Hello, Permethius, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{Help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field with your edits. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! User:Permethius (talk) 13:05, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia must have a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately, providing context for any given point of view, and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view". It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises regarding neutrality, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed, hammer out details on the talk page, and follow dispute resolution.
The intent of these guidelines is to provide a safe set of rules of thumb. Follow these behaviours, and you'll likely not get into trouble. (And adhering to these ideals may improve the prospects of aspiring administrators.)
Be bold! in updating pages. Go ahead, it's a wiki!
Encourage others, including those who disagree with you, likewise to Be bold!
Be civil to other users at all times.
When in doubt, take it to the talk page. We have all the time in the world. Mutual respect is the guiding behavioural principle of Wikipedia and, although everyone knows that their writing may be edited mercilessly, it is easier to accept changes if the reasons for them are understood. If you discuss changes on the article's talk (or discussion) page before you make them, you should reach consensus faster and happier.
Clear edit summaries and straightforward and transparent explanations are universally appreciated. Other editors need to understand your process, and it also helps you yourself to understand what you did after a long leave of absence from an article. Please state what you changed and why. If the explanation is too long, elucidate on the discussion page. It is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia that anyone may edit articles without registering, so there are a lot of changes to watch; edit summaries simplify this.
Assume good faith; in other words, try to consider the person on the other end of the discussion to be a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to Wikipedia. Even if you're convinced that they're evil reptilian kitten-eaters from another planet, still pretend they're acting in good faith. Ninety percent of the time, you'll find that they actually are acting in good faith (and wouldn't you have looked stupid if you'd accused them of being evil).
Particularly, don't revert good faith edits. Reverting is a little too powerful sometimes, hence the three-revert rule. Don't succumb to the temptation, unless you're reverting very obvious vandalism (like "LALALALAL*&*@#@THIS_SUX0RZsammygoo", or someone changing "4+5=9" to "4+5=30"). If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like "(rv) I disagree strongly, I'll explain why in talk." and immediately take it to talk.
Be gracious: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Try to accommodate other people's quirks the best you can, and try to be as polite, solid and straightforward as possible yourself.
Signing. Sign on talk pages (using ÞέŗṃέłḥìμŝLifeDeath 13:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC) which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit submit), but don't sign on mainspace articles.
Use the Show preview button; it prevents cluttering up the page history.
Foundation issues: There are only five actual rules on Wikipedia: neutral point of view, a free license, the wiki process, the ability of anyone to edit, and the ultimate authority of Jimbo and the board on process matters. If you disagree strongly with them, you may want to consider whether Wikipedia is the right place for you. While anything can theoretically be changed on a wiki, the community up to this point has been built on these principles and is highly unlikely to move away from them in the future. A lot of thought has been put into them and they've worked for us so far; do give them a fair shake before attempting to radically change them or leaving the project.
Don't infringe copyright. Wikipedia uses the GNU Free Documentation License. Everything you contribute must be compatible with that license.
Ignore all rules - rules on Wikipedia are not fixed in stone. The spirit of the rule trumps the letter of the rule. The common purpose of building an encyclopedia trumps both.
Minor postscript: The above mainly focuses on practice, rather than actual content; for content discussions, see List of bad article ideas for a discussion of article ideas that show up (and get deleted) frequently on articles for deletion, Wikipedia's method of removing articles that don't constitute vandalism in and of themselves.
