Minecraft Wiki talk:Wiki rules/Revision 1

A Rule about Deleting pages?
What about a rule for the wiki admins about deleting pages? It seems as if the talk pages have some fairly consistent complaints about how users content can seemingly disappear at the whim of an admin, with no (easy?) way to look back at the history and retrieve it, and little to no explanation as to why it was deleted. Additionally, it looks to me like a lot of deletions happen to pages that are independently created, suggesting that a segment of the community would find that information useful. Why contribute to a wiki when at any second your contributions will be erased with no chance to make improvements?

--Jonnay 05:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the idea is nice, but there is really no point in not deleting a bad page if it's 3 sentences long, and waiting to the creators replay. On other pages, that had been worked on, I suggest a one week early warning to allow the creator to back up his hard work if one day it will be needed again, but if a page was pending deletion for more then a week, then the creator had more then enough time to back it up, and it is ok to delete the article.
 * If an article was made, deleted and remade by another user, no matter how short it is, an admin will have to put it in pending deletion. That is because that if 2 users found a need in such an article to be made, there must be a reason.--Yurisho 18:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Rule deletions:

 * ...This includes pages about so-called "games" that are played in Minecraft. The only exception to this rule is Spleef as this is widely played and recognized by the community and Notch himself.
 * Minecraft is built for metagaming. Why not invite contribution here?  TotemQuest being a great example of something cool.  Again, we can categorize and throw them into sub-articles to keep them separate from the main content.
 * If I understand correctly, this was a problem in the past because this just led to so many made up entries with varying degrees of relevance to the community. If we're to allow this kind of content on the wiki, I think we should come up with a strict set of criteria and guidelines, especially if they're to have their own page (under a category like, say, Category:Game terms). --Gnu32 09:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Pages about servers are not allowed.
 * Why not? Why not make a servers subarticle, and make sure server pages are properly categorized?
 * Again, I think this was an issue in the past because of the volume of server pages being made for various servers, some of which wern't even that well known in the community or were dead within a week. If this was controlled with a strict set of criteria (i.e. permanently established servers or servers with a massive historical significance in the community) then server pages would be a good idea. --Gnu32 09:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This point and the last point (in my opinion) are related.   It basically comes down to a question around how much content the wiki should support.  My vote is to err on the side of too much, rather then not enough.  If someone makes a page about a little known server that is never up, why not post a warning on the page, leave it up for a bit and then delete it.  This gives the creator a chance to work on the page, and make it better.   --Jonnay 05:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Pages about fancommunities are not allowed due to advertising issues and stuff like that.
 * Again, Why not? We could set up subarticles for them.  Why not be a part of the larger community?
 * I think this is a tricky issue for this wiki as it's hosted by the Curse Network, but something should be worked out to allow pages for significant community sites. --Gnu32 09:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Do not directly copy over articles from other wiki's that discuss Minecraft.
 * That would depend on the license of the content on that wiki as to how legal it is. Maybe that brings up a larger discussion on copyright.
 * Articles regarding custom servers are only allowed when the server is either:
 * See points above.
 * Articles containing information about client mods are only allowed when the client mod cannot contribute to cheating or griefing in multiplayer.
 * We are not a file-hosting service. If an image is uploaded and not integrated into a useful article soon after, we reserve the right to delete it without notice. Using our hosting for GUI screenshots, userspace images and general wiki-related images is allowed.
 * Basicaly this rule says "Don't post unrelated content". Which is already said above.
 * As per my comments below, this should probably be clarified in a section for image guidelines. While it can be explained under a general "no unrelated content" guideline, it would help to explain what this means in terms of images and image use on the wiki. --Gnu32 09:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * {{c|Agree} --Jonnay 05:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion around the changes
Obviously this discussion section would get whacked if/when these new rules were to be taken up. In general I tried to change the tone to invite more contribution from people. A Page full of 20 "DO NOT" rules doesn't make for an inviting wiki. Generally, people will want to contribute good things to the wiki, and gentle reminders and civil conversation is all that is needed.
 * I'd like to assist in this. But first, is discussion supposed to be on this page or on the talk page? Also, made some minor grammar fixes. --Gnu32 08:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fixes! I figure since this is a first crack at some revised rules, lets have the discussion in page.  When everything is hammered out, we can archive the discussion on the talk page.--Jonnay 09:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)Jonnay
 * Alright, thanks for clarifying. I've added my comments to various points. In general, I prefer this relaxed tone in the rules as it's less intimidating to the newbies. "Guidelines" is a good choice of word too as it allows for benefit of doubt. I think there should be different sections of guidelines, one for general articles, one for formatting, one for images and one for behavior. Something to that effect. Some of your guidelines are too wordy however, i.e. Number 4. should be simplified to "Link to homepages, try to avoid linking directly to files and file-sharing sites as it's more secure" or something to that effect. All the guidelines should try to keep a consistent language; one that's simple, concise and not too intimidating. --Gnu32 09:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposal page
Should include the list of rules you would like to see implemented. All discussion should take place on the talk page, so that changes to the proposed rules will be clearly identifiable in the page history.

