MediaWiki:Policies
From now on I'm only editing the wiki while I'm off my meds!Don't do what Donny Don't does
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Teletraan 1 is not Wikipedia
No Wikipedia Articles
MediaWiki's users have decided against using Transformers articles from Wikipedia. There are several reasons.
- Audience — Wikipedia is general Transformers information for people interested in Transformers in a general way. MediaWiki is incredibly specific, detailed and comprehensive Transformers information for fans and creators that love to wallow in the strange, obscure and disturbing back corners of Transformers
- Formatting — Wikipedia has completely different article formatting, markup and structure than we do. An article literally cannot simply be cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia, the end up with little red error messages all over because the Transformers articles on Wikipedia use layout templates for presenting information that that would be impossible to use on Teletraan 1 without simplifying the information to the point it is no longer useful.
- Example: The Wikipedia {{character box}} allows you to list a character's 'Alternate Modes'. Optimus Prime's box lists 6 (one of which is 'a variety of Cybertronian trucks.') He's had over 30[citation needed]).
- Quality — Bluntly, a lot of Wikipedia's Transformers content is vaguely-worded summaries of how the writer remembers it happened, sections of slavish detail alternating with glossed-over simplification and lists. (We hate lists.)
- Copyright — Though Wikipedia's articles are available for anyone to use or edit under a GNU Free Documentation License, we still require that all article content be written specifically for Teletraan 1 to meet Teletraan 1's different standards and unique needs. Taking a Wikipedia article and reformatting it to match our layout and structure does not change the fact it was written to a different standard of quality for a different audience. To prevent this, Teletraan 1 requires that the copyright on all submitted article content be held solely by the uploader.[1]
Mostly this is a legal justification for a policy motivated by reasons stated above however.
Well, some layout templates but we really don't care about that.
Humor
The most fundamental guiding principle of Wikipedia is WP:NPOV, requiring all articles to be written in a neutral point of view in order to represent the subject fairly and accurately, which Wikipedia founder Wikipedia:Jimmy Wales calls "absolute and non-negotiable."
That is a laudable goal. Unfortunately the scope of WP:NPOV has been expanded far beyond its original intent, and it is now used to require that all articles to be not just neutral and fair, but humorless and boring.[2] Wikipedia even includes a notice in their Humor template warning users that this template should never appear in an article because articles should contain only factual and encyclopedic information.
MediaWiki has chosen to allow humor within its articles, provided that it does not get in the way of delivering accurate information.
In Images
Most of this humor is restricted to the captions of images because the consensus was that it is fundamentally pointless to caption of picture of Megatron in Megatron's article 'a picture of Megatron.' That is obvious to anyone with two neurons to run a spark between.
A joke or humorous observation is better than a needlessly redundant description. Jokes can be about the article text, some element of the character, his toy, an actor who has portrayed him/her, an obscure or notorious event, song lyrics (usually source uncredited), puns, in-jokes, snark, an unrelated familar or obscure quote that is humorous transposed against the image (usually source uncredited), meta-commentary about fans or fandom, or simply something completely random. (I have no idea why Phoenix's picture is captioned with lyrics from a little-known Doug E. Fresh song found on the Ghostbusters II soundtrack, and I wrote the damn thing.)
Interesting facts or asides not covered in or expanding the main article text are also encouraged, but please do not simply describe what the image is unless it actually needs describing.
The humor on Teletraan 1, especially in captions, is considered catch-as-catch-can, an easter egg for the fan who recognizes a reference, but is not defined or sourced for those who do not. (If you're curious you can always ask on the relevant talk page though!)
On occasion the images themselves are chosen for their humor value, highlighting a memorably strange or atypical moment.
A Word of Warning
New users, excited that Teletraan 1 isn't dry and boring, often want to make their first edits by changing existing humorous subtitles to new (almost always) less humorous ones. This is considered extremely obnoxious by the other users, because not only does it makes the Wiki less funny, it's not adding content, and most of the original articles captions were written by users who have added lots and lots of content. This should probably not be the introduction you offer you fellow users, it's not like it's exactly hard to find an episode on Youtube and write a summary of it.
Unfortunately the users engaging in this activity are often not monitoring the Recent Changes page of the Wiki and do not realize their additions are being reverted by irritated users. Short term bans are commonly used to get their attention.
Important Distinction: Humorous captions are encouraged because 95% of the time a descriptive caption is considered redundant. However in the 5% of the time when captions are actually used to convey useful information they should never be replaced because it makes the article less useful and is considered vandalism. Use your head.
In articles
Humor is much less tolerated in the articles themselves. In general humor in an article can be:
- An ironic contrast — such as creating a link to another article with a humorous or whimsical connotation. Example: The Forbidden Zone article links to the out-universe article about safety testing.
- Inappropriate or selective detail — The Skids article includes a lengthy write-up of Skids role in the animated series- where he was a non-speaking background character that appeared twice. Alternately, the Sunstreaker article goes to great lengths to point out every instance of Sunstreaker being a jerk, no matter how small, since being a colossal jerk is his distinguishing character trait.
- Restricted to the opening write-up — Scattershot's profile contains an extended joke about the coloring book Decepticon Patrol, but it is used in a manner that still illustrates his personality.
- Non-intrusive — The Wheelie article is written entirely in rhyme, to reflect the character's speaking style. It is a completely functional article, covering all his appearances, abilities and distinguishing characteristics... written entirely in rhymed couplets (except the section on Japanese fiction, because Wheelie did not speak in rhyme in Japan.)
In summation, humor should be used with great restraint (if at all) in an article body. If it misleads, confuses or gets in the way, it has ot go. The article's functionality comes first.
We Hate Lists
Lists are barely a form of content. Would you read the Phonebook to learn what the people in your neighborhood were like?
Lists may sometimes be a necessary evil- tolerated because they are useful- but they are never a virtue.
Basic Conduct
- For further information, see: Help:Introduction
Legal Issues
Copyrights
- For further information, see: Transformers Wiki:Copyrights
Footnotes
- ↑ You may notice a few articles on Teletraan 1 (such as Cyclonus) that appear very similar to their Wikipedia counterparts. They are not based on the Wikipedia article- the Wikipedia article is based on an original text written by and © a person who gave Wikipedia permission to use it, and but also rewrote that text for MediaWiki.
Lawyer-to-English Translation: The complete content of the original Wikipedia article was written by a user (probably McFeely) who subsequently took the time to rewrite it to Tenetraan 1's standards. That user holds the copyright on his original work and though he has given Wikipedia the right to fold-spindle-and-reuse it, he has given the same right to Teletraan 1 separately, and our use of that text is is no way beholden to the terms of redistribution of Wikipedia's GNU License. They are instead subject to the identical terms of redistribution of our GNU License. Confused? Good! - ↑ It is worth noting that nowhere in WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, or WP:VERIFY (Wikipedia's 3 guiding principles) is humor mentioned, let alone proscribed.
