[WikiGem] Guidelines

These guidelines are an attempt to stick to high quality content while also preventing editor intimidation via legalism (overly strict interpretation of laws).

Every page of this wiki is divided into two sections: the article, and the discussion. The discussion lives on the same page as the article, at the bottom of the page, but is reserved for threaded conversations of different viewpoints and ideas on how to improve the article. The article, however, should strive for accuracy, truth, citations, and third person neutral tone of voice.

1. This wiki's article content is intended for general knowledge and cited information. Both primary and secondary sources are allowed. It is best to have at least one of each. Sources should be selected and analyzed for reputability. Fringe theories by one or two persons should not be emphasized, and are better placed in the discussions section of the page.

2. Citations, summarizations, quotes that don't utilize the majority of a work, and general knowledge do not infringe copyright, and thus are allowed on the wiki.

3. General knowledge *does not* need to be cited, but citations help. This includes track lists, song names, dates, general periods of history, names of presons, places, or things, mathematics, etc.

4. Go by the spirit of the rules and guidelines, not their letter. Exceptions apply in many cases, but do not apply in cases where exceptions are excplicitly said to not apply (e.g., guideline 13).

5. The goal of the article content of this wiki is to be accurate, and neutral only when accuracy is impossible. In article content, while differing viewpoints are allowed and encouraged, not all opinions should be given the same weight, even in cases where neutrality is preferred.

6. Eventualism, that all article content is a work in progress and that it's okay for an article to temporarily go against the rules of citations and no original research, applies to all articles except biographies. When an edit war happens, keep the content in question (with exception to biographies), place a note within the page signifying that it's disputed, and talk it out in the discussion section. Exceptions to this rule include spam, defined as overly repetitious or irrelevant content, and unwarranted derogatory language.

7. Be clear and concise. Avoid redundancy.

8. Original research should aspire to have more citations from more reputable sources than text that intends to summarize or aggregate general knowledge.

9. Respect living persons. If details about them in articles are false, they should be corrected. Their own words serve as descriptions of themselves, and thus may be cited with primary sources. When in doubt of the factuality of a detail about a living person, do not include it.

10. Avoid passionate tone, understatement, overexaggerations, and hyperbole in article content. Do not use profanity.

11. Try to link articles from and to their proper categories. Articles about WikiGem or Wikis in general should be placed under the Meta/ directory, and contributor user pages should be placed under the Users/ directory.

12. Editors who frequently revert other people's commits and end up starting an edit war should be met with suspicion. This practice is often used to intimidate new editors or force their opinions onto articles, regardless of whether they are correct or not.

These types of actors will often revert commits without reason, or commits that have no severe impact on the article, waiting for an edit war to start so they can then report the new contributor for reversing a revert. Again, these types of actors should be under scrutiny for abusing a legalistic view of the guidelines.

13. Attack pages of presons who are not in the public view, or who are only connected to one significant public event, are banned, without exception.

14. Avoid overly confrontational and disrespectful tones, especially in discussions. Do not use pejoratives against another contributor. It *is* possible to avoid offense without compromising one's standards, and this includes being rude by boasting about your Wiki knowledge to make others feel inferior or unintelligent.

However, those who step into confrontational or disrespectful tones from time to time should be given some grace. It is not grounds for banning them unless they use pejorative language consistently, or they engage in doxxing or the sharing of private information to intimidate or hurt others.

15. The systematic erasing of a large amount of contributions not one's own should be met with suspicion. It is considered vandalism.

16. In discussion sections, do not delete any part of posts that are not yours. Do not replace them with summaries nor syntheses, either.

17. Let hot pages cool before contributing. Don't refactor pages until after heated discussion has settled.

18. Do not refactor or modify edits immediately after they are made. Wait 10 minutes to ensure the contributor has no other edits to be made. Contribution is a step-by-step process. One cannot expect a contribution to be perfect on first upload.