User:Blahedo/Policy on people
This is a draft document. See the talk page for some explanation and discussion.
TheWikiFire is a public forum, and nowhere is this more important to remember than when dealing with information about actual, real people. While a working knowledge of libel law is a good start in knowing what might be appropriate to post, following are some more specific wiki policies in this area:
Silliness vs. malice
The line between a silly comment and a malicious one can sometimes be a fine one, and hard to see by the original author of the comment. We aren't interested in shutting down anyone's fun, but here are some guidelines for navigating this line:
- If you post a comment and think better of it later, there's no shame in going back and removing it.
- If you see someone else's comment that seems mean to you, but close to the line, bring it to the attention of the author of the comment. To do so, look in the page's edit history (the "History" tab at the top of the page), find the author of the comment, and leave a note on their talk page.
- If you see an actually libelous comment, remove it.
- If you see an obviously malicious comment, even if not technically libelous, remove it.
- The subject of the comment (not the author!) is always the last word on whether it was malicious or not. If the subject finds it offensive, remove it.
If you do remove content under this policy, make sure to include your reasoning in the edit summary and/or the talk page.
This is not Wikipedia
On Wikipedia, verifiable facts about a notable person are pretty much always fair game to post. Said facts might be relatively salacious, but as a wiki-encyclopaedia WP has decided that they're valid material, as long as they're sourced.
This is not Wikipedia.
Some things are not appropriate to post here, even if they're true. Even if they're true and you have proof. Even if they're true, you have proof, and they've been published somewhere else. The other sections of the policy on this page are not trumped by the truth (or truthiness) of a given piece of information. For instance, a true statement is by definition not libelous, and yet its publication could still be clearly malicious, and so it should be removed.
Withdrawal requests
Some people are just not interested in having any facts at all about them floating around on the web, and might that the page about them be removed. The mechanics of the wiki make this infeasible, as it would create red links elsewhere, and someone could perfectly innocently re-create the page. Instead, we will replace the contents of their page with the content "This person has requested not to have a page about them on TheWikiFire, per our Policy on people.", and then protect it from further editing.
Eventual category: TheWikiFire policies
