User:AllTheUsernamesAreInUse/Rules

In absence of my knowledge of how to insert a humor tag, I thought I should put this here: please don't take this too seriously. I am not pointing fingers and some of this stuff is a joke. Though these rules should still be followed, that I am serious about. Also I am quite tired while writing this. Probably will regret it when I wake up but that doesn't mean I'm taking it down.

This is a list of some apparently very forgettable rules, as I see them being flouted all the time. Mostly a collection of stuff that annoys WikiGnomes like me. Read them. Follow them. Hopefully you learned something (they don't seem like difficult concepts but you'd be surprised). Forgive the occasional all caps, they are for emphasis on things I am especially annoyed about. The rules are not in any particular order.

DAB = disambiguation and SIA = set index article, for potential newcomers.

Rules

1. (Hndis)

• Human name disambiguation, or "hndis", is for TWO OR MORE PEOPLE WHO SHARE THE SAME FIRST AND LAST NAME (occasionally a middle name or initial may be involved). Not for simple name pages or other random disambiguations.

2. (SIA vs Dab)

• When a page contains only people who share a surname or given name, it is to be categorized with {{surname}}, {{given name}}, or, for a page about a name which may act as a given name or surname, {{given name|type=both}}. When a disambiguation page contains only things of a certain type, such as villages in a certain country, ships of the same name, etc., it is to be categorized as a set index.

3. (Redundant and container categories)

• Redundant and container categories. On name pages, adding any of the above three templates automatically categorizes it with that. There is no need to add Category:Surnames, etc. to the page. Also, do not use container categories to categorize individual articles; ensure of this by checking the categorical links after page creation or category addition.

4. (En dashes; extra important, READ)

• Use en dashes, NOT hyphens, for any kind of numerical ranges, especially people's birth and death dates. It is easy to not know this but the word needs to be spread a lot better. This may be achieved on Apple computers by simply hitting option+hyphen.

5. (Hatnotes and disambiguators)

• If you make a page under a title which already exists and therefore requires you to add a disambiguator to the title, for the love of God ADD A HATNOTE POINTING TO IT TO THE PRIMARY TOPIC PAGE OR ADD THE PAGE TO THE APPROPRIATE DISAMBIGUATION. On the topic of hatnotes, do NOT create red-linked hatnotes, either, and try to consolidate them where you can. My personal rule of thumb is no more than three entries per hatnote (if it exceeds such then create a dab) and no more than three hatnotes per page, though sometimes that lattermost rule may be bended out of necessity.

6. (Default sort, also important; read)

• Default sort. Not many people seem to understand this. Only use a defaultsort if you want the page to sort to a different letter in categories than what the title starts with. There is NO NEED to use a defaultsort if you are going to defaultsort it to the exact article title. IT ALREADY DEFAULT SORTS TO THAT TITLE.

7. (White space)

• Please, PLEASE do not leave behind any extra white space when you are adding/removing something on a page, especially dab pages, or at all. I don't understand how people can just leave behind these gaping eyesores. Do you have no decency? /s

8. (Double-check)

• Double-check. Whenever you make a major edit, especially page creation, just read it over for grammatical errors and check the links to make sure they go to the intended place. This would help catch a lot of little problems.

9. (Sources)

• Sources. Whenever you are creating an article, everything in the article needs to be backed up by RELIABLE, INDEPENDENT sources. If it can't be, don't put it in the article. If sufficient sources cannot be found, don't make an article about it. And make sure to actually cite them, not just list them as external links. It shouldn't be too hard to cite sources while writing something, yet here we are with a backlog of over 100,000 sourceless articles.

10. (Redirects)

• Upon page creation, please make all relevant redirects to the page, i.e. alternative names, shortened/lengthened names, NAMES WITHOUT THE MIDDLE INITIAL/SUFFIX, surnames, given names, nicknames, to sections, etc. Also, when making a disambiguation page, create the corresponding "Disambiguation page title (disambiguation)" redirect, as this helps with maintenance.

11. (Adding yourself to name pages + redlinks; read for the humor)

• Wikipedia is not a soapbox or other means of promotion. Don't add yourself or your friends to name pages. You/they are a nobody on the world stage. No one wants to see "Steve Johnson, high school teacher in Nevada" or "Will Jones, CEO of obscure-company-with-503-LinkedIn-followers-that-nobody's-ever-heard-of" on a name page. It's even better when these entries aren't in line and it is the sole contribution of the IP that added them. Any and all entries like the aforementioned will be removed by me and like-minded people. If you actually do have an article about yourself, you may add it, but don't encroach on your conflict of interest. And adding joke entries like "Joe Miller, 17-year-old world milk chugging champion and biggest sigma of East High" is not funny, and will probably be considered vandalism.

