WikiIndex:Policies and Guidelines

I (Lumenos) searched for some policy pages and found only WikiIndex: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. Please add your suggestions or questions here or on the talk page.

Enforcement policies

When naming policies it helps to specify what type of "enforcement" is appropriate for the "violation". Here are some suggested names for levels:

1. Etiquette: Guide to help polite people to be polite. Does not imply any enforcement.
2. Tag: Placing "warning tags" on info that is dubious, impolite, etc. What categories of info warrents this?
3. Eventual deletion: What categories of info should be deleted eventually, if the warning tags are ignored?
4. Speedy deletion
5. Oversite: A term that means the information will be completely vaporized! Well almost.
6. Block editor: See WikiIndex_talk:Blocking_Policy.

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.

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

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. This has to be balanced according to geek mob rule community consensus.

(Wikipedia's policy on biographical info)

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?

This wiki obviously can't use Wikipedia's notability policy or it will end up with a tiny list like this.

How sympathetic or critical? (Who decides?)

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

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

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)

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 sometimes 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 body of articles since this wiki doesn't really look like it is made for paper. Note that since WikiIndex inclusion policy is broader than Wikipedia, many sources will be self-published sources (Wikipedia ordinary does not allow these) who are only considered "reliable" for info such as describing their own intentions for their wiki's, etc. (Lumenos)

Should WikiIndex allow editors to be "eyewitnesses" or speak in the first person?

I think so. I think we should allow putting the "signatures" into the articles (as Lumenos does here using this "~~~" wiki markup code) 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. Newbies may not understand what these names are but I value accuracy and I think it is not too difficult to understand or it least, it shouldn't be too distracting if they want to ignore it. What do you think? (Lumenos)

This may also help in evaluating an editors reputation, to establish whether they deserve more or less power. (Lumenos)

Community consensus

To resolve or set boundaries on conflict, I (Lumenos) 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 (not those who only read without leaving feedback of some sort) but we may put up some messages welcoming suggestions or questions as to the policy, and leave these pages OpenEdit as long as possible.