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_ Forum Information (Readme!) _ Provisional posting rules

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Statement of principles

The Wikipedia Review is an open forum, and its moderators pledge to avoid the sorts of vindictiveness and subterfuge that characterize the so-called "Wikipedia cabal." All postings on Wikipedia Review are the responsibility of the poster. Notwithstanding the guidelines below, neither Wikipedia Review nor its staff, moderators, or members are responsible for the regular review of postings or the timely removal of those that breach our guidelines.

Deletion policy

No posts will be deleted at the Wikipedia Review save for the following:

Posts which may represent illegal activity are subject to deletion.

Posts which represent hate speech (i.e., comments which denigrate groups of people based on race, creed, gender or comparable criteria, and comments which denigrate individuals because of their membership in such groups) will not be tolerated by the Wikipedia Review, and are subject to deletion.

Posts which make false allegations that other posters have engaged in hate speech, by quoting out of context or similar misrepresentation, are subject to deletion. These are the tactics of slander and propaganda, which will not be tolerated by the Wikipedia Review.

Policy on the posting of personal information

We do not allow posting of the address or phone number of WR members or Wikipedians to public areas of the website. In cases where identifying the employer of such persons would lead to the revelation of such personal information, that also would be considered unacceptable. Defamatory (i.e. both untrue and malicious) statements will be removed; accusations which could be construed as defamatory should not be made without providing compelling evidence. Any Wikipedian who wishes to dispute statements on this site is welcome to become a member and, within the bounds of decorum that operate here, rebut them.

Wikipedia Review does not encourage or permit the direct, on-site original disclosure of personal information about child participants, including information disclosed by the child him/herself. A post indicating that a participant of this forum is a child, made for the purpose of drawing attention to the participant's age, including such information that the poster is him/herself a child, shall be grounds for immediate suspension of the author's posting privileges. Nothing in this rule shall be so construed as to limit discussion of relevant issues involving the participation of children on Wikipedia. If a participant is identified as a child in the course of relevant discussion, the account of the participant shall be suspended and all contact information removed from the profile. This action shall be for the protection of the child and not as a punitive measure. The participant may obtain a new WR account, not linked with the prior account or participant identity, provided the participant is otherwise eligible.

"Child" shall be defined as any person less than 16 years of age.

Transparency policy

Posts which represent illegal activity may be deleted by a moderator, and replaced with a notice, signed by the moderator who deleted them, giving the explanation for deletion.

Posts which represent hate speech or false allegations of hate speech will be moved to a sub-forum, under "Forum Information," called "Deleted posts," where they may be analyzed or debated by the members for one week before being permanently deleted. Moderators will leave a notice to this effect in the original thread.

Blocking policy

Members who persist in posting comments which may be deleted will be both publicly and privately warned before being blocked, and given an opportunity to mend their ways. All blocks shall be presumed to be temporary; blocked members are encouraged to change their behavior and may continue to send personal messages to other members who are not ignoring them -- and those members are free to act as advocates for blocked members. The concept of a "meat puppet," as used at Wikipedia, is foreign to the Wikipedia Review. If there is convincing evidence that a new account is a "sock puppet" for a blocked member, that account may also be blocked, with a suitable public announcement by the moderator who blocks it.

Off-topic

Any member who persistently "hijacks" topics, by posting material meant to divert unrelated subject matter towards issues of interest primarily to himself or herself - irrespective of the legitimacy of the issues in question - may find himself or herself restricted to one topic or subforum only, one which is (or will be) devoted to those specific issues. Alternatively, such member may be placed under moderation, meaning that his posts will require moderator approval before they are visible to the public, or "flood control," limits on the number of posts per hour permitted. Similarly, a member who, in the judgement of the moderators, posts comments deliberately designed to annoy other users (sometimes referred to as "trolling"), may be subjected to a similar remedy. Personal attacks may be deleted by a moderator if they are deemed to be overly distracting.

In-line images

At one time, this site allowed any images to be included in posts. Unfortunately, this policy was exploited by one member who added images intended to "harvest" IP addresses of the staff, so the policy has become somewhat more restrictive. At this time, images may be added only from this list of approved sites:

imageshack.us
wikipediareview.com
wikiphrenia.com
wikimedia.org
wikipedia.org
yimg.com
photobucket.com
flickr.com
xkcd.com

Requests for moderation

Moderators are not expected to put time or effort into divining reasons for acting on complaints. Requests for actions such as 'tar-pitting' threads should be accompanied by a rationale. Moderators are not obliged to act on unspecific requests.

These rules are provisional. For a discussion of the rules, follow http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6923&view=findpost&p=23299

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I have added one sentence to cover a recent modification of policy. The new sentence is italicized:

Off-topic

Any member who persistently "hijacks" topics, by posting material meant to divert unrelated subject matter towards issues of interest primarily to himself or herself - irrespective of the legitimacy of the issues in question - may find himself or herself restricted to one topic or subforum only, one which is (or will be) devoted to those specific issues. Alternatively, such member may be placed under moderation, meaning that his posts will require moderator approval before they are visible to the public. Similarly, a member who, in the judgement of the moderators, posts comments deliberately designed to annoy other users (sometimes referred to as "trolling"), may be subjected to a similar remedy. Personal attacks may be deleted by a moderator if they are deemed to be overly distracting.

These rules are provisional. For a discussion of the rules, follow http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6923&view=findpost&p=23299

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I have added a new section on the inclusion of in-line images. This policy had been discussed elsewhere, but not incorporated into this statement of rules.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

And, after further discussion, a section has been added on "requests for moderation."

Posted by: gomi

For reference, here is a copy of the legalese every member sees when they register. In addition to the above, it should be considered part of the terms of service of the site:


Forum Terms & Rules

Please take a moment to review these rules detailed below. If you agree with them and wish to proceed with the registration, simply click the "Register" button below. To cancel this registration, simply hit the 'back' button on your browser.

Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message.

The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this bulletin board. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violates any law.

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board.

To discourage multiple and/or abusive accounts, we do not register users with free email services such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Mail.Ru, etc. Please use the account that corresponds to your internet service provider. If there is a compelling reason why you need to use a free email account to register here, http://mailto:anticabal@gmail.com and tell us about it. We may make an exception. Registrations not confirmed by your click on the URL in our return email within 24-48 hours are likely to be silently deleted.

Also, we discourage the use of provocative user names, which suggest an intention to deliberately annoy others ("trolling.")

Finally, to distinguish yourself from automated "spambots," we require that you either leave the "Wikipedia username" field blank when registering, or fill it in with your actual Wikipedia user account name, which should have a history of contributions from at least two weeks prior to registration.

Finally, if you supply a Wikipedia username in that (optional) field, it must be a valid Wikipedia user. We don't care if you're banned, blocked, or whatever, but if you give a non-existent name or one just created, your registration will be silently deleted. On the other hand, supplying a WP username in your registration (which you can then delete if you like) is the fastest way to ensure us that you are not a spambot.

Notwithstanding the above, the following applies:

Users of The Wikipedia Review own the copyright in their posts (including but not limited to data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages or other materials (the "Content")) to any and all parts of the site. By posting Content to any area of Wikipedia Review, Users automatically grant, and represent and warrant that they have the right to grant, to Wikipedia Review (including their respective agents, affiliates, licensors and service providers), an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, display, and distribute such Content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. Users understand and agree that all Content is the sole responsibility of the person from whom such Content originated. Wikipedia Review does not control the Content posted on the site and, as such, does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such Content. Users understand that by using Wikipedia Review, they may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable. Under no circumstances will Wikipedia Review or any of its administrators be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any Content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content.