In Open Politics, people have the right to express their opinions on public policy issues in the appropriate places. Provided it is stated in a way that does not violate the terms of use (which does prohibit lies, inciting hate, and personal attacks) it is not the role of the site operators to adjudicate political debates between participants, nor to determine what is "politically correct".

Administators should act to uphold wiki best practices in the presentation of the content, or to edit content when the terms of use are being violated.

There is no guarantee in the Terms of Use that any posting or contribution will remain on the current version of any page. Anything which is not a protected page can and should be edited by any user. Users should remove or edit content which, in their opinion is any of the following:

derogatory coarse language rude remarks humor in poor taste

false misleading gross rhetoric in the wrong place

ad hominem hateful nonsensical spam

Senior editors and administrators will often edit or remove content, which in their personal opinion is inappropriate, but do so by their own perogative, just like any other user. Only a chief editor can edit on behalf of the operators of Openpolitics.ca, and does so by logging in as chief_editor. As a courtesy, content that is inappropriate or in the wrong place can be posted to the user: page of whomever made the edit, for them to rephrase or refactor.

It is the policy of Open Politics to never delete a page. Instead, a page can be filed as ignore, usually because the content implied by the title falls outside the purpose of open politics, e.g. drink more beer. Ignored pages are no longer visible to anonymous users or regular editors. Ignored pages that still pose a problem may become protected page, at the administrator's discretion. Under no circumstances should a page be deleted. See remove page.

[+] "Ignoring" pages by registered users.

In general, administrators should avoid technological escalation - using permissions others do not have as a means of enforcement.

Ok to alter permissions:

• IPOV pages can be locked at the users request.
• administrative pages, instructional pages, and profile pages that are repeatedly suffering bad edits may have their editing perms from "anonymous" to "registered" or higher if that doesn't solve the problem.
• wiki challenge pages after the conclusion of a challenge.

Not Ok to alter permissions:

• on NPOV or MPOV pages IPAs because of vandalism or wikifights - use notices Inappropriate removal of notices should be dealt with as vandals.

Ad hominem attacks and derrogatory comments undermine the purpose and orderly conduct of a public wiki. If someone's behavior is mentioned or debated it should be either NPOV or attributed MPOV. Negative remarks about persons or groups that do not cite external (news) sources, or are otherwise verifiably attributed to a specific person should be removed or reverted. Attributed and sourced comments (derogatory or otherwise) should not be removed if relevant. Links to other pages in a public wiki (internal or external) do not count as a verifiable source.

In open politics, edits on profile pages are subject to the right to refactor by the subjects, and unattributed comments should be altered or moved immediately if they derogate others without contributing to the debate on an issue. Open Politics is not a blog and does not exist to disseminate opinions from people about other people or groups. Some administrators feel that profile pages should be strictly objective, "just the facts, maam".

See: profile for the complete policy. Any negative opinion placed on a profile page shall be considered a personal attack. Anything not strictly factual, biographical, and properly cited should be removed or moved to another page. By the best practice of criticize the action opinions/positions not allowed on profile pages should be moved to an appropriate page named for the event or issue. (links to these pages cannot be removed at the subjects discretion, but they have the right to refactor.

Anonymous edits on profile pages are generally treated with suspicion, and often reverted.

Acceptable :

• "On February 12 2005, John McJohn saidCraig Hubley is a mean nasty herder of a whole legion of foul trolls." (source: Daily news Feb 15 2005) (attributed and sourced)

• "John McJohn said Craig Hubley is a herder of a whole legion of trolls." (derrogatory adjectives removed)

Unacceptable :
"John McJohn saidCraig Hubley is a mean nasty herder of a whole legion of foul trolls."


Acceptable :

• John McJohn (jmcj@somewhere.com) saysCraig Hubley is a mean nasty herder of a whole legion of foul trolls." (attributed and sourced)

Barely acceptable:
"Some say that Craig Hubley is a herder of a whole legion of foul trolls." (acceptable when an alternate point of view is available.)

Unacceptable (for MPOV)
"Some say that Craig Hubley is a herder of a whole legion of foul trolls." (no other point of view is available.)


Unacceptable

"Craig Hubley is a mean nasty herder of a whole legion of foul trolls."

the comment should be modified to one that omits judgmental adjectives and is therefore more from neutral point of view:

Acceptable

• "Craig Hubley herds a large number of trolls into this wiki."

• any comment or edit that is judged to be spam should be deleted immediately.
• admins may also block IP immediately.

Sanctions suitable for any infraction:

Censure:

The primary function of a censure is to remind people that a code of conduct exists. An administrator or senior editor may censure the conduct of a participant, citing what rule or guideline was broken, providing the text of the infraction. Second hand evidence (e.g. "somebody said that so and so did such and such") is not admissible.

Censure has no effect other than registering that a senior editor or administrator found that there was an infraction. Censure is appropriate for all minor infractions. Censures should be handed out liberally, whenever there is evidence to merit one (because most infractions are never caught).

Sanctions suitable only for repeated infractions:

Suspension of privileges:

Administrators may suspend, for a specified time, some or all of the privileges of participation, including editing, commenting, having their contributions moderated, up to and including block IP. The critera for suspending privileges must include an explanation that there is an ongoing problem that censure was inadequate to resolve. All participants who are banned should be elibible for parole in a year.

Known trolls.

If a user self identifies as a troll, by placing a link to their user page from known trolls more latitude should be given. Honorable trolls are allowed to be cranky, but not to make ad hominem attacks as they please. If a user is determined to be a troll, admins may encourage they channel their creativity toward more refined forms of critique such as satire, and irony.