Please do not expect this to happen quickly. The entire point of this is to get wider community input on the rules for Minecraft wiki. -- Wynthyst  talk  14:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course! --Jonnay 05:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Change to new rule 7
Delete the last bit about notable players maybe deserving articles. They don't, end of story. Reason: here. RealNotPure 16:44, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts
Other than that, this list seems just like a re-hash of the current rules, but less firm. I suppose it's easier at times to say "don't do this" than to say all that is permissible. --JonTheMon 17:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * New 10 could be merged into old 8, since they have similar subjects.
 * I don't like new 9, since it still allows some parody/comedy. As for the old 7 and 19, they should be merged.
 * I don't know if new 14 needs to be said.
 * Old 20 should be added somewhere.

Comments
The rules definitely need updating, as there are several unspoken ones that are being enforced, but aren't written down anywhere.

I think it would be good to separate guidelines for how to edit constructively from actual rules, violations of which can result in blocks or reversion/deletion of contributions. Items 3, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, and 15 are guidelines.

1, 2 - good, though I'd keep the Minecraft brand guidelines in there as well.

4 - an explicit rule against linking directly to filesharing sites is good. Links to forum threads should also be permitted, as most mods/texture packs/etc. don't have their own websites.

5 - good, but slimeballs aren't such a good example anymore.

7 - okay as a guideline, but I prefer the stricter current rule 5.

8, 9, 10 - pages about random people, baseless speculation, parody, fiction, etc. should not be allowed to any degree.

12 - pages about server software/mods are fine, but anything about specific server instances is advertising, no matter how it is written.

16, 17 - good, more unspoken rules that should be codified.

-- Orthotope 12:42, 8 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Just keep in mind that any drastic revision of the rules can't reorder the existing ones, or otherwise reuse current rule numbers for new rules, since that would require updating all references to the rules in question, and with edit summaries and other log entries, that's impossible. It would've been nice having a proper discussion back before the current ruleset was fully codified and adopted, but I wasn't here at the time, nor were a lot of other current regular editors. =/ 「 ディノ 奴 千？！ 」? · ☎ Dinoguy1000 18:46, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

More comments
5: Pages like "House" or "Hill" might be too simple to warrant a page. Maybe "Topics" instead of "Pages"?

such as parts of the actual game Slimeball is a great example.

Something may be missing here...

6: Why not place WIP pages inside one's user namespace?

12: as long as they are not written as an advertisement.

How is that determined?

16:

Should the following exceptions be added?


 * 1) Fixing broken templates/links;
 * 2) Removing information that violates the Rules, such as insults or vandalism;
 * 3) Editing a WIP article inside a user's namespace;

--79.141.57.11 16:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Recognize personal sandbox pages?
At the advice of an old-timer (now admin), I set up Sandbox pages under my personal page. However, would-be contributors are greeted with a forbidding messagebox on the Edit page: "This is a user page. Generally, this page should only be created and edited by Mental Mouse. Please visit their talk page if you want to leave them a message. "  I propose that both the rules and the Wiki code should be modified to recognize such personal sandboxes  -- say, anything under User:Foo/Sandbox/ -- as sandboxes, that is OK for (constructive) edits by others. --Mental Mouse 22:43, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what your point is. If a page is in your userspace, it's a userpage, and wiki etiquette holds that userpages should not be edited by others. What is it you are asking for? -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png ]] talk  23:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The idea is to allow individual users to host pages with rules similar to the pages of Minecraft_Wiki:Sandbox -- that is, explicitly collaborative spaces -- but under their userpage, so it's still marked as primarily their project (and doesn't clutter up a common namespace). Right now, it's certainly possible to explicitly invite others to edit a userspace subpage -- except that AFAIK you can't get rid of that warning box. --Mental Mouse 00:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You are correct, that warning is implicit on all userspace pages, however, there is nothing stopping you from adding your own disclaimer to the page that does explicitly invite others to collaborate with you. The other thing you can do is if you are linking to it on a discussion page, feel free to invite other users to make changes. That is your choice. The point is that it might not be someone else's choice. I for one prefer to keep my userspace pages for me to fiddle around with, so I wouldn't want the notice taken off my personal sandbox pages. It's also much more difficult to have a notice like that differentiate levels of subpaging. Currently that notice is placed on all pages within the user namespace. -- Wynthyst [[Image:User Wynthyst sig icon.png ]] talk  01:46, 4 September 2013 (UTC)