118Wiki:Policies and Guidelines
Wiki Policies and guidelines
StarBase 118 wiki is a collaborative project and its founders and contributors have a few common goals:
- Give the members of UFOP a collaborative space where they can create and learn about our universe.
- Be comprehensive but not redundant, meaning that we want 118Wiki to cover as MANY things as possible, but we DON'T want it to cover things already on our main website.
Generally accepted policies
- Avoid bias. Articles should be written from a neutral point of view, which means that articles should represent differing views on a subject fairly and sympathetically.
- StarBase 118's wiki is an encyclopedia. The site should primarily be used for developing the encyclopedia.
- Respect other contributors. Wiki contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. By treating others with respect we are able to cooperate effectively in building an encyclopedia. For some guidelines, see Etiquette.
- Follow conventions. By following these conventions we are able to produce a more consistent and usable encyclopedia:
- Editing policy (How to edit articles)
For policies on using some restricted features, see Administrators.
How are these policies enforced?
"You" are a Wikipedia editor. Wikipedia lacks an editor-in-chief or a central, top-down mechanism whereby the day-to-day progress on the encyclopedia is monitored and approved. Instead, active participants monitor recent changes and make copyedits and corrections to the content and format problems they see. So the participants are both writers and editors.
In extreme and unusual cases, Admiral Wolf can step in to ban a user who has proven to be unusually disruptive. Wolf has also declared certain policies to be, essentially, official StarBase 118 wiki policies.
How policy has been formulated
Wikipedia policy is formulated for the most part by habit and consensus. Hence, the statements on this page and pages adjoining it are intended for the most part to be descriptive of existing community norms that have developed over time. Issues are still formulated and debated on forum pages.
Specific guidelines to consider
In addition to the generally accepted policies listed above, the following guidelines have been suggested by various participants:
General guidelines
- Contribute what you know or are willing to learn about (and create stubs responsibly)
- Be bold in updating pages
- Make omissions explicit
Behavior guidelines
- Avoid profanity
- No personal attacks (and move personal debates to email)
- Please do not bite the newcomers
- Bans and blocks
Content guidelines
- Explain jargon
- Establish context (instead of presuming too much knowledge)
- Define and describe
- State the obvious
- Cite your sources (and use proper references)
- Warn readers about spoilers
- Make articles useful for readers (and consider the audience in writing)
- Check your facts
- Check your fiction
- Make only links relevant to the context
- Describe external links
- Don't use external links where we'll want Starbase 118 links]
- Avoid peacock terms
- Avoid weasel terms
- Avoid self-references
Style guidelines
- Pay attention to spelling
- Don't include copies of primary sources
- Avoid making your articles orphans
- Use other languages sparingly
- Balance parts of a page
- Avoid one-sentence paragraphs
Thanks for reading through the Guidelines!
