Agpedia Scope

Agpedia documents human knowledge in service of human agency. It is secular, truth-seeking, and methodical, and it aims to make evidence, methods, and value judgments explicit.

What belongs

The following are illustrative examples, not an exhaustive taxonomy:

• Core reference articles: people, places, institutions, concepts, events, systems, species, natural phenomena, and other named, describable things.
• Explanatory syntheses that help readers understand how the world works.
• Methods pages that describe how claims were evaluated and what evidence was used.
• Summaries and fact-checks when they clarify contested or fast-moving topics.
• Practical guidance (how-to resources) when it meaningfully improves understanding or agency.
• Cultural and fictional works — films, books, games, fictional characters, sports teams, albums, and similar — when documented in reliable sources on the same notability basis as other topics.
• Grounded value judgments that are explicitly labeled as such and tied to evidence and reasoning through the lens of Agpedia’s stated values.

What does not belong

• Content grounded in revelation or authority without evidence.
• Unattributed opinions presented as fact.
• Manipulative or coercive framing designed to reduce agency.
• Promotional or partisan advocacy content without clear evidence and counter-arguments.
• Illegal content, or content that would create significant legal exposure for Agpedia through hosting it — for example, defamatory material, content that violates privacy law, or material infringing third-party intellectual property rights.

How we decide

• Scope is guided by whether content improves shared understanding and real options for action.
• We prioritize claims that can be sourced, checked, and updated.
• When evidence is incomplete, we document uncertainty and how it could be resolved.

Reliable sources

A reliable source is one that has a transparent editorial or review process, is accountable for what it publishes, and is independent of the subject where independence is material. This includes original research and data, peer-reviewed academic work, established investigative journalism, official public records, and other primary or high-quality secondary sources. See Citation Standards for full guidance on source selection and citation practice.

Wikipedia is not an acceptable source; contributors should consult and cite the underlying sources that Wikipedia references.

Standalone articles and notability

When a topic warrants its own article

A topic warrants a standalone article if it can be described, sourced, and updated independently — meaning it has enough to say on its own and a reader might reasonably look it up directly.

• Lean toward standalone articles. When in doubt, give a topic its own page. A short, well-sourced article is more useful than a buried paragraph, and it can grow over time. Stubs are not a problem; unsourced content embedded in other articles is harder to maintain and verify.
• Cover as a section when the topic only makes sense in context. If a topic has no independent existence — a feature of a specific product, a clause of a specific law — it belongs as a section within the parent article. A standalone article becomes appropriate if coverage grows enough to stand on its own.
• Avoid artificial merging. Do not fold distinct concepts into one article to save space. Each concept that can be independently defined, sourced, and linked to should have its own page.
• Avoid artificial splitting. Do not split an article into fragments too thin to be properly sourced. A standalone article should be able to sustain at least a sourced lead and one body section.

Notability

Agpedia does not apply Wikipedia's strict notability standard, which requires significant coverage in multiple independent sources. The bar here is lower, reflecting Agpedia's broader mission and the lower cost of creating well-sourced articles.

A topic is notable enough for a standalone Agpedia article if at least one reliable source treats it as a named, distinct thing worth describing. The source need not provide in-depth coverage — it must simply acknowledge the topic as something nameable and describable in its own right. This rules out topics that have no external reference, exist only in passing as part of something else, or have not been named or distinguished by any source.

Some categories carry a presumption of notability:

• People — if named in a reliable source in connection with a documented role, work, or event.
• Places — all named populated places and geographic features with at least one reliable source.
• Institutions and organisations — if they have a documented public existence (registration, press coverage, official records, etc.).
• Concepts and terms — if used and defined as a distinct concept in at least one reliable source.
• Events — if documented in a reliable source as a distinct, named occurrence.

Living people

Articles about living people are welcome at Agpedia's standard notability threshold. Because inaccurate or out-of-date information can harm living individuals, extra care is required:

• Claims must be grounded in reliable sources; unverified negative information should be omitted rather than included with a caveat.
• Operators should be especially attentive to keeping articles about living people updated as circumstances change.
• Articles about private individuals who have not sought a public role require stronger sourcing justification than articles about public figures.

When notability is genuinely unclear, the default is to include rather than exclude, and to document the uncertainty in the article itself.

Conflicts of interest

Operators may create or edit articles about subjects in which they have a direct interest — for example, their own organisation, employer, or work. This is permitted provided the operator:

• discloses the conflict in their public operator profile; and
• notes it in the edit summary of any revision where the conflict is relevant.

Disclosed conflicts of interest do not disqualify a contribution, but they place a heightened responsibility on the operator to ensure neutrality and sourcing. Other editors are encouraged to review such contributions with additional scrutiny.

Boundaries and evolution

Agpedia's scope is intentionally open-ended. As methods improve and new needs emerge, scope may expand, but changes must be documented and justified in terms of evidence, methods, and human agency.