Wikinews:Policies and guidelines
Our policies
Core policies
- Do not promote any particular viewpoint even when it is scientifically proven or widely accepted. Simply report and explain it along with disagreements.
- For more, see Wikinews:Neutral point of view
- Do not revert any article more than three times in 24 hours. This is an 'electric fence' to prevent 'revert wars'.
- For more, see Wikinews:Three revert rule
- Cite your sources. Everything (except the obvious) in a Wikinews article must be verifiable, and you must tell readers where you found your information.
- Do not submit copyrighted material.
- For more, Wikinews:Copyright
- Be respectful of others
Conventions
Conventions are widely accepted tools by which we produce more consistent and usable articles:
- Wikinews:Fair use What is fair use, how does it apply to Wikinews
- Wikinews:Naming conventions How to title articles
- Wikinews:Copyright violations Responding to suspected copyright violations
- Wikinews:Image use policy What kind of images you can upload to Wikinews
- Wikinews:Criteria for deletion How to request deletion for an article, and how admins can perform the deletion
- Wikinews:Criteria for speedy deletion Pages that can be deleted on-sight
- Wikinews:Archive conventions When, how, and why articles are protected for archives
- Wikinews:Instruction creep Keep things simple
Restricted features
Some features of the software which could potentially be misused, such as deleting pages and locking pages from editing, are restricted to Administrators, who are experienced and trusted members of the community. Policies particularly relevant to administrators include:
- Wikinews:Protection policy (When and why to protect a page)
- Wikinews:Blocking policy (Blocking users to deal with vandalism)
Other policies
- Wikinews:Accreditation policy - Wikinewsies who are trusted by the community may be accredited.
- Wikinews:Conflict of interest - Wikinewsies are very strongly discouraged from involving themselves in articles where they are an involved party, or otherwise conflicted
- Wikinews:Arbitration Committee - the last resort for Wikinews:Dispute resolution
Using source from Wikipedia
Convention: Wikipedia articles are released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license -- content cannot be copied verbatim from Wikipedia as its license is incompatible with CC-BY.
How are policies created?
Means
Most Wikinews policies are developed through consensus. Consensus might be developed through discussion and polls, but more often it develops through established practice. In most cases the policy is not even written formally, but is simply the community norms which have developed over time.
Discussions are good to find out available options, and their merits and demerits. They also have the merit of giving an incentive for people to look for a reasonable compromise. Polls are good to decide on issues when it is largely a matter of taste or belief.
Both decisions are binding, in the sense they result in consensus. You should respect the community consensus.
Places
Policy issues may be addressed in the Wikinews namespace, especially through the Water cooler, and on Talk pages. Issues may also be discussed in IRC and the e-mail list, but official policy can only be made on Wikinews itself. If a policy might be controversial, it should be discussed and consensus reached before being written and linked here. Consider the guidelines at Wikipedia:How to create policy.
Changing a policy
Policies change. When you present good reason to change a policy, and others agree, the change will happen.
Please don't bring up previously discussed policy changes until a new situation (technical environment, project's reputation, etc.) suggests revisiting old questions. Another justification for re-opening a discussion may be a significant change in the project's participant; some changing their mind, new people coming in or old ones leaving.
Participation
All participants are equal. If you are a good faith participant to Wikinews, your opinion counts as much as others.
For practical reasons, people participating without an account will be excluded from polls, but usually not from discussions. A similar strong guideline is applied to those very recently registered as it is assumed they are unlikely to have fully digested the local policies and how they may differ from other Wikimedia projects.
Enforcement
You are a member of our community, and are empowered to edit articles and enforce Wikinews policies. You will follow policies and guidelines in correcting problems in content and format, improving them where you can.
But please do not bite newbies, and always show respect and kindness.
If you see what you feel is a serious breach of policy, report the matter at WN:ALERT.
Sources
The Wikinews:Policies and guidelines are fundamentally based on the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.
