User:Waitingforspring/Draft

In response to this draft. Note: This page contains the personal opinion and suggestions of an editor. It should be regarded as a proposal / essay and not a policy at this stage.

Description One of the first pages I stumbled upon after joining was the About Us, stating that its purpose was to become the foremost source of quality information about the Warriors series. I started contributing in this spirit, but soon I bumped into resistance, with users acting very conservative and opposing changes. This might have been a necessity in the past, but time has come to give our users more trust.

A flaw of the wiki is that there are no written guidelines defining the content itself (the Policies section contain only some info on chat, forum, book covers, sigs, roleplay). There are only some unwritten rules usually bent this way and that, and we should define official guidelines in order to:
 * define the purpose of the wiki and make it known to new users
 * give solutions to common problems and disruptive editing
 * speed up work and reduce conflicts and disagreements
 * make contributors respect each other
 * agree on a certain style for articles

There are actually several types of standards describing what should be done and how:
 * Policies describe rules that all users should normally follow within the limit of common sense
 * Guidelines describe best practices
 * Essays are opinions and recommendations of an editor

Below I drafted up some ideas. These are only suggestions, and most of them are already acted upon as "unwritten rules", but it would not harm to write them down in an "official" manner. We don't need many rules for a wiki of this size; I listed only things I considered absolutely necessary. Use the Talk page to suggest additions, removals, changes, or just to give your opinion. Note that this is a draft and will require heavy discussion and strong consensus to be promoted to a next stage.

Policy Life Cycle Before introducing policies, we should first agree on how to create, introduce and enforce them. I guess most users assume that it is the sysops' task to do this, as they decide what is the best for the wiki. This is not entirely true; policies and guidelines should be proposed by the contributors, and one user group's opinion doesn't have more "weight" than another's. Of course, we can alternatively have a rule saying that only certain categories of users can propose and accept policies, if this is considered more beneficial for the wiki.

A life cycle usually consists of:
 * Proposal: A user can propose a new policy or guideline via an accepted means (such as posting to the Community Portal talk)
 * Discussion: Editors should discuss the proposal and suggest additions / removals from it as they consider the best. Once a final version is drafted up, it should be voted upon, and a consensus shall be reached
 * Consensus: To get accepted, a policy or guideline shall be supported by a strong consensus. If there is no consensus or no support, the suggestion is considered failed
 * Role Change: An essay or guideline can be promoted to policy level via the normal procedure of proposal described above. Similarly, a policy can be demoted to guideline or essay level instead of being deleted altogether if it is not needed anymore (e.g. becomes obsolete), and a consensus is reached about demoting it

Voting and Consensus Many users confuse consensus with counting of votes. This might work in the cases of promoting the article of certain grade, but for more important decisions (such as accepting a guideline, giving a user special rights, making larger changes to the wiki or deleting articles) polling is no substitute to a discussion. The following paragraphs are about such "important decisions".

Users should be encouraged to elaborate their opinion on the subject instead of just casting a yes / no vote. Similarly, when concluding the vote, the decision should be made on the raised arguments and opinions instead of just counting votes, and the members' contributions should also be taken into account. So even if there are 8 yes and 2 no votes, the conclusion can still be "no", if the "yes" votes contained no opinions and done by new members, and the "no" votes were supported by elaborate arguments done by members with long standing and knowing the wiki ways.

Votes should run for a certain time, and they should be linked from the Community Portal. We should also agree on who should put up and conclude a vote. My opinion is that sysops should initiate voting, but it should be able be concluded by any member in good standing. It is important that a vote should be concluded by a person who did not participate in it and is not generally touched by it.

Enforcement If an editor deliberately violates the community standards, other members can persuade the person to adhere to acceptable norms of conduct, over time resorting to more forceful means such as administrator actions. In cases where it is clear that a user is acting against policy he / she may be temporarily or indefinitely blocked.

That said, policies should always be applied within the limits of common sense. Remember that they are in place to help us make a better encyclopedia and a better community. Always apply rules with this in mind.

Purpose of the Wiki A strange thing is that it is nowhere pointed out that the Warriors Wiki should actually be about the official Warriors books and characters. It's no wonder that so many articles are created about fan characters or Clans. Of course, it is not late to correct this, drafting up a policy describing what articles are allowed on the wiki, such as:
 * The Warriors Wiki is a source for factual information about the Warriors Series by Erin Hunter; it should not include articles of speculation, rumors, or anything unrelated to the actual book series and its writers. It should be pointed out though that any article relating to Warriors does have a place on the wiki!
 * The overall purpose of joining the wiki is to create and improve articles that provide reliable, sourced, and factual information about the Warriors series
 * Works and articles concerning fanfiction, fan characters and other fan works are not permitted in the main namespace. They might be added to the User namespace, however, users should be directed to a dedicated website for fan characters and such
 * Listing of roleplay sites should follow the dedicated Role Play Namespace policy
 * Edits should mostly go toward the main namespace and other contributive namespaces. The wiki is not a socializing site or forum

How to Make this Known It is paramount to let the users know about these guidelines - this way we could minimize the number of unnecessary articles and the number of users joining just to use the wiki as a forum or similar. I am convinced that the fan-character articles are created and re-created just because there is nowhere written that this wiki does not deal with such: users just see some site related to Warriors and jump in. Consequently, a summary of the Purpose should be included in the mediawiki welcome message, both for registered and unregistered users.

