Tolkien Gateway:Policy

Here are given some brief guidelines to Tolkien Gateway's policy. Common sense is taken for granted. A user ignoring the policy will be faced with a temporary or an indefinite block.

General guidelines

• Contribute what you know or are willing to learn about.
• Be bold in updating pages.
• Make omissions explicit.
• Provide an edit summary.
• Respect the admins' decisions.
• Avoid making micro-edits. Take your time to improve several things at once, or leave systematic work to bots or admins.

Behavior guidelines

• Don't get into edit fights. If someone undid your edit, solve the matter in the Chat or the article's talkpage before making any other change.
• Sign your posts on talk pages.
• Avoid profanity.
• No personal attacks (and move personal debates to private chat or email).
• No legal threats.
• Be accountable.
• No offensive usernames.
• Don't bite the newcomers.
• Don't create articles about yourself.
• Use your user pages appropriately.

Content guidelines

• Explain jargon.
• State the obvious.
• Cite sources: point the reader to authoritative references (and list them properly).
• Verifiability: ensure information cited is verifiable if needed (this does not mean it is "official", rather it refers to others' ability to confirm it exists and is as stated).
• Avoid statements that will date quickly.
• Stay on topic.
• Make articles useful for readers (and consider the audience in writing).
• Check your facts.
• Avoid weasel terms (disputed).
• Avoid self-references.
• Avoid POV phrases.
• Avoid lengthy, separate summaries of movies and books.

Style guidelines

• Manual of style.
• Don't include copies of primary sources.
• Follow highlighting conventions.
• Consider the context when making links.
• Use subheadings sparingly.
• Use short sentences and lists.
• Avoid one-sentence paragraphs.
• Do not use subpages.