See a list of controversial issues for some examples of articles that may contain such content. Some of these articles contain warnings, but many do not.
In any case, Wikipedia is a work in progress, and many articles contain errors, bias, duplication, or simply need tender loving care. We encourage readers to help us fix these problems. The great majority of articles are written primarily or solely by individuals who are not subject matter experts, and may lack academic or professional credentials in the area.
Wikipedia contains obscure information that would not be covered in a conventional encyclopedia. Wikipedia's coverage is based on the interests of its volunteer contributors. Readers should not judge the importance of topics based on their coverage in Wikipedia, nor assume that a topic is important merely because it is the subject of a Wikipedia article.
See also: Wikipedia:Verifiability.