User:Ricken/SandboxPG/Editing policy

AmtWiki policies and guidelines
Policies List · Guidelines List Edit

AmtWiki is the product of hundreds of editors' contributions, each one bringing something different to the table, whether it be; researching skills, technical expertise, writing prowess or tidbits of information, but most importantly a willingness to help. Even the best articles should not be considered complete, as each new editor can offer new insights on how to enhance the content in it at any time.

Adding informaiton to AmtWiki

is here to provide summaries of accepted knowledge to the public in the realm of Amtgard; generally speaking, the more accepted knowledge it can provide (subject to certain defined limitations on its scope), the better it is. Please boldly add content summarizing accepted history and concepts to AmtWiki, either by creating new articles or adding to existing articles.

When developing articles on the basis of sources, avoid copying or closely paraphrasing a copyrighted source. AmtWiki respects others' copyright. You should read the source, understand it, and then express what it says in your own words.

Perfection is not required

AmtWiki is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome.

Try to fix problems

Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't. Preserve appropriate content.

Instead of removing article content that is poorly presented, consider cleaning up the writing, formatting or sourcing on the spot, or tagging it as necessary. If you think an article needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do so, but it is best to leave a comment about why you made the changes on the article's talk page. The editing process tends to guide articles through ever-higher levels of quality over time. Great articles can come from a succession of editors' efforts.

Instead of removing content from an article, consider:

• Rephrasing or copy-editing to improve grammar
• Correcting inaccuracies, while keeping the rest of the content intact
• Moving the content to a more relevant existing article, or splitting the content to an entirely new article
• Adding other points of views to the existing points of view
• Adding appropriate cleanup tags to sections you cannot fix yourself
• Repair a dead link if a new URL for the page or an archive of the old one can be located
• Merging the entire article into another article with the original article turned into a redirect
• Fixing errors in wikitext code or formatting

Otherwise, if you think the content could provide the seed of a new subarticle, or if you are just unsure about removing it from the project entirely, consider copying the information to the article's talk page for further discussion. If you think the content might find a better home elsewhere, consider moving the content to a talk page of any article you think might be more relevant, so that editors there can decide how it might be properly included.

Talking and editing

Be bold in updating articles, especially for minor changes and fixing problems. Previous authors do not need to be consulted before making changes. Nobody owns articles. If you see a problem that you can fix, do so. Discussion is, however, called for if you think the edit might be controversial or if someone indicates disagreement with your edit (either by reverting your edit and/or raising an issue on the talk page). Boldness should not mean trying to impose edits against existing consensus or in violation of core policies.

Be helpful: explain your changes. When you edit an article, the more radical or controversial the change, the greater the need to explain it. Be sure to leave a comment about why you made the change. Try to use an appropriate edit summary. For larger or more significant changes, the edit summary may not give you enough space to fully explain the edit; in this case, you may leave a note on the article's talk page as well. Remember too that notes on the talk page are more visible, make misunderstandings less likely and encourage discussion rather than edit warring.

Be cautious about making a major change to an article. Prevent edit warring by discussing such edits first on the article's talk page. One editor's idea of an improvement may be another editor's idea of a desecration. If you choose to be bold, try to justify your change in detail on the article talk page, so as to avoid an edit war. Before making a major change, consider first creating a new draft on a subpage of your own user page and then link to it on the article's talk page so as to facilitate a new discussion.

Whether you decide to edit very boldly or discuss carefully on the talk page first, please bear in mind that AmtWiki is not a discussion forum. AmtWiki can be a very energetic place, and it is best for the project as a whole if we concentrate our energies on improving articles rather than debating our personal ideas and beliefs.

Edits to policies and guidelines

Policies and guidelines are supposed to state what most editors agree upon, and should be phrased to reflect the present consensus on a subject. In general, more caution should be exercised in editing policies and guidelines than in editing articles. Minor edits to existing pages, such as formatting changes, grammatical improvement and uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time. However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first. The change may be implemented if no objection is made to it or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general, as should proposals for new policy pages