Wikipedia:WikiProject Law Enforcement/No vandalism, no conflict



The second key policy of wikipedia reads as follows: 

 Fostering good community relations, and a reduction in vandalism, are two key goals of the Law Enforcement Wikiproject. One of the first steps to achieve these aims is to help provide all of the relevant guidelines and rules for users to access as easily as possible. To this end, the Law Enforcement Wikiproject has created this subpage as a quick and easy reference point for Wikiquette. We also suggest that all interested users have a look at the Counter Vandalism Unit.

The principles of Wikiquette

 * Assume good faith. Wikipedia has worked remarkably well so far based on a policy of nearly complete freedom to edit. People come here to collaborate and write good articles.
 * Treat others as you would have them treat you — even if they are new. We were all new once...
 * Be polite, please!
 * Keep in mind that raw text is ambiguous and often seems ruder than the same words coming from a person standing in front of you. Irony isn't always obvious — text comes without facial expressions, vocal inflection or body language. Be careful of the words you choose — what you intended might not be what others perceive, and what you read might not be what the author intended.
 * Please register yourself and Sign and date your posts to talk pages (not articles!), unless you have some excellent reasons not to do so.
 * If you have not registered yourself, do not construct a signature that might make it appear that you have.


 * Work toward agreement.
 * Argue facts, not personalities.
 * Don't ignore questions.
 * If another disagrees with your edit, provide good reasons why you think it's appropriate.
 * Concede a point, when you have no response to it; or admit when you disagree based on intuition or taste.
 * Be civil.
 * Although it's understandably difficult in a heated argument, if other editors are not as civil as you'd like them to be, make sure to be more civil than they, not less.
 * That way at least you're not spiralling down to open conflict and name-calling by your own accord, you're actively doing something about it: taking a hit and refraining from hitting back — everybody appreciates that (or at least they should).
 * However, don't hesitate to let the other party know that you're not comfortable with their tone in a neutral way -- otherwise they might think you're too dense to understand their "subtlety", and you'll involuntarily encourage them (e.g. "I know you've been sarcastic above, but I don't think that's helping us resolve the issue. However, I don't think your argument stands because...").
 * Be prepared to apologize.
 * In animated discussions, we often say things we later wish we hadn't. Say so.
 * Forgive and forget.
 * Recognize your own biases and keep them in check.
 * Give praise when due. Everybody likes to feel appreciated, especially in an environment that often requires compromise. Drop a friendly note on users' talk pages.
 * Remove or summarize resolved disputes that you initiated.
 * Help mediate disagreements between others.
 * If you're arguing, take a break; if you're mediating, recommend a break.
 * Take it slow. If you're angry, take time out instead of posting or editing. Come back in a day or a week. You might find that someone else has made the desired change or comment for you. If no one is mediating, and you think mediation is needed, enlist someone.
 * Walk away or find another Wikipedia article to distract yourself — there are articles on Wikipedia! Take up a Wikiproject or WikiReader, or lend your much-needed services at pages needing attention and Cleanup. Or write a new article.
 * Nominate yourself for a list of other articles to work on, provided by SuggestBot.
 * Remember what Wikipedia is not.
 * Review the list of faux pas.
 * Avoid reverts and deletions whenever possible, and stay within the three-revert rule except in cases of clear vandalism. Explain reversions in the edit summary box.
 * Amend, edit, discuss.
 * Remind yourself that these are people you're dealing with. They are individuals with feelings and probably have other people in the world who love them. Try to treat others with dignity.
 * Remember The Golden Rule - "treat others as you want them to treat you."

Talk pages
Many disagreements and arguements have been found on the talk pages of the Law Enforcement Wikiproject, thus here are the published Wikipedia guidelines for avoiding the abuse of talk pages:


