Within the project's shared fictional universe, the SCP Foundation is a secret organization that is responsible for capturing, containing, and studying various paranormal, supernatural, and other mysterious phenomena (known as "anomalies" or "SCPs"[note 3]), while also keeping their existence hidden from the rest of society.

The website also contains "Foundation Tales", short stories featuring various characters and settings in the SCP universe.

The wiki's literary works have been praised for their ability to convey horror through a quasi-scientific and academic writing style, as well as for their high standards of quality.

The SCP universe has inspired numerous fan-made adaptations in varying forms of media, including literature, music, short films, and video games.

The fictional setting centers around the findings and activities of the SCP Foundation: an international secret society consisting of a scientific research institution with a paramilitary intelligence agency to support their goals.

The Foundation itself is dedicated to protecting the world by capturing and containing various unexplained anomalous phenomena that defy the known laws of nature (referred to as "anomalies", "SCP objects", "SCPs", or informally as "skips").

They include living beings and creatures, artifacts and objects, locations and places, abstract concepts, and incomprehensible entities which display supernatural abilities or other extremely unusual properties.

All information regarding the existence of the Foundation and SCPs are strictly withheld from the general public in order to prevent mass hysteria that would supposedly occur if they were leaked, and allow human civilization to continue functioning under a masquerade of "normalcy", often referred to as "The Veil".

These documents describe the SCPs and include instructions for keeping them safely contained, as well as supplementary incident reports or experimentation logs.

Apart from the Foundation itself, there are numerous rival organizations (called Groups of Interest, or GOIs) actively involved with the paranormal world.

Notable examples include the Chaos Insurgency, a terrorist splinter group of ex-Foundation defectors who capture and weaponize SCPs; the Global Occult Coalition (GOC), a secret paramilitary agency of the United Nations which specializes in destroying supernatural threats instead of containing them; and the Serpent's Hand, a militant group which advocates for the rights of anomalous beings, resisting both the Foundation's and GOC's efforts to suppress paranormal activity worldwide.

The development of evaluation processes, including the sharing of ideas and constructive criticism, has since allowed the community to maintain a high quality level for new articles.

[20] The original SCP-173 text was released into the creative commons by its author explicitly in 2013, in an effort to address the uncertain license status of some earlier material.

The reports are written in a scientific tone and often censor words with black redaction bars and "data expunged" markings, to give the in-universe impression of sensitive information not to be disclosed to lesser-privileged Foundation staff.

[28] Gregory Burkart, writing for Blumhouse Productions, noted that some of the Foundation Tales had a dark and bleak tone, while others were "surprisingly light-hearted".

[22] The SCP universe has neither a central canon nor the ability to establish one due to its community-oriented nature,[6] but stories on the wiki are often linked together to create larger narratives.

[34][35] Writers from the Daily Dot and Bustle have noted that the website maintains strict quality control standards, and that sub-par content tends to be quickly removed.

[40][41] For example, in November 2014, the SCP Wiki held a "Dystopia Contest" in which its members were encouraged to submit writings about the Foundation set in a bleak or degraded world.

It found that he did not commission or create the SCP name or logo, had not been transferred the rights to it, and that his actions may constitute an act of unfair competition.

[53] Given that the original story for SCP-3008 overtly features the IKEA name and has been online for years without dispute, tech journalism site Notebookcheck speculated that the distinction may be that SCP-3008 is noncommercialised satire, whereas The Store is Closed is a commercial product.

Additionally, he praised the wide variety of concepts covered in the report and said that the wiki contained writings that would appeal to all readers.

[55] Leigh Alexander, writing for The Guardian, noted that the wiki's voting system allows readers to easily locate content which "the community thinks are best and most scary.

Cook-Wilson argued that both Lovecraft's works and those of the SCP Wiki were strengthened by the tensions between their detached scientific tone and the unsettling, horrific nature of the stories being told.