Linux-wiki:UserGuidelines

This page outlines user conduct on Linux Wiki, the usual do's and don't s are present. Please read them, if you have questions feel free to use the talk page or contact an admin.

Guidelines for user conduct
User conduct guidelines are general recommendations for user conduct, but gross violations may be enforced by administrative action.
 * Be bold: If you find something that can be improved, improve it and encourage others to do the same.
 * Be polite: It's not only important what you say but also how you say it. Be civil when talking to other people and treat them with respect. This site is built on cooperation.
 * Assume good faith: Do your best to assume that other editors are trying to help unless you have evidence to the contrary. Accidents happen, and not everybody has a lot of experience with editing a wiki.
 * Use edit summaries: Edit summaries are there to explain your changes - use them as often as possible. It helps with getting everybody on the same page and prevents conflicts with other editors.
 * Feel free to leave messages on user talk pages: User talk pages are exempt from the rule above as it is their purpose to be edited by others. The general guidelines for talk pages above apply, with the exception that you are allowed to archive your talk page from time to time.
 * Sign comments: You should add four tildes ( ~ ) to the end of all of your comments on talk and forum pages, otherwise other people will not know it was you who made the edit. Do not get carried away and do the same thing in articles though, only on talk pages and forums.

User Conduct Rules
User conduct rules and regulations are enforced by immediate administrative action.

General

 * Do not vandalize: Simply put, do not mess pages up on purpose. Blanking articles or sections, replacing content with nonsense or intentionally adding inaccurate information to articles is considered vandalism.
 * Do not plagiarize: Do not copy the content of other sites and authors and try to pass it off as your own. If a site allows use of its content, state your source.
 * Do not start edit wars: Be ready to discuss your changes with others. If you disagree with another editor, discuss the issue either on user or article talk pages. Repeatedly reverting each others changes ("edit warring") is bound to escalate the conflict instead of solving it. If you cannot reach a consensus, ask another user to mediate. In general, if someone reverts an edit you made, you should not re-add it without reaching a consensus on the article's talk page.
 * Do not misuse talk pages: Talk pages are for the discussion of their respective articles and not for general chatter. Use the forum for the latter. Posts that do not pertain to discussion of an article itself may be deleted regardless of their time of posting.
 * Do not edit others' user pages: Pages in the "User" namespace are generally considered to be the property of the user they belong to. You can put whatever you like on your user pages (as long as you do not violate common rules of decency or insult other users) and nobody else is allowed to edit without your permission. In turn, you may not edit other users' user pages without their permission either.
 * Avoid using obtrusive signatures: Custom signatures which are obtrusive, annoying or unnecessarily large should be avoided as they detract from the purpose of talk and forum pages.
 * A signature should not affect surrounding text to a great extent. The compounded images must be no larger than 40 pixels in width and 35 pixels in height. Using the "thumb" or "frame" options is forbidden.

Inter-User Conduct

 * Do not edit other people's comments: Editing or removing other peoples' remarks in the forum, on discussion pages, or their personal user page is considered bad behavior. Post your own thoughts on the talk pages, and leave others to their own.
 * User conflicts: This rule is a simple conflict rule. If there is a user conflict and it is disrupting the wiki, it must be brought to the attention of an admin or bureaucrat if an admin is involved in the conflict.

Talk, Forum and Blog pages

 * Don't spam: Comments that are considered spam will be deleted by the staff. Examples of spam include one word posts, meaningless statements such as "Fallout x rocks/sucks" or random, nonsensical comments.
 * Don't flame: Comments intended to provoke other users (flamebait) or insulting them outright (flaming) will be deleted by the staff and may be grounds for blocking.
 * Don't be rude: Excessive rudeness to other posters (whether they are anonymous or not) is not welcome. Such comments will be deleted and may be grounds for blocking.
 * Be readable: If your message can't be understood, it will be considered spam. Leetspeek does constitute unreadability.
 * Be Accountable: Users are not allowed to remove comments from user talk pages or blank them, other than to remove insults/harassment or by archiving it (allowed after 40 posts or 32kb of talkpage content). Administrators need easy access to a users' talk page history. When in doubt if a post can be removed, consult an administrator. If a user talk page is blanked by a user, an admin has the right to revert the blanking unless it was done to remove harassment and/or insults. If a user blanks their talk page more than 3 times. it will be considered an edit war, at which point, an admin can step in and may perform a ban at their personal discretion.

Use of multiple accounts

 * Using multiple accounts on the wiki is not against our policies or guidelines; however we do insist that any secondary accounts should be identified with the primary username. Where this is not obvious in the username itself it should generally be identified on the user's profile page. Bureaucrats may consider requests to have an additional or replacement account with no links where there is a reason to do so. Bans from one account generally carry over to other accounts, and other accounts should not be used to avoid a (non self requested) ban on another account.
 * Use of multiple accounts to evade chat bans or site blocks will result in immediate administrative action.