The following are basic guidelines to be followed by both the NewReligionWiki Staff and contributors.
Editing
- Be bold in your actions - If you believe you are right and are doing it for the improvement of the wiki, do it!
- Be neutral - As this is an encyclopedia, avoid bias or over-emotive language in articles, so that readers may have correct information.
- Merge as much as possible - If an article maintains short information about many subjects, don't just make short articles about all of them: put them all together and/or proposal a merge of the article(s) into one unified topic.
- Always make sure to have an edit summary with clear explanations - Before publishing an edit, make sure to add a clear summary of what your edit does to the article. It is common to add what you changed and why. It is sometimes best to add a little towards the discussion page.
- 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 solid, objective proof to the contrary. Users just disagreeing with you isn't proof. Also, avoid reverting good faith edits, unless it's obvious vandalism. If you really disagree with something, revert once with an edit summary with something like "(rv) see talk page", and immediately take it to that article's talk page.
- Sign your posts - Sign your posts on talk pages using ~~~~, which gets replaced by your username and time-stamp when you submit.
- Use the preview button - Its best to preview your edit to prevent future conflicts and see possible mistakes you have made.
Behaviour
- Users should be a good example - Be civil to every user, at all times. Contributors should be a great example of the encyclopedia, and so this should be a friendly wiki.
- When in doubt, take it to the talk page - We have all the time in the world. Mutual respect is a guiding principle of Wikia, and, although everyone knows that their writing 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.
- No personal attacks - If you disagree with users, don't call them idiots or insult them. Instead, politely explain what they did wrong, why it is wrong, and how to fix it. If possible, fix it yourself.
- 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.
Content
- No redlink saviours - A redlink saviour is a small or insignificant article written to prevent a link from appearing red (when the article doesn't exist). Unless with proper constructive information, an article that looks like a redlink savior can be deleted after a warning period of two days.
- Respect copyright - Historica uses the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Everything you contribute must be compatible with that license. Don’t copy-paste information if you aren’t sure of the copyright. It is wise to use the various copyright templates as well when uploading files.
- Factuality - Our wiki intends to be a factual source of information. Validating information on articles require references which are used with <ref></ref> which are links from various websites, PDFs, etc to prove the information is factual. Articles with little to no references are marked for improvement or deletion.
Consensus
- Remember, consensus is not a majority vote! Consensus is mainly based on the value of an argument, not necessarily on the number of supporters.
- Consensus is monitored by an admin and ended by an admin or by the author's request.