 * Most people take pride in their work and in their point of view. Egos can easily get hurt in editing, but Talk pages are not a place for striking back. They're a good place to comfort or undo damage to egos, but most of all they're for forging agreements that are best for the articles they're attached to. If someone disagrees with you, try to understand why, and in your discussion on the Talk pages take the time to provide good reasons why you think your way is better.
 * Don't label or personally attack people or their edits.
 * Terms like "racist," "sexist" or even "poorly written" make people defensive. This makes it hard to discuss articles productively. If you have to criticize, you must do it in a polite and constructive manner.
 * Always make clear what point you are addressing, especially in replies.
 * In responding, make it clear what idea you are responding to: Quoting a post is O.K., but paraphrasing it or stating how you interpreted it is better. Furthermore, qualify your interpretation with a remark such as "as you seem to be saying" or "as I understand you" to acknowledge that you are making an interpretation. Before proceeding to say that someone is wrong, concede you might have misinterpreted him or her.
 * Interweaving rebuttals into the middle of another person's comments, however, is generally a bad idea. It disrupts the flow of the discussion and breaks the attribution of comments.  It may be intelligible to the two of you but it's virtually impossible for the rest of the community to follow.

In all cases, AVOID the following

 * Rudeness
 * Judgmental tone in edit summaries ("fixed sloppy spelling", "snipped rambling crap")
 * Belittling contributors because of their language skills or word choice
 * Ill-considered accusations of impropriety of one kind or another
 * Starting a comment with: "Not to make this personal, but..."
 * Calling someone a liar, or accusing him/her of slander or libel. Even if true, such remarks tend to aggravate rather than resolve a dispute.
 * Taunting
 * Personal attacks
 * Racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs
 * Profanity directed at another contributor
 * Lies
 * Defacing user pages
 * Giving users derogatory names via Pagemove trolling
 * Calling for bans or blocks
 * Indecent suggestions

If you have any problems
Law Enforcement Wikiproject users continually patrol articles that for part of the wikiproject, if there is a disagree ment or issue that arises as a result of, or on the talk page of one of these articles, please feel free to contact a member of this project if you are seeking advice or opinion. These users do their best to remain impartial and as helpful as possible.

If you would rather seek advice or help from the wikipedia community as a whole, the following links make help you:


 * Civility
 * Etiquette
 * Dispute resolution
 * Resolving disputes
 * No angry mastodons
 * Wikiquette alerts

Article Watch
If particular articles in the wikiproject are suffering from vandalism, edit wars or talk-page abuse, and other members of the project are not already engaged in trying to solve the problem, then please feel free to bring the article to our attention by listing it below along with a brief summary of the problems, and by adding 'article-watch=yes' to the project banner on the article in question, which will place them in this category.

Permenant These articles are to be added to the Watchlist on a long term basis.
 * Semi protection requested at WP:RFPP. SGGH ping! 10:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Semi protection requested at WP:RFPP. SGGH ping! 10:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Semi protection requested at WP:RFPP. SGGH ping! 10:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Temporary Here are articles listed for temporary problems. Please continually review the status of these articles and remove or comment as necessary.


 * 1)  Blanked a section in it that listed some random state's penal codes, and a editor reverted it.  I think they stopped caring about it (they did it on Twitter), but some attention needs paid to keep this page from being a Police Radio Scanner "Reference Book", which it's not.
 * 2)  03:48, 29 January 2010 142.132.130.67 removed Kosovo entirely and listed it's emergency number under Serbia. J-Georg (talk) 19:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC);
 * 3)  - readded. Dispute over fallen officers sections and the line continues on talk. SGGH ping! 10:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 4)  It has a bunch of lists, of serving constables with no date reference. Also lots of county specific info that isn't tied back to texas. Any ways when I tried to remove it cluebot got flagged for page blanking. So when I reverted clue bot other editors rvt'ed me. I guess no one read the text in question, because its pretty clearly unencyclopedic. 66.220.124.56 (talk) 19:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 5)  A number of defamatory statements about staff of the trust were inserted into this page along with unsourced and questionable statements. I have attempted to get this back to something sensible but it would benefit from some attention from someone who knows something about the subject matter.FrankFlanagan (talk) 14:26, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 6)  Feel free to remove this, I just thought it would be nice to have this watched because of the nature of the Aurora shooting.  It may also be on the main page soon.  No current disputes. Ryan Vesey  Review me!  13:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
 * 7)  Seems pretty questionable. Does this black police association actually exist or was the website made as a joke. Still worth checking out the article as it has no sources and is not encyclopaedically written 123chess456 (talk) 21:02, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * 8)  Last section of article, added by anonymous 208.54.87.131 on 27th January 2013, is un-sourced and highly disputable. I have posted banners, and tagged, but the whole article needs to be looked at closely. Marcool04 (talk) 15:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)