 Welcome back. In this chapter we're going to explore the guiding principles of editing Wikipedia and there are five main pillars. Number one, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia so it's not an advertising platform or a place for original research or a soap box. Everything that we write on Wikipedia has to be referenced. Number two, Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view so we don't promote one point of view over another and we do that through the type of language we use, through accuracy and through balance. Thirdly, Wikipedia is free content meaning everything that's on it is freely licensed that anyone can use, edit or distribute. Number four, Wikipedia editors treat each other with respect and civility and that means that even when we do disagree we don't make it personal and we try and seek consensus which is a lovely philosophy but for those of us who have done a lot of editing we know that from time to time you get into some pretty robust conversations with other editors but more and more there's a focus on making Wikipedia a safe and respectful environment for everybody. Number five, the last rule of editing Wikipedia is there are no firm rules so there's lots of policies and guidelines but these can actually change at any time depending on the consensus of the editing community. So you can actually be quite bold with your editing and if you make mistakes it's fairly easy to undo them which brings us to the issue of conflict of interest and no unfortunately that means you can't edit your own Wikipedia page nor that of the organization you work with or your friends and family because it's difficult for us to be neutral about those that we're close to so it can be complex and quite frustrating when we discover errors on pages that we're close to or know a lot about but because of that conflict of interest issue we have to find others to help us rectify those issues so that's the basic principles or five pillars of editing Wikipedia.