Meta

Meta is the name of this wiki, see Main Page and Meta:About.

A meta page is also a page in the project-prefix namespace of a project, e.g. en:Wikipedia:Village pump and Meta:Contact us.

Confusingly, since this project is generally known as meta, its meta prefix is Meta:. On other projects, links beginning meta: are interwiki links pointing here. This means that to access the page Meta:Meta, a user of the English Wikipedia would need to type [[meta:meta:meta]]. Perhaps we need some new terminology...

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So, what is meta anyway?

Meta -- it's about change. A metamorphosis of the word "meta" is "meat" -- Wikipedia articles should always get to the meat of the matter. More are "mate" and "team" -- remember, all Wikipedians are like mates on the same team, with the same goal (which is why vandals and trolls are not welcome -- they score own goals regularly and deliberately bash their own mates 'eads in during the barfight). Another is "atem" -- we gotta get up and at 'em and git them articles written 'n' polished up!

Meta is about changing the axes of discourse; metadiscussion is discussion about discussion, and if Wikipedia is discussion, then this is Metawikipedia.

There is always some danger of infinite regress in any meta process - talk about talk about talk about... you get the idea. We try to head this off by taking style seriously enough that all greater metas are headed off by sheer awe at the elegance of our crystal-like solutions to complex issues. If you are inclined to think of meta instead as a ball of worms, the nine leverage points may be more to your liking. Grab a worm, and, well, pull! Can't get meatier than that.

Another way to avoid infinite regress is to pay attention to feedback via self-references. The English Wikipedia has the best developed list of these, they are sort of an at 'em by which one can struct molecules of brilliant prosings.

A third way is brute force, e.g. the IP Death Squad, which is a sort of team. We use this often. On you.

See also Meta namespace