Assume Good Faith Unless proved otherwise, you must assume that editors' edits and comments are made in good faith. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. Most things seen as "disruptive" are actually good faith edits of users that are not familiar with the wiki rules (and as I pointed out, currently we do not have guidelines governing the content), or who don't know they're contributing in a non-constructive way, but may nonetheless turn out to be valuable contributors. When disagreement occurs, try to the best of your ability to explain and resolve the problem, and give others the opportunity to do the same.

The Necessity of Communication This is one of the most neglected aspects on this wiki, and I suspect we are losing quite a few contributors because of this. Communication to new users is rarely initiated (except if they are told off); unless a user asks for explicit help, he/she will rarely be given. Experienced editors shall look out for new users and their edits, and help them right away if they deem it necessary instead of waiting for them to make first contact.

What I propose:
 * If a non-vandalism edit is reverted (especially one done by a new user), the editor making the revert shall post a message on the user's Talk page explaining why was the edit reverted, how it should have been done, and where to look for more help
 * If a page is deleted (especially one done by a new user, and falling under the Speedy Deletion criteria), the same procedure as above shall be applied

User Rights It should be pointed out if a certain user group has more rights than others, or do all users have the same rights. In a wiki environment, there is usually no difference in rights of certain groups, i.e. newly registered members have the same rights as all of the other members and are fully authorized to create new articles and give comments. Every member of this site is important to the success of Warriors Wiki, regardless of their edit count, administrative status, or time spent here. Wikis develop faster when everybody helps to fix problems, correct grammar, add facts, make sure wording is accurate etc.

Please do not harm the democratic harmony of the wiki with attitudes like "This page should be deleted because a new / anon user made it" and such. Contributions should be judged by their value and relevance, and not on the status of the person creating it.

Other Namespaces Guidelines governing other namespaces should be set up if necessary, e.g. what should a Template or Category adhere to. User pages, sub-pages and blogs are generally given more leeway than other namespaces, but these should adhere to certain guidelines as well (e.g. no insults). Pages created by users should be included in correct categories, such as a tutorial in the Tutorials and an essay in the Essays category.

User Conduct

Deletion Deletion shall be applied if a page does not meet the guidelines to be included on the wiki. It should be applied with extreme care: it is an action destroying the work of other users, so there must be clear guidelines about when a page might be deleted. Before deletion, the sysop should check the article history, pages linking to the article, and the talk page of the article.

A deletion can be requested by any user, if he / she believes that the article is inappropriate for the wiki; this is done with the Delete tag. A sysop should decide if it meets the criteria for Speedy Deletion, or If you see a new page that you don't necessarily find useful, instead of asking "Do we need this?", you should ask "Is this against the wiki's purpose?" All Warriors-related articles have a place on this wiki - that is what the wiki is for!

Speedy Deletion The following pages shall be speedily deleted, i.e. without a discussion or second opinions:
 * Articles completely unrelated to Warriors
 * Fan-made characters, Clans and stories or similar. If the article is elaborate and there was a lot of work with it, the sysop shall consider moving it to the user's namespace and ask what to do with it before deleting
 * Vandalism and nonsense
 * Advertisement (spam)
 * Recreating a page that was deleted after a deletion discussion (AfD), if the new page is similar to the old one
 * Copyright infringement
 * Pages (including blogs) that insult or gossip about other users or the wiki in general, or contain profanity and mature content
 * Test pages, unnecessary redirects and disambiguations

What does usually not qualify for speedy deletion:
 * Short pages: a Warriors-related page should never be deleted just because it is a stub. Another editor might come and expand it shortly; if that is not possible (as there is no more info on the topic), a merge can be requested to a relevant article
 * Recreating a page that was deleted after a deletion discussion (AfD), if the new page is not similar to the old one and / or is expanded with valuable info

What is Vandalism Most users describe any nonconstructive edit as "vandalism". This is not true though: vandalism is defined as a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the wiki. Common types of vandalism are the addition of obscenities, page blanking, and the insertion of nonsense into articles. Such things occur very rarely on the Warriors wiki. Things like adding unconfirmed info or unapproved images to articles or insertion of fan-made characters is not vandalism, as they were likely done in good faith, and the contributors should not be identified as "vandals".

Deletion Discussion If an article does not classify for Speedy Deletion, but one or several contributors do not consider the topic enough relevant for the wiki or enough notable to have its own article, they can propose a discussion about deleting the article (AfD process). A speedy deletion can be contested by a user (or a group of users), and an AfD requested instead.

A consensus must be reached (see Voting and Consensus). As mentioned there, this should be a discussion with solid arguments instead of yes / no votes, and it should be concluded by a neutral party by weighing the arguments instead of counting votes. The result can be "keep" or "delete", and the AfD discussion must be preserved for future reference.

