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This page in a nutshell: Editors have duties to comply with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
Wikipedia's policies and guidelines govern how users must edit. Policies tell users what they must do, and guidelines tell them how to handle situations. Editors have duties to comply with these policies and guidelines, except in unusual circumstances, where Wikipedia:Ignore all rules would apply. Edit filters are in place to enforce these duties and to find patterns in harmful behavior. Kantian ethics dictate that duties come from deontological ethics, and following duties results in good behavior.[1][2] If a user were to apply Kantian ethics, the policies and guidelines exist to facilitate building an encyclopedia, and the edit filters exist because of the policies and guidelines.
In a legal sense, willfulness is "the voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty",[3] and it is "intentional, or knowing" instead of unintentional.[4] Wikipedia's policies, such as those involving vandalism and sockpuppetry, show that these violations involve intent. In addition, the principle of Ignorantia juris non excusat holds that nobody is excused from not knowing policies, and that policies guide behavior.[5] Policies and guidelines are available for people to read. This supports the principle of constructive knowledge, even if a user cannot prove that another user actually knew the policies and guidelines at hand. If a user makes a disruptive edit, another user typically reverts that edit and uses a warning template, such as Template:Uw-disruptive1, telling the user to look at the policies and guidelines, and to ask for help from the user who posted that message. The fact that this template and similar templates have these notes and links supports the maxim that users are presumed to know the policies and guidelines, and users who reasonably believe that other users posted disruptively can prove that those other users should have known the policies and guidelines, but chose not to search for them or read them.
For citingreliable sources, editors should try to cite academic journals first, as they have the most rigorous review processes and cite many sources.[6]Template:Talk header lists examples of sites editors can look for academic journals on, such as Google Scholar and JSTOR. Extended-confirmed users may have access to the Wikipedia Library, provided their accounts are older than six months. Other reliable sources include academic books, trade sources, and periodical articles, such as those from magazines and newspapers.[7]
