WikiFur:Policies and guidelines

This is a summary of WikiFur policies and guidelines. For detail on particular topics, see the policies and guidelines category. You can also see policies that we're working on.

What is WikiFur?
The best way to find this out is to look through our pages and see for yourself! However, if you want an overview, here are the most important points:


 * WikiFur is primarily an encyclopedia - a collaborative project written by, for, and about the furry fandom.
 * WikiFur aims to hold a neutral point of view. Articles should attribute opinon to people or groups rather than stating it as fact. Disagreements should be characterised - stating all positions - rather than continued here.
 * WikiFur is not a place to hurt people. Malicious edits, hate speech, et al is not welcome here. Stick to the facts!
 * WikiFur is not censored for the protection of minors. Explicit or offensive content may exist where it is considered appropriate to a topic, although outright pornography is discouraged.
 * WikiFur is not Wikipedia, or simply a copy of Wikipedia. We have different aims, and where they converge, most non-furry topics are best left to Wikipedia. However, like Wikipedia, we do make decisions by consensus.

You can (and should! :-) read more about what WikiFur is and also what it is not.

Exclusion of information
It is important to remember that WikiFur can (and should) be read by anyone and everyone. Information that might be appropriate to post on a private forum or talk about on FurryMUCK may not be appropriate for such a public venue.

In particular, sometimes a person may ask for valid information about them to be removed from WikiFur (unattributed opinion or libel should automatically be removed). As WikiFur is here to help members of the community, not harm them, it is usually appropriate to honour this request.

In a few cases, the use of the information (particularly on problematic individuals) may overrule the individual's desire for it to be there. In this case, particular care should be taken to ensure that the article remains neutral and factual.

See also: Personal exclusion, and the expanded personal information policy

Excluding links between players and characters
Some players wish the information about them to remain separate from that of their characters, or wish two characters to remain separate from one another. Typically this would be because one character does things that the player feels would somehow harm them if known publicly. We generally allow this as long as it does not involve avoiding responsibility for harmful actions against others.

Excluding people entirely
Some people do not want information about them to be present in WikiFur. Some have retired from the furry fandom and want nothing to do with it, others feel it is too likely that people who do not like them will post information about them. This should not be abused to censor certain information but not other information: if the information is valid but the person concerned still does not want it posted, then it is probably best to just offer them the option of blanking their page entirely. As above, curators may use their discretion to determine when someone is attempting to silence a valid criticism which is in the public interest to report, in which case they may refuse to do this.

Blocking users
We don't want to bite the newbies. Try and understand that new users may be unused to the wiki way before you block them from editing. However, if a user (particularly an anonymous user) has never even tried to contribute anything useful you should consider blocking them, especially if you believe that they have come here solely intending to cause trouble and will continue doing so after being warned.

Initial blocks should probably be from 24 hours to 1 month depending on the severity of problems/number of pages affected. Future blocking is at the discretion of the curator, subject to review. If necessary, you should use range blocks to block more than one IP, but be very careful with this feature. If you don't know how to use it, talk to GreenReaper.

Protecting pages
Protection of pages is a very tempting administration tool. However, from the user's side, it raises a large barrier to contribution.

If you do protect a page, don't forget to add one of the protection templates to the page, and to remove both it and the protection when the trouble has passed!

Vandalism
In the event of a major vandal attack, it may be appropriate to protect pages. Do not go wild over this - WikiFur has enough users to handle occasional vandalism on isolated pages, so it's usually only necessary to protect the most popularly vandalised page, as this is likely to be where the vandals are entering WikiFur.

Revert wars
If there are a significant number of reverts on an article, it may be suitable for protection until it seems likely that enough discussion has occurred and consensus has formed on the article's talk page.

Protecting pages about excluded people
If a person has decided that they do not wish information about them to be included in WikiFur and there is no reason not to, the page should be protected and an appropriate message displayed upon it with the tag.

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