If the consensus is keep, it should be mentioned on the Talk page that the article was proposed for deletion, and the concerns raised. The article should not be proposed for deletion again, except if the consensus is though to be, or if the concerns raised at the previous discussion are not addressed for a certain time.

If the consensus is delete, all valuable information the article contained (if any) should be integrated in other relevant articles. Before deletion, the sysop should check the article history, pages linking to the article, and the talk page of the article.

Merging If there are other articles on the same topic, and a certain page is not notable enough to have its own article, then instead of deletion, it can be proposed to be merged into another one. If the requirement for a merge is obvious, it can be made without votes (sort of a "speedy merge"); in other cases, there should be a consensus.

An AfD can be combined with a Merge request, i.e. the editors can vote if an article should be kept, deleted, or merged into another one.

Similarly, if an article is too long and contains diverse information, a Split can be requested.

<h2 style="padding:3px 4px; background: #A00000; color: #FFFFFF; font-size:125%; text-align:left;">Reverting Vandalism shall be reverted on the spot. If a non-vandalism edit must be reverted for some reason, the reason should be explained in the edit summary, so the contributors know what was the problem with it. A nice thing to do is to drop the note on the Talk page first, and revert afterwards (referencing the talk page in your edit summary), rather than the other way round. Conversely, if someone reverts your change without apparent explanation, you may wish to wait a few minutes to see if they explain their actions on the Talk page, or contact the editor and ask for the reason for their revert.

<h3 style="padding:3px 4px; background: #0060D8; color: #FFFFFF; font-size:100%; text-align:left;">Preserving Information It is important that all appropriate content should be preserved. Problematic articles shall be fixed or tagged with the "style" or "cite" templates; Warriors-related content should not be removed just because it is badly written or not in the right place. Instead of removing information, you can consider rephrasing, adding sources, correcting inaccuracies, moving the section to a more relevant article, or requesting a merge.

<h2 style="padding:3px 4px; background: #0060D8; color: #FFFFFF; font-size:125%; text-align:left;">Manual of Style And here is one of the things we need badly: a manual of style. This is a set of guidelines listing how an article should be written and what should it contain. Here are a few ideas; these need to be worked upon, formatting it with sections and adding any other "unwritten" practices:
 * Articles shall be written in the English language, using American English spelling
 * Articles shall be encyclopedic in content, mentioning every aspect of the topic without bias
 * Article titles and Category names shall be nouns or noun phrases and should have correct capitalization. They shall be in singular (e.g. Fox instead of Foxes), except if by convention the concept is usually referred in plural (e.g. The Ancients)
 * Spoiler tags should be put at the beginning and the end of the plot (not at the beginning and the end of an article). We should also have a discussion (and propose a guideline) about using spoiler tags at all; on an encyclopedia, all pages can be considered as spoilers and marking them as such is redundant
 * Create links for other wiki articles whenever applicable; do not let pages get orphaned. One link for a certain other page in an article body is enough; lists references might contain an exception for aesthetic considerations
 * When writing a synopsis (such as a Character History), use present tense. Do not alter present and past tenses when describing a plot; past tense is only used for things that happened before the storyline (e.g. a flashback)
 * The following shall be sourced with citations: cat appearance (fur and eye color), family, quotes, debatable information. Citations should be added using the "ref" tags
 * A reference is needed to include a cat in a certain category (e.g. StarClan member)
 * Please make sure your spelling is correct; you can install spell checkers in any browser
 * Parentheses should be avoided when possible
 * History sections should be indented by one tab (or not) - I see this as a common practice, but nowhere described
 * The "See Also" section shall be a bulleted list
 * References sections shall have the title "References and Citations"
 * Groups of external links in an article shall have the section title "External Links"
 * List items should not end with full stop
 * Articles (especially Character pages) should be included in correct categories (elaboration...)
 * Creation of Trivia sections (after a consensus is reached about them)
 * Whenever possible, editors should work with the source instead of the visual editor as it tends to mess up formatting

<h2 style="padding:3px 4px; background: #008030; color: #FFFFFF; font-size:125%; text-align:left;">Community Portal A suggestion brought up some days ago on the IRC: we should use the Community Portal more often to discuss about things regarding the wiki and its functioning as a whole. I suggest trying that.

<h2 style="padding:3px 4px; background: #0060D8; color: #FFFFFF; font-size:125%; text-align:left;">Current Best Practices There are many practices adhered to currently that are unwritten or are not described as a policy / guideline. There were several cases when I made a proposal and it was declined on the grounds of "this was already discussed", although there was no reference to it. Such things should be made into policies / guidelines accepted by contributor consensus. For instance:
 * the PCA reservation / approval procedure
 * copyright on PCA images
 * creating pages about characters from an unreleased book

Thanks for reading this far. I care for this wiki and I would like to think that you would be with me as we move forward and try to make it better.

Kind regards, Helixtalk 06:46, June 5, 2010 (UTC)