Editing STOWiki:Policies

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'''Policy''' is a term referring to the processes and rules observed involving the creation, editing, and management of articles on [[STOWiki]] as well as treatment of other users. This is to be distinguished from a [[Project:Guidelines|guideline]] which suggests etiquette and practice to make management and presentation of STOWiki more consistent and streamlined.

Violating a STOWiki policy will at the very least lead to a page being edited to conform to policy. Edits or new pages that are created that do not conform to a specific policy are subject to change by another user (assuming that change conforms with policy) without expectation of appeal to an admin, as is all content within the site. However, it may  also lead to the page being [[Project:Policy/Deletion|deleted]] or — for the worst offenses — it may lead to the poster being declared a [[Project:Policy/Vandalism|vandal]] and become banned or blocked. Treatment of users who engage in destruction of content, harassment, or misuse of content ([[spam]]) is also governed by policy.

The following policies have been developed over time; mostly as consensus works between STOWiki [[administrator|administrators]] and users. A few are decreed by administrators.

== STOWiki policies ==
For quicker referencing, the policies also have shorthand links, e.g. "[[STOW:DNP]]". They are denoted in the list below.

;<small>[[STOW:PSP]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy status phases|Policy status and phases]]
:The policy governing policies &ndash; how to [[Project:Policy votes#Proposing a policy|create]] new ones, how to [[Project:Policy votes#Adding to an existing talk page|change]] existing ones, and how to [[Project:Policy votes#Starting a policy recall vote|recall]] bad ones.

;<small>[[STOW:NAME]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Naming|The article naming policy]]
:How to name articles so that people more easily can guess what to type to get to a particular type of page.

;<small>[[STOW:WRITE]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Writing|The writing policy]]
:How to approach different sorts of content. Separated into several sub policies: fleet pages ([[STOW:FLEET]]), lore ([[STOW:LORE]]), items ([[STOW:ITEMS]]), and fanfic ([[STOW:FANFIC]]).

;<small>[[STOW:EDIT]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Editing|The editing policy]]
:How to make changes to existing pages &ndash; what you actually dare doing without asking everyone first and what you really should ask about first.

;<small>[[STOW:NPOV]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Neutral point of view|The neutral-point-of-view policy]]
:Articles on STOWiki should approach their subject objectively.

;<small>[[STOW:DNP]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/DNP|The do-not-post policy]]
:Specific items and topics we do not allow on STOWiki.

;<small>[[STOW:CAT]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Category|The category policy]]
:How to categorize pages, and how to name and categorize new ''categories''.

;<small>[[STOW:VOTE]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Voting|The voting policy]]
:Votes completed according to this policy are considered ''enforceable'' on STOWiki.

;<small>[[STOW:DEL]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Deletion|The deletion policy]]
: How to nominate pages for deletion and when they are eligible for actual termination.

;<small>[[STOW:STUB]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Stub|The stub policy]]
:How to tag pages as [[stub]]s and when pages ''should'' be tagged as stubs.

;<small>[[STOW:VANDAL]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Vandalism|The vandalism policy]]
:What STOWiki considers vandalism and what we do to vandals. (Not what we would ''like'' to do to vandals, though.)

;<small>[[STOW:3RR]]</small> &middot; [[Project:Policy/Three revert rule|The three revert rule]]
:To avoid edit wars, STOWiki contributors are not allowed to revert someone else's changes too often.

== Short policies ==
=== Preference for internal links ===
External links should be deprecated in favor of internal links. This would mean that we should have articles on many subjects. On each of these pages, we might want a relevant external link to a database site, but an internal link is preferable up until that point.

=== Usernames ===
Please see the Wikipedia policy on user names: [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Username policy|Wikipedia:Username policy]].

==See also==
* [[Project:Guidelines]] for a listing of all STOWiki guidelines or information on an individual guideline.
* [[Project talk:Policies]] to suggest new policies or discuss existing ones. You may also do so on the specific policy's talk page.

[[Category:Policies]]
[[Category:Help]]