Hello, and welcome to the Pronoun Wiki's official editing guide! This page contains all of this wiki's standards surrounding the editing and creation of pages.
When creating or editing a page, it may also be helpful to view our Citing Standards, Exampleself (Template), How to Use the Pronouns Template, and/or How to Make a Coining Post pages.
Keep in mind that repeated violation of the editing guide and/or Wiki Policies may result in warnings or blocks, depending upon rules violated.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to our wiki's staff for help!
Naming Pages[]
- Nounself pronoun pages should be named using their reflexive forms (ex. Moonself).
- Pronoun sets that aren't based on individual, pre-existing words should be named use Nominative/Accusative forms, both capitalized (ex. She/Her).
Formatting[]
- The first mention of the term/pronoun set the page is about should be bolded. (Ex: Xe/xem is a neopronoun set.)
- Unless at the start of a sentence, the first letter of a term should not be capitalized.
- Pages for a term/pronoun set do not need a heading with the name of the pronoun/term on the top of the page.
- Write all articles in a third-person perspective, and avoid using words such as 'you,' 'I,' or 'me.' Opt for words such as 'them,' 'theirs,' or 'one' when describing other people.
- Don't 'summarize' articles at any point, or paraphrase information multiple times.
- Articles should be written formally.
- The Pronouns Template should be used for all pages. For an official guide to using the Pronoun template, see How to Use the Pronouns Template.
Content[]
- Articles should not include any sort of personal experience. (Ex: My experience with using xe/xem pronouns is...) If there is an outside source, such information may be included in a Quote template.
- Pages should not include emojis/expressions/special characters. There are some specific exceptions to this rule (e.g. emojiself pronouns).
- It is not necessary to include that a pronoun set can be used in combination with other pronoun sets, as this is already implied.
- Content should be PG-13 or lower and exclude any curse words not permitted by wiki policies.
- When avoidable, assumptions should not be made in articles. (Ex: It is thought that the coiner of the xe/xem pronoun set is ____ but no one knows for sure)
- When writing a user's username, do not write the users' nickname/actual name in the place of their username. (Ex: The person who coined xe/xem pronouns is Sam).
Sourcing[]
Sourcing is mandatory. Not having sources for coining or definitions is not acceptable. Pages need to have citations, or use the template CitationNeeded to indicate that it needs to have a cited source added. A citation must be added using the citation tool, next to the information from the source. This wiki's Citing Standards page can also be used for a guide to sourcing pages.
Unacceptable Sources[]
Entire Wiki pages (LGBTA Wiki, MOGAI Wiki, Wikipedia, Mogaipedia, etc)[]
Citing an entire Wiki page is not allowed. If a Wiki page has citations, those citations themselves can be used on the page on our Wiki. Another Wiki's page is a result of up to hundreds of edits by hundreds of different users and not a singular source, and the information within it can be completely changed at any time, making it an invalid source.
Page As Original Source[]
Making a page to coin a term and having it be the original/only source of coining is not acceptable. Wiki pages shouldn't be used for this. Wikis are aggregates of information, not sources of them. Wiki pages are not social media and shouldn't be used as original posts. A coining post can be made in the discussions, on Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, or on nearly any other archiveable site.
In the instance that a term has been coined by making a Wiki page, the edit history for that Wiki page that includes the page's creation can then be used as a source. However, this is disallowed on our Wiki, and coining terms through making a page is met with the same treatment as breaking another rule of the Wiki.
Acceptable Sources[]
- A tutorial and masterlist of common sources is here! This is not a complete list, and users can cite (nearly) any website or published piece of media. In general, one should feel free to make their own judgement on whether or not a site is trustworthy enough to be cited as a source. Tumblr or other blogging website links are acceptable sources (for example), but web archive or archive.is links are greatly preferred to help preserve content, and we encourage archiving any links you might add to an article, especially original coining posts. If you don't have a link at the time of editing a page, adding Template:Cleanup and specifying what the page needs is acceptable.
As a general rule: If Wikipedia wouldn't allow it as a source, neither would we. Repeatedly creating articles with no sources (and no usage of the templates mentioned previously) may result in temporary bans.
Pronoun Coining[]
If you decide to coin a pronoun set on the wiki, do so via a blog or discussions post, not by page creation, and follow these guidelines:
- Make sure the term/pronoun set doesn't already exist. This can be done using a quick, quoted Google search (ex: "Xemself"), which brings up only results identical to what is typed inside the quotation marks.
- Your pronoun set should not be satirical. If it is, it will be deleted.
- Your pronoun set should not include assigned gender or expression, though it can include suggestions. (There are exceptions to this rule.)
- Make sure your pronoun set is appropriate! Sets that are deemed inappropriate (cussing, above PG-13 content) will be deleted or edited.
- Your pronoun set should not be based off of or include any sort of stereotype. (There are specific exceptions to this rule.)
- If you have any questions about whether or not the pronoun set you want to coin is acceptable, please contact a member of this wiki's staff.
For help creating a coining post, see How to Make a Coining Post.