12. (Adding pages to appropriate lists and categories; important, read)

• When creating a page, especially a biography, it would help greatly if you added the person to the appropriate surname and given lists, as well as the pertinent disambiguation page if the title of the page is ambiguous and requires a disambiguator. Add the article to any other appropriate lists as well, such as apple to list of culinary fruits. And don't forget categories; try to add as many applicable categories as possible.

13. (Vandalism)

• Just don't vandalize Wikipedia. Seriously. It's not funny to anyone except you and maybe your friends and it wastes other people's time. Have some basic respect. Besides, most vandalism on Wikipedia is reverted within minutes or days, and you will be blocked if you continue for long. I don't know why people think they can just get away with it. I mean, it does sometimes happen, but still.

14. (Signing)

• Sign your damn comments. This can be done by leaving four tildes (~~~~) after a comment. No one likes digging through talk page histories to find who made the comment. Though this is mostly solved now through the automated "the following unsigned comment..." message, it is still considered basic etiquette.

15. (Short descriptions on DABs and SIAs)

• There is no need to add short descriptions to disambiguation pages, set index articles or name pages. A short description is automatically created upon categorization with the templates {{disambig}}, {{set index article}}, {{surname}}, {{given name}} or {{given name|type=both}}.

16. (Orphans and stubs; important, READ)

• Disambiguation pages and set indexes, as long as they are valid, cannot be classified as stubs, and even then they shouldn't be classified as stubs, but rather should be deleted or redirected. Valid name pages cannot be either, though they may be if they list nobody who has the name and are short in length. Likewise, DABs, SIAs and name pages cannot be classified as orphans, unless the name page is validly tagged as a stub. Also, depending on the nature of a valid name page stub, it may need to be deleted.

17. (Edit summaries)

• Leave edit summaries. I know it's easy to forget, but it's important that you get into the habit of writing them. Even a brief edit description is better than no edit description. It's a pain to have to search through countless contributions on a page to find the one we're looking for. Edit summaries prevent this by marking the edit in the page history.

18. (Name page ledes, important; READ)

• Ledes in name pages should read "X is a surname/given name. Notable people with the surname/given name include:", not "may refer to". They are not DAB pages.

19. (DAB entry links)

• When it comes to DABs, SIAs and name pages, don't link anything in the entry other than the initial item that the entry refers to. This helps to keep it simple, true to its purpose and avoid confusion.

20. (DAB & SIA entries)

• Entries in DABs, SIAs and name pages should be brief, succinct and limited to the elements of the article title, a basic description of the subject and (in the case of name pages) the nationality of the person and the dates of birth and death, if available. The only thing that should generally be linked in an entry is the article that the entry refers to, though if the article does not exist, other terms in the entry may be linked. In the case of name pages, only the nationality and occupation of the person are needed in the descriptor; things like tenure, influence and details of their personal life are not normally needed and usually just create a mess. And make sure the entry is in line with the others, i.e. bulleted and with no space between entries. Also, don't pipe links in entries. On an additional note, don't use ampersands in descriptors either.

21. (Page moving involving disambiguators; READ)

• When moving a page to add a disambiguator, please either turn the redirect into a disambiguation or add a hatnote to the primary topic. A very high number of editors forget to do this.

22. (Hatnote placement; READ)

• Hatnotes go immediately below short descriptions. That means that they are above everything except short descriptions. That means that you should place them ABOVE maintenance tags, not below, which looks very bad.

And that's about all the rules I can think of right now. I'll probably add more later as I think of them.

Other thoughts

I think that it should become standard for administrators or whoever is closing an AfD discussion to remove the notability tag from an article when an AfD about that article was closed as "keep", when a notability tag is present. Anyone else's thoughts are welcome below.

I also think that it should become standard for them to remove an entry about a deleted article entirely from a disambiguation page, name page or see also section of an article (hatnotes as well for that matter), rather than just remove the links, as red links and non-articles go against the purpose of these types of pages and sections. I know some administrators do this, but not all do.

I don't understand why people completely neglect to respond to requests made of them. Sure, if you don't want to get involved, that's your choice, but one could at least respond with something like "I'd rather not get involved". It's more courteous than keeping an editor waiting. This isn't targeted towards anyone specifically, just a general observation.

People ought to be more careful with hatnotes. At least a few times I've had to put one back after it was inadvertently removed when someone was cleaning up a page.