RationalWiki:Community Standards

This is the list of guidelines defined by the RationalWiki community. These are not site rules but rather a list of standards we as a community want to live up to. Please do your best to live up to these standards.

Standards of Behavior

1. This is a mobocracy. The only way to describe how things are done around here is with the tautology that things are done around here the way they are done around here. We are ultimately an expression of the active editors on this project. What is written about, how it is discussed, parsed and organized is a reflection of the community makeup, and not a set of rules or policies.
2. Personal "attacks", however justified, are strongly frowned upon.
3. Personal information about other users that is not volunteered by that user should not be posted on this site. This includes IP addresses, and even where an IP address is volunteered, discussion of the user's geographical location, place of employment, or other private information (even if publicly available) is frowned upon.
4. An editor's User page space is inviolable; they are free to do with it what they want, and no one should edit it without permission. However, the user talk page space is public and does not belong to the user. No deletion of talk page material is permitted, but archiving may be done periodically.
5. Good wandals are respected at RationalWiki, a good wandal is someone that brings creativity and humor to bear on their attempt at disruption. These kinds of wandals will not only not be blocked but their efforts will be saved for posterity on Special Wandal Archives. However, unfunny wandalism, personal attacks, libel, and disruption for the sake of disruption can all merit a block and at the very least such edits will be wiped clean and forgotten about.

Standards of Style

1. Please do your best to watch for spelling and grammar mistakes. If you see some, fix them!
2. When referencing material on another wiki (or any website) please try to use permanent links or diffs. Links to the more volatile "live" versions are likely to become outdated soon after linking.

Site structure and Organization Standards

This site uses several namespaces that are different from other wiki projects.

• Main namespace - used for articles that are designed for collaboration. They can be about any topic which furthers our goals of: 1. Analyzing and refuting the anti-science movement, ideas and people. 2. Analyzing and refuting the full range of crank ideas. 3. Exploring authoritarianism and fundamentalism. These main space articles can be and will be edited by all other editors.
• Essay namespace - used for original works by a particular editor. The article will be well marked as an original piece with the name of the submitting user and direct readers to the talk page for community reaction and discussion. The actual articles under Essay should only be edited by the original author.
• Debate namespace - similar to a forum, where topic questions can be posted and editors can debate. There is also a discussion page attached to each debate which can address questions outside the immediate debate.
• Conservapedia namespace-used for articles about Conservapedia, its users, and its management. The rules for editing these articles are the same as main space articles.
• Recipe namespace - used for presenting your own concoctions, it is encouraged to have your recipes submitted to RWs self-appointed culinary expert for review.
• Fun namespace - used for holding articles that are silly, pointless or just for fun. Random entries should be placed here and are likely to wind up moved here if not.

Blocking policy

Our blocking system is designed to be forgiving, predictable and as clear as possible. Our blocking scheme follows the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...). The "unit" of the time will be up to the discretion of the blocking sysop who has the following units available:

• Seconds-For fun blocks, harmless edits/warnings, random harassment of fellow sysops.
• Minutes-For minor vandalism and disruption, questionable attacks on other users, inserting potentially libelous material in an article, and minor edits to other user pages when not requested.
• Hours-For more major vandalism and disruption that requires serious clean-up, serious attacks or threats against the site or other users. Repeated libel, vandalism and attacks.

Offenses from multiple IDs of the same user will all be assessed as a single user.

Other sysops are encouraged to unblock a user if they feel it is unjustified. Users who feel they have been unfairly blocked should e-mail any other sysops, users, or post on the forums. In all cases, discussion is encouraged, and blocks should always be explained on the user's talk page.

In egregious cases, some users may be subjected to an accelerated block policy, but only upon agreement of most of the sysops.

Extended information

For more expansive coverage of the topics described here please see the following pages:

• Details on our blocking policy.
• How to handle vandalism.
• For details on linking offsite see Linking style.
• Details on our namespaces can be found at namespace.
• Tips on how to write good RationalWiki articles can be found at What is a RationalWiki article?
• Complaints against sysops and other administrators can be made at Administrative Abuse

See Also

• Main Help page