BroniesWiki:Sources
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This page is an official Bronies.wiki policy. It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should follow. Any changes to this policy should be the subject of consensus first. |
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This page is a work in progress. It describes the outline of the policy, however, it is not exhaustive and may be missing some important details. Contact a staff member if you require clarification or have any queries about this page. |
Bronies.wiki has significantly different requirements for sourcing and referencing compared to projects like Wikipedia. We still prefer secondary sources over other kinds, but have a much more relaxed attitude to primary and tertiary sources.
Primary sourcesEdit
Secondary sources includes information directly from the subject of the article, such as sourcing a guest of honor list from the convention's own website.
Unlike Wikipedia, we allow the use of primary sources for referencing a great deal of information. This is necessary by the nature of the wiki's scope and our significantly lower criteria for notability—the only available source of information about the creation of an albums or the plot synopsis of a fan fiction could be the album's Bandcamp page or the fic's FIMFiction page.
When using a primary source, try to stick to the bare facts presented by it. You can use a primary source to say that an album contains 18 tracks and is of the rock genre, but not that the album is "banging hot stuff", so that we can maintain a neutral point of view.
Vanity articlesEdit
Similarly, we take a much more relaxed view to vanity articles—that is, articles written directly by the subject of the article, or directly related to the subject. If a wiki is lacking detail on the technical aspects of a video game, for example, one of those game's developers is ideally suited to providing that information. Users writing about subjects they're related to must maintain a neutral point of view.
Original imageryEdit
Because of the nature of copyright law around the world, most images that exist cannot be used on Bronies.wiki. Users are encouraged to upload their own original images and release them under a permissive license, allowing Bronies.wiki and other encyclopedia projects to use that work.
Images should not be edited in a way that manipulates the facts of the image.
Secondary sourcesEdit
Secondary sources present an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. This includes news articles, reviews, documentaries, blog posts, or other means disconnected from the primary source.
Secondary sources are preferred over primary and tertiary sources, if they are available.
Tertiary sourcesEdit
Tertiary sources include encyclopedias and other wiki projects that collate secondary and tertiary sources. Tertiary sources can be useful for providing an overview of a topic, or to reference information that we don't consider part of our scope but another wiki does. Commonly cited projects on Bronies.wiki include Wikipedia and the Friendship is Magic Wiki.