User:Matty.007/adoption/Behavioural policies

Sock puppetry on Wikipedia
Sock puppetry is whereby alternate accounts are created by an editor which do not follow the following requirements (listed here:
 * Security, i.e. for use on computers where it is plausible that log on information may be unsafe, usually require clear statement that it is an alternate account, and who of
 * Privacy, if someone you know knows your on wiki identity, and you are editing an article which is controversial with them
 * Maintenance, self explanatory, require clear statement that it is an alternate account, and who of
 * Testing, training, editors may have accounts which are not autoconfirmed, or have few edits to demonstrate things. Can require statement of alternate account
 * Bots, self explanatory. Read up about them and speak to an expert before making one though
 * Doppelgänger, to prevent impersonation. Mine is Matty007, partially as that is my IRC nickname, also because it is very similar to my username
 * New accounts, if you want to start all over again for reasons of security (i.e. compromised account) or for a clean start. If you do this, bear in mind "It is strongly recommended that you inform the Arbitration Committee (in strictest confidence if you wish) of the existence of previous accounts before standing for adminship or functionary positions. Failure to do so is likely to be considered deceptive."
 * Humour. Self explanatory

Most of the above will require a statement that it is an alternative account, and who of. The likelihood is that it is not for one of the above purposes, or fails, where necessary, to recognise whose account it is, it may be blocked. (If you want a list of what alternate accounts are not for, see here.) Bear in mind that there is currently nothing against editing whilst logged out, but it can be a bit of a grey area. Meatpuppetry is similar to sockpuppetry, it refers to when editors bring on new editors who have similar views. If you suspect someone of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry, do not directly accuse them, these are serious allegations. Read this first, and think carefully before making any allegations.

Harassment, threats, and personal attacks
This is pretty simple: don't commit any of the above. I will give a little detail about each heading though, so that you can be wary:

Harassment
Usually to make target feel threatened/intimidated; potentially to try and get your way. Described as repeated offensive beahviour. Can take various forms:
 * Wikihounding, or just hounding: following an editor, and joining random discussions in which they are involved
 * Posting personal information, or outing: posting any personal information of another editor that is not already on site, posted by them: do not search up users whose username is their real life name, and use their off wiki views against them, in a "would you seriously believe someone who likes Communism"; seriously, you do not want this or this to happen to you
 * Restoring false warnings on pages
 * Threats

If you are being harassed, you need to not act rashly, do not retaliate in a tit for tat action, you could be blocked for it. If it is serious, contact The Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) or the Volunteer Response Team in an email, in strict confidence. Before taking any kind of action, read up on the harassment page; this is not an allegation to be taken lightly.

Legal threats
If you make legal threats, or even legal action, you will be blocked until the matter is resolved. However, you may make reports of legal issues such as copyright violation, BLP issues, and so on. Before making legal threats, try and resolve it at the Dispute resolution noticeboard. If legal threats are made against you, tell an administrator or Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you think legal threats are being made against you, read No legal threats first, this is not an allegation to be taken lightly.

Personal attacks
No matter what the situation, do not make any kind of personal insult to another editor, make statements on content by all means, but do not degrade the editor.

Edit warring and civility
Do not merely revert other users contributions because you don't like them, discuss the issue with them on a talk page, the talk page of the disputed subject if you can. If you do repeatedly revert edits which are possibly beneficial (reverting vandalism and removal of sourced information is almost always OK), you can be blocked or banned (nice summary of difference between bans and blocks here). There is a set line, called a bright-line rule, which deals with this, called the Three Revert Rule (3RR). It states that:

"'An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period. An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert. Violations of the rule normally attract blocks of at least 24 hours. Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot is likely to be treated as an edit-warring violation.'"

This includes talk pages and project pages, but usually excludes your own userspace. If the 3RR is violated, revert your reverts which went over, and this may be taken into account. 3RR doesn't apply to reverting your own edits, your own userspace (within User pages), banned users' edits, obvious vandalism, content that obviously violates Non-free content criteria, illegal content under US law, and sometimes Biographies of living persons violations, this is controversial so you are best asking someone before passing 3RR fixing a BLP.

Civility is a major part of Wikipedia, as a collaborative project having good relations between participants is vital. Civility is basically being polite, with concise and clear arguments, not ignoring where others stand, don't be rude, assume good faith... This can be summed up as 'don't be rude, be polite and welcoming to all'. (This includes edit summaries.) Remember: apologising is not a sign of weakness, it is merely regretting an action.

Article ownership
This is quite an easy concept: once you have made an edit, created a page, done something on Wikipedia, you are releasing that content, it can be used by anyone and everyone. Do not act as if you own any article, or use the reasoning of "I have spent hours on this article, you can't change it!". I repeat, this is relatively simple, but do not fall into the trap, it is easy to start calling articles "my article".

Test
This is the end of the behavioural policies section, so here is the test:
 * 1) You create a new account to test the beta edition of The Wikipedia Adventure. Is this OK?
 * 2) Your first article is taken to Articles for Deletion, so you create a few alternate accounts to vote in favour of keep. Is this OK?
 * 3) You come across an editor who uses his real name as his account name; you search his name up, and find he is a prominent fashion expert. You ask him what he knows about the main topic he has edited, flowers. What does this violate?
 * 4) You say to an editor that an edit was not constructive. Is this OK?
 * 5) You say to an editor "Why are you editing this article, it is not your area"; what can you do to stop them?
 * 6) An editor makes a change to an article you wrote, so you reply saying that he should not change the article without your approval. Is this right?
 * 7) You revert an edit which degrades an article you wrote from an IP: is this OK?
 * 8) Your edit summary says 'Reverting unsourced info from Editor'. Is this OK?
 * 9) You encounter a new editor called 'SamBot', who quickly makes several typing errors and creates a new page about a mildly notable entity. What do you do?
 * 10) You encounter an editor who is going around making bad edits, and go through his contributions correcting his mistakes. They then accuse you of harassment, are they right?