Wikipedia:General disclaimer
General disclaimer – Use Wikipedia at your own risk – Wikipedia does not give medical advice – Wikipedia does not give legal opinions – Wikipedia contains spoilers and content you may find objectionable
Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups who are developing a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection and World Wide Web browser to alter its content. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by professionals with the expertise necessary 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 authors, contributors, sponsors, administrators, sysops, 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, personality 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 nor affiliated with any of the holders of any such rights and as such Wikipedia can not grant any rights to use any otherwise protected materials. Your use of any such or similar incorporeal property is at your own risk.
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. See Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer, Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer, and Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer for specific disclaimers.
Thank you for taking the time to read this page, and please enjoy your use of Wikipedia.
Examples of other encyclopedia disclaimers
While other encyclopedias, unlike Wikipedia, are professionally peer reviewed, they still do not guarantee their content.
- The britannica.com disclaimer
(from the site hosting the Encyclopedia Britannica
Online):
- "YOUR USE OF BRITANNICA.COM IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK."
- The
MSN.com disclaimer (from the site hosting
Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia)
- "...AND THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY, AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU."
- The bartleby.com disclaimer (from
the site hosting the Columbia Encyclopedia)
- "YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK."