Misplaced Pages:Historical archive/Policy/Rules to consider

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Since this is a wiki, there are no editors. We must rely on developing our own good habits and occasionally taking a bit of time to correct the results of someone else's bad habits. But it might help to specifically enunciate particularly rules that some of us wish we'd make an effort to follow. So here's a page containing such rules. Two suggested features of this page are: add your name to a list of the rule's "supporters" to get an idea of how strongly WikiPedians support a rule, and "Debate" pages where we can talk about the merits of the proposed rule. (The latter will help keep this page nice and clean for those people who are mainly interested in the rules themselves.)

See also Naming conventions and RefactoringPolicy.

Rules are established according to the vigor of their enforcement.

Ignore all rules: If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business.

Supporters of this rule include (at least) Larry Sanger, WojPob, Jimbo Wales, AyeSpy, OprgaG, Invictus, and Koyaanis Qatsi, Pinkunicorn, sjc

I now pleasantly ponder the paradox encountered by those who seek to rigorously follow this rule. --Jimbo Wales

Well, what about the related paradox that there is no Rule to decide that something is a Rule (and so should be ignored) --OprgaG

See IgnoreAllRulesDebate

Always leave something undone: Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the beginning of a provokative argument that someone simply must fill in, etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working on the wiki.

Supporters of this rule include (at least) Larry Sanger, TimShell, Invictus, LinusTolke, Pinkunicorn,sjc, Janet Davis

See AlwaysLeaveSomethingUndoneDebate

Explain jargon: It would be great if you would hyperlink all jargon (area-specific terminology that someone who might happen not to have had a college course in your subject might not understand) and explain it, and then explain all the jargon you use to explain that, until you've reached terms that ordinary educated people can understand.

Supporters of this rule include (at least) Larry Sanger, JerryMuelver, TimShell, Pinkunicorn, AyeSpy (fervently), Janet Davis

See ExplainJargonDebate

Avoid bias: Since this is an encyclopedia, after a fashion, it would be best if you represented your controversial views either (1) not at all, (2) on *Debate, *Talk, or *Discussion pages linked from the bottom of the page that you're tempted to grace, or (3) represented in a fact-stating fashion, i.e., which attributes a particular opinion to a particular person or group, rather than asserting the opinion as fact. (3) is strongly preferred. See the NeutralPointOfView page for elaboration.

Supporters of this rule include (at least) Larry Sanger, JerryMuelver, Pinkunicorn, AyeSpy, Janet Davis

See AvoidBiasDebate

Integrate changes: When you make a change to some text, rather than appending the new text you'd like to see included at the bottom of the page, if you feel so motivated, then please place and edit your comments so that they flows seamlessly with the present text. Misplaced Pages articles in the end shouldn't be a series of disjoint comments about a subject, but unified, seamless, and ever-expanding expositions of the subject. (Rule introduced 29-Mar-2001)

Supporters of this rule include (at least) Larry Sanger, LinusTolke, Pinkunicorn (strongly), Koyaanis Qatsi, and sjc, Janet Davis

See Integrate changes debate

Delete patent nonsense: I propose that we delete PatentNonsense when we run across it, and then put it on the BadJokesAndOtherDeletedNonsense page. The problem with this is that people disagree about what is PatentNonsense. So be careful, anyway. It's possible that this makes me a "wiki reductionist."

Supporters of this rule include (at least) Larry Sanger, TimShell, JerryMuelver, Pinkunicorn, Koyaanis Qatsi, Janet Davis

See DeletePatentNonsenseDebate

Give the author a chance: I propose that we add comments at the bottom of a page instead of within the text, when we disagree with an author but to delete or re-write portions of his material would substnatially alter its meaning. Then the author may make changes in his own style, and/or discussion of the material can be moved to a Talk Page. When one encounters obvious vandalism of another's work, he should feel free to Delete PatentNonsense.

Supporters of this rule include (at least) AyeSpy, TimShell, and JerryMuelver

See GiveTheAuthorAChanceDebate

Establish Context Supporters of this rule include (at least) Jimbo Wales, Larry Sanger, TimShell, LinusTolke, Janet Davis

Define and Describe Supporters include (at least) TimShell, Larry Sanger, and LinusTolke

Keep rules simple: If a rule cannot fit on this page, but is so long it has to be on a subpage, maybe it is too complicated to attract followers. --LA2

Build the web: Articles in an encyclopedia are nodes in a hypertext. Don't just write the article, but also consider its place in the link web. Make uplinks to categories and contexts (Charles Darwin was a biologist, Sahara is a desert in Africa, enlightenment happened in the 18th century). Make sideways links to neighboring articles (for proton see also electron, Oregon borders on California). Don't build category trees too deep and narrow, or too flat. Write category directories early (top-down), so subcategory articles get useful names (church names are not good now). --LA2

Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary: Please don't just write a definition of a word and then stop; please don't just list the different senses that a word has. People who read an encyclopedia are not interested in words per se and their bare meanings, but in knowledge, information, facts about the items that the words identify. This doesn't mean we want only long articles, or that we don't want "stub" articles--it does mean, though, that "stub" articles should not consist just of a definition of a term.

Supporters of this rule include: Larry Sanger, Koyaanis Qatsi, sjc

Don't use external links where we'll want Misplaced Pages links: Don't put in links, like this, to external URLs linking text that we will want articles on Misplaced Pages about. But external links in a "links" section at the end of the article. For example, if I'm writing an article about Descartes and I know of a great article about Rationalism online, I won't link the word "Rationalism" to that article. I will put in a "Links" section, and I will simplify wikify the word "Rationalism" like this: Rationalism. (Rule introduced June 29, 2001.)

Supporters of this rule include (at least): Larry Sanger, Janet Davis

Cite your sources: When external sources are consulted in the writing or verification of an article, provide a list of references (books and articles as well as web pages). Not only is this intellectually honest, but it will help readers to find more information.

Supporters of this rule include (at least): Janet Davis, Larry Sanger

Maybe we should establish the custom that this goes on a /Bibliography page or some such?

See also: CiteYourSourcesDebate

use color sparingly You do not know how much color is presented on the recipients machine. Misplaced Pages is international. Colors have different meaning on different cultural backgrounds. Too many colors on one page make them look funny but unencyclopedic too.
- use the color red only for the purpose to alert something, show up serious errors