WikiIndex:Policies and Guidelines

The WikiIndex administration is in the process of developing and explaining their guidelines, principles, and policies. This page is being used for policy development and is not an official guide. For now, administrators monitor the site and usually suggest better ways of doing things. Issues of immediate concern can be posted here. For a few simple guidelines, see WikiIndex:Editing etiquette or WikiIndex:Guidelines. For other guidelines, see Category:Guidelines. Block policy is being discussed at WikiIndex_talk:Blocking_Policy.

Right now, we only have a couple of rules, which have arisen from direct experience:

1. Actual commercial spam will be mercilessly deleted. Irrelevant content should be instead marked for deletion, to allow a review first. One man's "irrelevant" can be another's "interesting".
2. Edit warring and long arguments are not appreciated. If you find yourself repeatedly restoring content somebody else keeps deleting (or the other way around), let them have their way for the time being (administrators will appreciate this) and try a different approach:

• Go to their discussion page and/or the article discussion page. Write a polite request, question, or justification for your position.
• After a few posts, if you find the discussion is mostly argument, with no end in sight, you might ask your "opponent" to meet you at another location. For example, invite them to another wiki or the WikiIndex IRC chatroom.
• You might create a voting poll on the article's talk page, to get feedback from other editors.
• Ask your opponent if they will agree to the judgment of an arbiter. Anyone may be chosen as a judge for your issue, if you all can agree to it. (You may want to ask an arbiter how much they are willing to read before making their decision, so you have some idea of how much you need to reduce your summary.)
• If these methods fail or you want a simpler solution, ask for arbitration here or on an administrator's talk page.

Felix Pleşoianu | talk 03:35, 4 October 2009 (EDT) [expanded by Lumenos 02:02, 5 October 2009 (EDT)]

A discussion of possible policies follows. See also WikiIndex_talk:Policies_and_Guidelines. Felix Pleşoianu | talk 03:35, 4 October 2009 (EDT)

Sources of inspiration

Other wikis have been through this already and have developed interesting guidelines, some of which we could use ourselves.

• Wikipedia says Assume Good Faith. This is important!
• WardsWiki has some words on Good Style and a treatment of Unethical Editing.
• RationalWiki developed a set of "community standards", and updated them successfully. All is documented on the talk page and its archives. (Added by Huw Powel)

Feel free to add others. -- Felix Pleşoianu | talk 03:56, 4 October 2009 (EDT)

Content inclusion rules

The following are proposals:

1. Articles can say anything as long as no-one contests it.
2. Articles should preferably stick to facts (e.g. "wiki X claims that Y on page Z"). [Strikeout by Lumenos 02:02, 5 October 2009 (EDT)]

The first was proposed on IRC by User:Lumenos; I think it is likely to cause trouble, hence my counter-proposal. Felix Pleşoianu | talk 03:35, 4 October 2009 (EDT)

Well actually I was proposing that you have a speedy delete policy that is connected to the block policy for things like biographical information that is obtained in an illegitimate (illegal) manner. Same with things like spam and copyrighted work. Beyond those basic ("common sense") rules, you might not need to forbid things like "criticism", "original research", "unverified claims", etc, if these aren't contested. This is to address those who prefer NOT having "rules" that are "strict", "explicit", etc. I'm suggesting you need only get out the rule book when people aren't being "nice". But if you want a smoother ride, it might be easier to have a policy that wiki articles are to be always from a sympathetic viewpoint, for example. It is difficult to say if that would be less controversial than an "neutral point of view". Lumenos 02:02, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

Criticism of wikis

Criticism is controversial. The majority of the WikiIndex administration doesn't seem to like having to mediate and deal with conflicts. Therefore I am suggesting that wiki articles will probably have to be in a sympathetic viewpoint. A possible alternative is to streamline or "outsource", the process of dispute resolution. Lumenos 02:02, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

DavidCary (sysop) writing on this subject can be found here (used to be here). Lumenos 20:02, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

---

The following are some administrative comments that seemed to suggest that wiki criticism may have been allowable:

MarkDilly seems to be the only active bureaucrat, this would appear to be a quote from this location: "I can understand that folks from Conservapedia don't want the page on WikiIndex about their wiki to be overrun by criticism - and I can also understand that people want to talk about problems they have with the wiki. Why not take it to a page Constructive Criticism of Conservapedia and simply make one line / link on the Conservapedia page pointing to this. ~~ MarkDilley" Lumenos 20:02, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

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

Wikipedia supposedly uses the "neutral" approach.

This offers much opportunity for censorship and edit waring. ~~ Lumenos

Wikinfo deals with edit wars by making the main article sympathetic, and posting a link at the top of that article, to an article devoted solely to criticism.

