Tolkien Gateway:Policy
From Tolkien Gateway
Here are given some brief guidelines to Tolkien Gateway's policy. Common sense is taken for granted. A user ignoring the policy will be faced with a temporary or an indefinite block.
General guidelines[edit source]
- Contribute what you know or are willing to learn about.
- Be bold in updating pages.
- Make omissions explicit.
- Provide an edit summary.
- Respect the admins' decisions.
- Avoid making micro-edits. Take your time to improve several things at once, or leave systematic work to bots or admins.
Behavior guidelines[edit source]
- Sign your posts on talk pages.
- Avoid profanity.
- No personal attacks (and move personal debates to private chat or email).
- No legal threats.
- Be accountable.
- No offensive usernames.
- Don't bite the newcomers.
- Don't create articles about yourself.
- Use your user pages appropriately.
- Don't get into edit fights. If someone undid your edit, solve the matter in the Chat or the article's talkpage before making any other change.
Content guidelines[edit source]
- Explain jargon.
- State the obvious.
- Cite sources: point the reader to authoritative references (and list them properly).
- Verifiability: ensure information cited is verifiable if needed (this does not mean it is "official", rather it refers to others' ability to confirm it exists and is as stated).
- Avoid statements that will date quickly.
- Stay on topic.
- Make articles useful for readers (and consider the audience in writing).
- Check your facts.
- Avoid weasel terms (disputed).
- Avoid self-references.
- Avoid POV phrases.
- Avoid lengthy, separate summaries of movies and books.
Style guidelines[edit source]
- Manual of style.
- Don't include copies of primary sources.
- Follow highlighting conventions.
- Consider the context when making links.
- Use subheadings sparingly.
- Use short sentences and lists.
- Avoid one-sentence paragraphs.
- Do not use subpages.