Scratchpad:Simplified ruleset

 See also: Help:Community guidelines

This page documents an official policy on Scratchpad. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is the largest and most successful wiki in the world. This page lists some of the overarching guidelines that have helped make Wikipedia a success, and can only but help Scratchpad.

 Important:  Unless expressly stated otherwise, these rules, and all other Wikipedia rules, policies, and guidelines apply here at Scratchpad.

1. BE BOLD! in updating pages. Go ahead, it’s a wiki!
   Encourage others, including those who disagree with you, to likewise BE BOLD! But, remember to observe the bold, revert, discuss cycle.
2. Be civil to other users at all times.
3. Ignore all rules. If the rules discourage you from improving or maintaining the wiki's quality, ignore them.
4. When in doubt, take it to the talk page. We have all the time in the world. Mutual respect is the guiding behavioural principle of Scratchpad and, although everyone knows that their work may be edited mercilessly, it is easier to accept changes if the reasons for them are understood. If you discuss changes on the article's talk (or discussion) page before you make them, you should reach consensus faster and happier.
5. Respect copyright. Wikia uses the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA). Everything you contribute must be compatible with that license.
6. Use edit summaries. Using detailed edit summaries is the best way to ensure that your good faith edits are not reverted. Clear and transparent explanations are universally appreciated: Other editors need to understand your process. Edit summaries also help you yourself to understand what you did after a long leave of absence from a page. Please state what you changed and why. If the explanation is too long, add more on the discussion page.
7. Assume good faith; try to consider that the person on the other end of the discussion is a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to the project — unless, and only unless, you have firm, solid, and objective proof to the contrary. Merely disagreeing with you is no such proof.
8. No Vandalism. See the policies at Scratchpad:Vandalism and at Wikipedia:Vandalism. See also the guideline at Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types of vandalism. Finally, have a look at Wikia’s Help:Vandalism.
9. Do not revert good faith edits. Reverting is too powerful sometimes. Don’t succumb to the temptation, unless you’re reverting very obvious vandalism (like “LALALALAL*&*@#@THIS_SUX0RZ”, or someone changing “1+2=3” to “1+2=17”). If you really cannot stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like:

   (rv) I disagree strongly, I’ll explain why in talk.

   and immediately take it to the discussion page.
10. No personal attacks. Don’t write that user such-and-such is an idiot, or insult him/her (even if s/he is an idiot). Instead, explain what they did wrong, why it is wrong, and how to fix it. If possible, fix it yourself (but see above).
11. Be graceful: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Try to accommodate other people’s quirks the best you can, but try to be as polite, solid, and straightforward as possible yourself.
12. Always sign your posts on talk pages using ~~~~, which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit Save page. But don’t sign on mainspace articles.
13. Use the Preview button; it helps prevent edit conflicts and mistakes.

It’s important to have fun … but try to make sure those around you have fun too!

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Wikipedia:Simplified Ruleset. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Scratchpad, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Licence.