Help:Contribution rules

From WikiParenting

The contribution rules are a list of rules you must agree to before contributing to WikiParenting. Be sure to read them all.

Contribution rules

1. Be bold in updating pages. Improve pages wherever you can, and don't worry about leaving them imperfect.
2. Don't infringe copyright. Only public domain resources can be copied without permission, this does not include the vast majority of web pages or images. Click here to report copyright infringements.
3. Please do not contribute any content containing personally identifiable information.
4. Be civil to other users at all times. Being rude, insensitive or petty makes people upset and stops WikiParenting from working well. Try to discourage others from being uncivil, and be careful to avoid offending people unintentionally. Mediation is available if needed.
5. Respect the edits of other contributors. WikiParenting contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building a parenting site. Do not make personal attacks anywhere in WikiParenting. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Nobody likes abuse. (Personal attacks may result in a moderator blocking your account).
6. Be gracious: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Try to accommodate other people's quirks the best you can, and try to be as polite, solid and straightforward as possible yourself.
7. Neutral point of view. Write from a neutral point of view. This is a fundamental principle of WikiParenting, which allows us to make a fair representation of the world around us. Even if material is verifiable, it is still important to put it into a balanced and representative form so that it conveys a fair impression of the views of the many significant viewpoints on a subject.
8. Only create articles relevant to parenting. Articles that are not relevant to parenting will be deleted.
9. Spam and vandalism are any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the article. It is, and needs to be, removed from WikiParenting.
10. Biographies of living persons, which require a degree of sensitivity, must adhere strictly to our contribution rules. Be very firm about high-quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the discussion page.
11. Assume good faith; in other words, try to consider the person on the other end of the discussion to be a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to WikiParenting. Even if you're convinced of the opposite, still pretend they're acting in good faith. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you'll find that they actually are acting in good faith.
12. Don't rollback good faith edits. Rollback is a little too powerful sometimes. Don't succumb to the temptation, unless you're reverting very obvious vandalism. If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like "(rv) I disagree strongly, I'll explain why in discussion page." and immediately take it to the discussion page.
13. When in doubt, take it to the discussion page. Avoid making large deletions or changes without discussing on the talk page first. Mutual respect is the guiding behavioral principle of WikiParenting and, although everyone knows that their writing may be edited mercilessly, it is easier to accept changes if the reasons for them are understood. If you discuss changes on the article's discussion page before you make them, you should reach consensus faster and happier.
14. Three-revert rule. Do not revert any single page in whole or in part more than three times in 24 hours. (Otherwise a moderator may block your account).
15. Use decent edit summaries and clear and transparent explanations are universally appreciated. Other editors need to understand your process, and it also helps you yourself to understand what you did after a long leave of absence from an article. Please state what you changed and why. If the explanation is too long, take it to on the discussion page and explain your changes there.
16. Sign discussion pages (using ~~~~ which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit submit), but don't sign on articles themselves.
17. Article and category naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers worldwide would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
18. Use the "Show Preview" button; it prevents cluttering up the page-history with faulty article saves.
19. Don’t use articles for advertising. Articles or edits that are created for advertising purposes will be deleted. Click here to report spam.
20. Use references and links to sources when writing an article (preferably at the end of an article). This way the contents of an article can be verified.
21. Use the Wiki Search before creating an article, to check if a similar article already exists. Search for the article title and synonyms, if a similar article is present, please add your information to that article. If there aren't similar articles, you can create a new article.
22. Only list articles in the most relevant categories. Often the most relevant categories are sub-categories and not main categories.
23. Use the WikiParenting:Sandbox to experiment instead of articles.
24. Don’t submit if you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others.
25. No open proxies. All public proxy servers which could be used by anyone to hide their true IP address are not allowed to edit WikiParenting, and will be permanently blocked from editing upon discovery. (There are no restrictions on reading WikiParenting from public proxy servers).
26. Unused usernames might be renamed to a new name in order to permit another user to register the unused username.
27. Image use policy. Generally avoid uploading non-free images; fully describe images' sources and copyright details on their description pages, and try and make images as useful and reusable as possible.
28. Protection policy. Pages can be protected against vandals or during fierce content disputes. Protected pages can, but in general shouldn't, be edited by administrators. Also, pages undergoing frequent vandalism can be semi-protected to block edits by very new or unregistered users.
29. Blocking policy. Disruptive users can be blocked from editing for short or long amounts of time.
30. Banning Policy. Extremely disruptive users may be banned from WikiParenting. Please respect these bans, don't bait banned users and don't help them out.
31. Have fun!