This sort of policy sounds like it might work here, if y'all agree. ~~ Lumenos

It's cumbersome at Wikinfo but it's better than not allowing criticism at all.Proxima Centauri 01:34, 30 August 2009 (EDT)

Disputed information

• Tag: Placing "warning tags" on info that is dubious, impolite, etc. ~~ Lumenos

• Warning tags are too strong - I like the idea of tags and think they should point to constructive information. ~~ MarkDilley

• Okay, that makes sense for dubious, impolite info. We have page deletion tag that may serve as a "warning". Another example might be a tag if a page may be relocated to the talk page. Something about how this can be prevented. Once we have policies, the tag may point to the relevant polices. Lumenos 02:02, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

• Relocating an article about a wiki, to the talk page, and locking the article:

Are we supposed to be agreeing on a version of the article? [...]Lumenos 17:24, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

We don't need to agree on a particular version of any article. If something's wrong with the content, we can simply mark the trouble spots with notes like "citation needed" and "ambiguous - please clarify". The one thing that should be a no-no is reverting or deleting edits with no good reason. By the way, "because I say so", or "because that's the way we do over at wiki X" are NOT good reasons. Felix Pleşoianu | talk 02:11, 14 September 2009 (EDT)

Point of view, commenting in articles

[I suggested what I thought would be called a "neutral point of view" for this article. Lumenos 20:14, September 21, 2009 (UTC)]

I disagree strongly with Neutral Point of View for this wiki. I understand that it is for this page only - and I am not sure that is still a good thing. ~~ MarkDilley

The question is, what would be a better thing? I've listed some other options here. I don't see how we would have a sympathetic POV for this page, unless maybe it is "sympathetic" to "WikiIndex" but I'm not sure what that would mean. Lumenos 00:51, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

What potential problems do you see with this "NPOV" here? (It is not Wikipedia's NPOV, BTW) Lumenos 00:51, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

Those are fair comments - I just don't know what NPOV would do for us here. My experience with wiki, is that if I say something that is outrageous and inflammatory - someone comes in and fixes it - keeps the meaning but neutralizes it. So I do agree with not creating an atmosphere of forest fire mentality or edit waring or flaming. ~~ MarkDilley

We are allowing "commenting" on this page, but I don't want to open up debates about specific conflicts. This is my reason for the "NPOV". Lumenos 00:51, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

I think that commenting on any page is allowed - that is how wiki has worked for many places before Wikipedia. ~~ MarkDilley

(Here is Wikipedia's policy of a neutral point of view if this may give us any ideas.) -- Lumenos

Another idea would be to use the talk page for "comments" but the whole thing is pretty much my "POV", so I don't want to exclude others. Lumenos 00:51, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

Glad that you are interested in inclusion. ~~ MarkDilley

I feel strongly that we should be signing our proposals and claims here and I thank you for doing so. Lumenos 00:51, 4 September 2009 (EDT)

Ditto ~~ MarkDilley

I've tried to remove or strike-out nearly everything that could be considered my POV. I've left only some things that the administration has responded to. The old style of this policy page (which I was referring to as being in my POV) can be found here. (Really what I meant was that the original page had a number of my policy proposals, questions, and observations. The ideas of having the outline structure based on a sort of conflict theory, and drawing a distinction between manifest and latent "policy", were mine, also.) Lumenos 20:58, September 21, 2009 (UTC)

Biographical info

For now I would suggest the standard be defined by "local" laws and Wikipedia's policy on biographical info until a standard more specific to WikiIndex can be established. ~~ Lumenos

Since this is WikiIndex, I'd stick to people who are important in the world of Wikis, such as creators of established engines and people like Jimmy Wales. For guidelines on how to write the biographies, Wikipedia does look like a good model to follow. Felix Pleşoianu | talk 12:07, 29 August 2009 (EDT)

I linked to the wrong Wikipedia policy. I'm really thinking more of a speedy deletion policy that applies to talk pages also. Lumenos 02:02, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

Common sense proposal [for this project page]

This is a small and relatively inactive wiki. It hardly needs a very large policies and guidelines section - which admins and users are unlikely to read anyway. What it needs are active, fair-minded admins who use common sense.

I therefore propose that this whole page be replaced with the words: "The wiki admins will monitor the wiki and use their common sense to resolve issues. Where there is a dispute it will be resolved between the active admins on the site. (Or alternatively a vote amongst the active users.) --Bob M 14:16, 12 September 2009 (EDT)

I beg to differ. At 4668 content pages and dozens of edits a day, WikiIndex is hardly small or inactive. Remember, Wikipedia is an outlier, completely off the scales when compared to anything else. That said, I agree we should rely on common sense more than rules. But rules are useful as general guidelines. Just to get everyone on the same page, you know (pun intended). Felix Pleşoianu | talk 02:16, 13 September 2009 (EDT)

[I removed only my comments that had appeared here. Lumenos 21:07, September 21, 2009 (UTC)]

Frankly - the common sense understanding of how to prevent it, was for everyone to stop the name calling, stop the edit warring and slow down. This page is in need of pairing down and I think BobM provides a clear path on that road. ~~ MarkDilley

(Based on the above comment and this one I moved the content of this page to this subpage, and replaced the page with Bob's suggestion. I have since moved administrative comments back in. Lumenos 21:22, September 21, 2009 (UTC)