Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-27713488-20180106040608/@comment-27713488-20180108030758

I have recently noticed that this page exists as a link from the forum board pages, so a subset of these policies, and a link to full policies, will surely end up there. Right now it is a lengthy and generic text furnished by Wikia.

Speaking of forums, we may wish to add a guideline that reviving old threads is acceptable and encouraged, if done to make a contribution to the topic.

Another one to propose: Please use this thread if you want to raise the possibility of altering or removing a page/section quote that has been added for flavor. (Do we want to ask people to use it for adding new ones, too?) We also have dedicated threads for main page improvements, poll ideas, and requesting file/page deletions.

Some responses follow. I have not responded to many points raised that I simply agree with. Lostone2 wrote: Although it's sensible to mention it, I think that lately this is no longer an issue, in my experience (I have been able post messages both in the Forum and comments after many hours have passed since I wrote them). Happened to me while I was trying to post this very thread... You've been lucky, I suppose. I would clarify what is main namespace articles or, alternatively, I would use Wikia pages instead as it's clearer. Oh. Main namespace is regular articles. Things that aren't forum threads, user pages, etc. You make a good point, but I'm not sure what the clearest way to phrase that would be.

I would also add a mention of Spam, although we have very little cases so far. Spammers will spam whether or not they're asked not to; I'm not sure there's a point to mentioning such a universal rule of the Internet...

Pretty sure that it was an old Forum discussion, if that helps. Found it. It's mostly clear as written there. The only thing I see that may need further clarification is that the description should be a real description and not a joke.

DukeLeto7 wrote: Much as I would like people to register, at this point I'm willing only to encourage it, not mandate it. Perhaps that's what you meant, though.
 * Register an account before undertaking major edits.

I'm OK with both of these, but I hesitate to actually include them until they become an issue. (Unless spaces after sentences were an issue and I missed it?) We already have more policy ideas than I expected.
 * American and British English are both acceptable, but avoid the use of idioms and words particular to either for the sake of non-native speaking editors and readers. (This should probably extend to allowing spelling variations from both main standard dialects as well, as none of us want an edit war over the presence or absence of "u"s, of "z"s over "s"s and the occasional transposition of terminal "er"s.)
 * One space after the end of a sentence is preferred to two.

I did mention American English above, but that was only in the concept of forestalling edit wars over headings specifically. I don't want a miniature version of Wikipedia's nasty edit wars between Orange_(colour) and Orange_(color), and similar. Oh, and if it's a quote from the game or reference to a game item, I think it should match the game text. I don't want anyone wondering wondering why they can't find a Lust Draft in the game (it is Lust Draught).

Avoiding regional slang is a good idea too.

The dreaded inequality HTML entity guideline, in three possible versions: I'm ok with mandating HTML codes instead of Unicode for ≥ and ≤ and for —. The rest are standard keyboard symbols and I still hesitate to burden editors with worrying about them.
 * Avoid non-ASCII characters wherever possible. (There doesn't seem to be any use of diacritical marks on vowels in the game, so there isn't much call to use them in the wiki, even if one is introducing pompous foreign quotations pour encourager les autres.)
 * V1) Avoid using the Unicode characters ≥ and ≤ (and possibly the ANSI en-dash and em-dash), and instead use the ASCII combinations >= and <= (and possibly the ANSI hyphen).
 * V2) Avoid using the Unicode characters ≥ and ≤ (and possibly the ANSI en-dash and em-dash), and instead use of the HTML entity codes &amp;ge; and &amp;le; (and possibly the &amp;ndash; and &amp;mdash;).
 * In addition to the above guideline (V2), avoid using the ASCII > and <, as they are HTML control characters, and use the HTML entity codes &amp;gt; and &amp;lt;.

Lostone2 wrote: I would suggest a dedicated Forum thread for that instead:


 * Don't start reversion wars, but instead discuss contentious edits in the this Forum thread.

Why? Because the moment that the discussion starts to get just a bit longer, the tools available in the comments are very limited (as Decanter's guidelines warns). Actually I'm OK with starting in the article's comments. If the discussion doesn't end with a simple moderator decision and is longer than a few posts, it can always be continued on the Forum.

Relatedly, we should have a guideline saying that if you aren't sure how to integrate info into a page, ask in the comments and/or post the info there.

DukeLeto7 wrote: We should probably expand on this one, as there always some people that. Just. Don't. Get. It. It's also a reference to something that new players might not know about. I think something simple like "Don't be jerks." and something about assuming good faith.
 * Don't be a Fucklord.

I'm in the fence with this one. From the very start both Chendler and me have tried to avoid the creation of first and second citizen classes among the community between patrons and non-patrons (task that was easier at the beginning, since in its early versions there wasn't any Patreon among the wiki editors). But I suppose that is for the best, as it helps at least a part of the community. It's better for the info to be on the wiki, even if not everyone will be able to verify it. Much as it's better for info to be on Wikipedia, even if not everyone has a copy of the printed source material at their local library.