SmashWiki:Ownership

This page documents an official SmashWiki policy, a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

SmashWiki's intent is to collect information on the Super Smash Bros. franchise and act as a thorough and dynamic repository of such information, as written and maintained by its many contributors. However, this also means that all articles on SmashWiki are owned by SmashWiki, and not by any other parties, whether on or off SmashWiki.

Overview

All articles on SmashWiki belong to SmashWiki itself. No editor, administrator, or outside community member may claim an article as property of themselves, regardless of who initially wrote the article or uploaded information to the article. Furthermore, people or groups who are covered in an article do not gain ownership over said article.

As a result of users lacking ownership of articles, editors are not allowed to subvert any of SmashWiki's policies on articles that they believe belong to themselves. For instance, they may not revert edits more than once, nor can they remove delete tags from articles they have created. Furthermore, they may not attempt to exert greater control on what is posted on the article, such as by frequent reverts, directly telling other users to avoid editing the article, or similar measures.

While some users may initially seem possessive of articles, always remember to assume good faith. Some users may simply be unaccustomed to the idea of a article not belonging to themselves, and all disputes should be discussed with the user in question first instead of immediately involving an administrator.

Note that offences of SmashWiki:Ownership are not strictly considered blockable offences; rather, the editor's actions taken as a result of believing he or she has ownership of a page, such as edit warring or other disruptive behaviour, are considered blockable offences.

Mainspace articles

When a mainspace article is created, regardless of the subject, it belongs to SmashWiki and not the editor who created it. As a result, editors should not expect to have greater control over articles they have created.

Smasher and Team articles

Smasher articles involve information about a notable real-life figure, and Team articles likewise cover real-life organizations. Regardless of either the editor's or subject's intentions, Smasher and Team articles are considered part of SmashWiki, and again, no one person or group may claim ownership of these articles. Smashers are still free to edit articles about themselves, as are anyone associated with a team editing its relevant article, but they should not expect to be able to subvert SmashWiki's policies in regards to what gets posted on their Smasher/Team article, nor should they become involved with edits that involve a conflict of interest. Smashers may remove unwanted personal information from their article up to and including their real names, location (leaving a more general location such as "Florida" in place of "Tampa, Florida"), and birthday; however, an edit summary or a talk page post explaining this should be included, and smashers on IPs or unverified accounts need to verify with an admin that they're behind the edit. Constantly removing information without providing valid reasoning and verification can be considered disruptive behaviour.

Userspace pages

See also: SmashWiki:User pages

While user pages follow a slightly different, less restrictive ruleset compared to other articles, user pages are also considered part of SmashWiki when they are created. While the user page's owner may have the greatest control over the content of their user page, any editor ultimately has the freedom to change another's user page, particularly if a policy has been broken, or other problems with the user page exist, such as having an abundance of broken images or having personal attacks on their user page. Editing another user's user page for any other reason is generally considered poor form, and is discouraged. If a user does edit someone else's user page, it is recommended that they leave a talk page message explaining why they have edited the page.

Images and audio

Like articles, both image and sound files uploaded to SmashWiki are considered to belong to SmashWiki. As a result, users should not expect images or sound files to necessarily only be used on specific articles, nor should they expect other users to not upload over such files. A general exception is user images, which should be treated under the same category as user pages.

Conflict of interest editing

SmashWiki believes all contributors are valuable, and though it may seem unusual, editors are allowed to edit articles that cover themselves. If this case happens, however, editors are expected to avoid conflict of interest editing, or, editing that involves editors changing articles to fulfill their own interests or the interests of others over the interests of SmashWiki. Examples may include removing unflattering information (e.g. removing information about them being banned from tournaments), changing wording for the purpose of puffing themselves up (e.g. comparing their play style to that of a renowned top player), writing grandiose claims about themselves (e.g. inserting themselves into the "Most historically significant players" section of a character's article), and other such similar changes. Users suspected of conflict of interest editing will likely have their edits undone, and persistent attempts to subvert SmashWiki's policy can result in blocks being levied against the editor.

Conflict of interest extends to others editing in the interest of the smasher in question rather than in the interest of SmashWiki, such as a friend of theirs, a crew mate, or any other person acting on the smasher's or team's behalf. As such, smashers and teams will not be able to bypass this policy by having someone else edit for them. If there is contentious information on their Smasher/Team page or elsewhere on the wiki involving them that a smasher/team wishes to contend, they are expected to bring it up on the relevant talk page and explain their case, where other unrelated editors can then decide if their wanted changes are valid. If the changes are deemed invalid or a compromise is decided, said smasher/team will be expected to cede any further attempts to remove or modify the contended information to their liking.

Examples of ownership behaviour

Below is a list of behaviour that is generally consistent with an editor who may believe an article belongs to themselves. If such behaviour occurs, remember to assume good faith, and try to inform the user of how ownership works on SmashWiki. Avoid immediately bringing an administrator into the matter unless the editor continues to persist in disruptive behaviour.

• Making claims that the article belongs to themselves, including the use of self-referential words in regards to the article, such as "my page" or "my article"
• Bringing up claims that the editor "started" or "created" the article, or claims that the editor "wrote the most" or "did the most" for the article
• Consistently disputing edits on an article, regardless of how minor they may be
• Constantly reverting edits to an article without an appropriate edit summary
• Removing portions of articles without an appropriate edit summary
• Persistent violations of policy involving a single article
• Asking editors to avoid editing an article, requesting that editors consult them before editing the article, or questioning their qualifications for editing the article, either with or without personal attacks
  • This can be excused in certain contexts, such as highly complex tables or templates that require extensive knowledge of coding, especially those that are widely used on SmashWiki, or articles involving precise technical data that require specialized knowledge. Note that these are cases where anyone with the proper experience should be able to contribute, and not excuses to set a "bar for entry" so high that only one user is "qualified" to edit an article. This will additionally be excused with SmashWiki's policy and guideline pages, where generally only administrators and other highly trusted users should be editing these pages beyond fixing simple grammatical and technical errors, especially when editing without any prior discussion.