WikiIndex:Policies and Guidelines

I searched for some policy pages and found Editing etiquette. A block policy doesn't exist (aside from "spam") and is being discussed on WikiIndex_talk:Blocking_Policy. This seemed to be a source of confusion and conflict so I made this article to sort through a number of these specific issues. Lumenos 23:05, 28 August 2009 (EDT)

Establishing policies

I suggest we discuss block policy there, and that it is good that we clearly separate the etiquette policy from the enforcement policy, because "enforcing politeness" isn't always polite nor is is always practical at archiving its ends. Lumenos 23:05, 28 August 2009 (EDT)

I suggest using Wikipedia's blocking policy as a guide. (It is copyleft, I think it would be a lot easier to throw something like this up temporarily and modify it rather than trying to start from scratch. Put a disclaimer at the top saying that this is only a guide not a policy, and that users may modify it as they can now. That may be overwhelming for some. Alternatively we might just copy out any parts we find a need to implement here.)

Here are some specific issues that have been a sources of conflicts:

Biographical info

(Wikipedia's policy on biographical info) If someone claiming to be an adult, puts information about themselves in a place on the Internet, that they know is visible to anyone who finds it (without any "hacking"):

Should this information be placed in articles on WikiIndex?

How about talk pages: for the apparent purpose of "analyzing" the claims?

How about talk pages: for the apparent purpose of "punishing" or "protesting" the person who made their private info public?

Then apply the questions above, to information that is obtained or posted, in these less consensual ways:

"Private" online conversations.

Hacking.

Someone outs someone they know from real life.

Any other ideas for the paparazzi? :-)

After we establish what is polite, the second question is, what is the polite way to implement this? Will censoring work or will it result in the Streisand effect? If you have even one determined "protester", privacy is quite difficult to protect once the "info genie" is out of the bottle. Especially when there are edit histories, and talk pages where most any info is generally allowed, forums where only administrators can remove info from posts, etc. And no one is reading only this one site. The block, delete, and oversite policies must take into account the logistic/practical question of whether these measures will have the intended result.

Notablity

Notablity: A notability guide concerning linking ("spamming"), in other wikis articles:

How large or active does a wiki need to be to be included in another wikis article? What is the minimum number of regular editors, if this is important?

Should the quality of the wikis content also be considered? If so, who is to make this evaluation?

How close to the subject matter do they have to be, to have a link on that wikis page? Most importantly, who decides this?

(Wikipedia's notability policy.)

How sympathetic or critical? (Who decides?)

Are the articles on wikis to be sympathetic, critical, both, or "neutral"?

(Wikipedia supposedly uses the "neutral" approach)

But really the all important question is when there is not consensus, should the wikis users primarily control their wikis article or should it be administrators here?

Claims and evidence

(Wikipedia's verifiability policy)

This needs a policy for each: the etiquette (put the "citation needed tag" for "violations" of this), the eventual delete policy, the immediate delete policy, the oversite policy. (Wikipedia need this as well.)

Should WikiIndex make claims, quote sources, or only make claims as to what sources claim?

I prefer to quote sources, but this is not customary here. So sometime I write like "Bob claims that...", but this comes across as suspicious and can be very repetitive when everything is a claim I heard somewhere. Wikipedia's policy is probably the best compromise I can think of at the moment. References can be simple web links in the articles since this wiki doesn't really look like it is made for paper. Lumenos 23:05, 28 August 2009 (EDT)

Should WikiIndex allow editors to be "eyewitnesses"?

I think so. I think we should allow putting the "signatures"/timestamp into the articles if there is no link or reference that can be easily provided or when there is a reference but it is too long for most to read to find the relevant information. Again this could look strange and cluttered but I value accuracy so I'm willing to make that sacrifice. Lumenos 23:05, 28 August 2009 (EDT)

This may also help in evaluating an editors reputation, to establish whether they deserve more or less power. Lumenos 23:05, 28 August 2009 (EDT)

Community consensus

To resolve or set boundaries on conflict, I suggest we work with the community here to establish policies that attempt to reflect how they want this content filtered and organized. And that any policies be updatable (deletable) according to how the community changes. By definition, we can only reflect the will of editors but we may put up some messages welcoming suggestions or questions as to the policy, and leave these pages OpenEdit as long as possible. Lumenos 23:05, 28 August 2009 (EDT)