Team Fortress Wiki:Policies
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This page documents accepted policies and guidelines in use on the Team Fortress Wiki.
Terms of Use
Content
Unreleased content
Unreleased content refers to content for which there is some expectation of pending Valve release, but has not been patched into the game and has not been made public; examples being content Valve claims to be developing or content mentioned in an ongoing ARG.
- Generally, images or articles relating to expected but unreleased weapons, items, or other game content are not permitted until they are officially released. This is because until that point, what the content is, does, or looks like cannot be confirmed.
- The main purpose of this is to reduce unverified speculation or other ridiculous conjecture appearing as 'fact' on article pages.
- You are, however, free to start creating the article in your user space and have it moved back into the article space upon official release. Note: main space categories are generally not permitted on articles in user space; you may comment them out while in your user space, like so:
<!-- [[Category:Example]] -->; or use the colon:[[:Category:Example]].
Unused and cut content
Unused and cut content refers to content found within patched game files. When documenting findings related to unused content, you should always provide solid evidence that the content is genuine and real.
The following qualifies as proof:
- The ability to access said content via Valve's content servers, the game's .VPK files, official SDKs, or Web APIs.
- This means that anyone can access or download the content to verify its legitimacy.
- Quotes from current or former Valve employees or associates.
- Quotes from Workshop creators.
If there is any uncertainty regarding the proof provided, you may be required to provide additional information.
Leaked content
Leaked content is allowed on the Wiki in limited capacity as we do not have permission to share source code or game assets on behalf of Valve. When documenting findings on the Wiki based on leaked source code, using a plain text statement such as "from leaked source code" is the only method allowed. The preferred way of citing directly from code is filepath\filename.cpp:L[number] (such as game\shared\tf\tf_weapon_wrench.cpp:L31), for non-code citations the preferred way of citing is filepath\filename (such as tf_materialSrc\backpack\player\items\all_class\bdayhat_heavy.tga).
When documenting leaked content, you must not:
- Include or link to parts of the actual source code.
- Include, link to, or upload screenshots of models, textures, audio and/or other game assets.
- Include, link to, or upload screenshots of recreations of leaked content.
Images and media
- For image licensing policy, see Team Fortress Wiki:Licensing images.
- For guidelines on image quality, see Team Fortress Wiki:Images.
- For placing images in articles, see Help:Images.
Languages and localization
The content on Team Fortress Wiki is multilingual, and every effort should be made to ensure that readers of other languages can access the same content in their own native language.
- Articles should have multiple language translations. Content related to the organisation of the project (i.e. pages in the Team Fortress Wiki and Help namespaces) should normally not be translated.
- Many articles are kept translated via translation switching templates. This allows consistent formatting across pages, and ensures that localized text and template code are kept in one single template.
Community websites
The community website pages on this Wiki have always been prone to abuse, and as time went on, concerns of bias and the usage of the Wiki as a vehicle for product advertising became more pronounced. A lack of guidelines acceptable to all parties has also always been an issue, so as of 2014-05-12 the Wiki is enacting a concrete policy of no site pages whatsoever in favor of more helpful and informative basic guides that document the features more generally. This should solve the concerns of advertising and bias, as well as giving a more concrete starting point for newcomers. The new guides are: Basic Market guide, Basic trading guide, and Basic inventory guide.
Mod / Custom content notability
Notable persons
Editing
- For basic help with wiki editing, see Help:Editing
- For tips on style, see Help:Style guide
- For a complete list of help pages, see Help:Contents
Community engagement
Beyond the Wiki website itself, the Team Fortress Wiki has a presence on social media channels like YouTube, Twitter, and IRC. Usage of this presence should be strictly restricted to the following purposes:
- Releasing Wiki-specific content, e.g. weapon demonstration videos made for embedding on the Wiki website.
- Amplifying official TF2-related news and updates, such as patch notes, official TF2 blog posts, etc.
- Amplifying unofficial TF2-related news and updates that Valve has officially endorsed, e.g. community tournaments featured on the official TF2 blog.
- Celebrating Wiki-specific or TF2-wide milestones, e.g. the Wiki website having reached a certain number of contributors, or celebrating TF2's birthday.
- Featuring high-quality Wiki content, e.g. "Articles of the month"-type announcements.
- Featuring low-quality Wiki content, e.g. shitposts and memes about the Wiki itself.
- Wiki user support, e.g. directing locked-out users on how to perform account recovery, or providing help with Wiki syntax and editing guidelines.
All Wiki members (including staff) are free to perform any other type of broader TF2 community engagement, as long as they do so in a personal capacity which does not imply official endorsement from the Team Fortress Wiki.
Other
User content
- Images
- Some images are permitted to be uploaded for personal use on user pages. However, users who abuse the right to upload decorative images may have them removed.
- User images should follow these rules:
- They should have the user's name in the file name (e.g.
File:User MyName Steam avatar.png) - They should be placed in the category User images (place the code
[[Category:User images]]into the upload box) - User images should not be used in articles, or share categories with article images.
- They should have the user's name in the file name (e.g.
- Signatures
- Custom signatures are allowed. However, we would prefer that more attention is paid to improving articles rather than your own signature. As with user images, misuse of signatures may result in you losing the right to have one.
- Pages
Elevated privileges
Deletion
- Pages may be deleted if they show low effort, or break the unreleased content, notability, and community websites rules above.
- Images may be deleted if they are low quality, not properly licensed, or if they are simply not used.
- Obviously egregious policy violations may be speedily deleted, but the nominal process is to apply the
{{delete}}template, discuss, and close.
Protection
Generally, most pages are not protected to encourage new edits and additions to content. However, some pages and articles are deliberately locked against editing, mostly for the following reasons:
- If an edit war breaks out and involved parties refuse to stop;
- If the page is high-risk: this can include pages that are repeatedly targeted for vandalism, templates like
{{lang}}that are transcluded heavily, or pages that are heavily trafficked like Main Page.- If a template needs protection and translation switching, consider making use of the Dictionary to allow translators to update strings.
- Notable persons pages are always locked to Staff-only to prevent vandalism.
Blocks
Users are only blocked from editing if they prove to be consistently disruptive to the Wiki.
- This includes, but is not limited to:
- Vandalism
- Edit warring
- Ignoring warnings on your talk page
- Intimidating behavior/harassment
- Spam
