R5 Wiki:Policies/Discussion Policy

Discussion is an important part of. It is used to discuss any improvements to the wiki, and to facilitate general interaction between members of the community. Discussion should be used before making any major changes, where practical, and consensus, defined as at least a super majority in agreement, should be sought.

Conduct
Users must be civil in all interactions. Incivility consists of aggressive behaviors that disrupt the project and lead to unproductive stress and conflict. It may include any of the below.

Direct rudeness, including:


 * Rudeness, insults, name-calling, gross profanity or indecent suggestions


 * Personal attacks, including racial, ethnic, sexual, gender-related and religious slurs, and derogatory references to groups such as social classes or nationalities


 * Belittling a fellow editor, even including the use of judgemental edit summaries (e.g. "snipped rambling crap", "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen")

Other uncivil behaviors, including:


 * Taunting or baiting: deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves


 * Harassment, including hounding, personal or legal threats, posting of personal information, repeated email or user space postings


 * Lying or otherwise grossly misrepresenting a truth


 * Quoting another editor out of context to give the impression they hold views they do not hold, or to cast aspersions on their credibility or decency


 * Attempts to silence differing views on content or the topic

Editors are human and capable of mistakes, so a few minor incidents of incivility from time to time are not in themselves a major concern. However, a studied pattern of incivility is disruptive and unacceptable.

Personal attacks
Personal attacks are a common uncivil behavior. Do not make them anywhere on . Comment on the topic or the argument, not on the contributor. There is no rule that is objective and not open to interpretation on what constitutes a personal attack as opposed to constructive discussion, but some types of comments are never acceptable:


 * Racial, sexist, homophobic, ageist, religious, political, ethnic, sexual or other epithets (such as against people with disabilities) directed against another contributor. Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse.


 * Linking to external attacks, harassment, or other material, for the purpose of attacking another editor.


 * Comparing editors to dictators or other infamous persons.


 * Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of "diffs" and "links" presented on wiki.


 * Threats, including, but not limited to:


 * Threats of violence or other off-wiki action (particularly death threats).


 * Threats of vandalism to userpages or talk pages.


 * Threats or actions which deliberately expose other editors to persecution by their employer, their school or any others.


 * "Outing" an editor, or threatening to do so. This includes, but is not limited to, publicly declaring their identity without their explicit or implicit authorization (implicit means could include posting a link to their Facebook account), making knowledgeable remarks on their financial or marital status, identifying their place of residence or detailing their personal lives.

These examples are not exhaustive. Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done. When in doubt, comment on the article's content without referring to its contributor at all. It is better to be safe than to be sorry.

Comments

 * All comments must be relevant to their associated page topic. Comments should not be social conversations between users. They are to facilitate interaction that is relevant to the topic of the article or blog post. Comments deemed irrelevant are subject to deletion by an administrator or rollback user.


 * Avoid commenting on topics of discussion when the preceding post is more than thirty days old. It is unlikely to attract any response. Consider creating a new thread of discussion instead.

Article comments
There are additional guidelines for article comments (the comments that appear at the bottom of canon mainspace articles). The following types of comments on articles should be deleted on sight.


 * Comments that are irrelevant to the topic of the article. This includes unsolicited advertisements (e.g. "check out my website"), social networking (e.g. "good morning everyone!"), and comments on the wrong page (e.g. "i luv rocky he is so funny!" on an article titled "Albums").


 * Comments that are inflammatory and can be considered as trolling (e.g. "I HATE ROSS!!!"). If you wish to make an assertion or a criticism, it should sound reasonable and should be backed up with reasoning and evidence.


 * Comments that do not adhere to readable standards of English (essentially, standards that should be expected of a person at least 13 years of age). Users should always use correct grammar, punctuation and spelling when making comments or edits to the wiki, in any case.

Conventions
These technical conventions are applicable to traditional wiki talk pages only.


 * Sign your posts: Users must sign their comments with four tildes (~).


 * Headings for new topic: Users should make a new heading for each new discussion topic.


 * Indentation: New comments should be at a different indentation to the one above it. (When using source mode for editing, this can be done by typing " ".)


 * Replying at the bottom of a thread: User should always reply at the bottom of a discussion thread and refer to previous comments in their post as necessary. Addressing a particular comment directly below it and above succeeding comments is considered confusing.

Users who see an unsigned comment should use this template to establish the identity of the poster of that particular comment. This does not, however, absolve users of the responsibility of ensuring that their posts are properly signed.

Never delete talk page posts. Exceptions to this rule may include:


 * Obvious spam, abuse or posts written in grossly inappropriate language


 * Conversations that are completely irrelevant to the page topic and/or the wiki topic


 * Automatic talk page welcome messages


 * Legal or privacy concerns

Discussion pages that are too long, defined as pages that have a large number of sections, or are of a length exceeding 60,000 bytes (identifiable in the page history), should be archived.