HRWiki:Inclusion guidelines

From Homestar Runner Wiki

When a small stub article is created and is debatable as to if it should stay a separate article (i.e. not be merged or deleted), please refer to these guidelines. We ask that you read all of them and note that they are not absolute. All articles must be considered on a case-by-case basis, so these guidelines are only here to provide reference.

The guidelines are as follows:

1. Page consisting of inappropriate content: Spam, trolling, non-Homestar Runner related material, and vandalism will not be tolerated and must be promptly deleted by a sysop.

2. Page content relating to a possible running gag: Needs at least three to four appearances in Homestar Runner toons or emails and must be significant in some way to the Homestar Runner world in contrast to the real world. Ex: DELETED!

3. Page content relating to a very generic item or event: Needs at least five to ten appearances and must be of at least moderate importance to the toon (i.e. not just in the background and never mentioned) in half of its appearances. Ex: Explosions

4. Page content relating to a H*R-specific item: Needs only one appearance in Homestar Runner toons, as long as it played an important role in the plot (see above). Any item that is part of a character's outfit or is closely related to that character (Coach Z's Z, The Poopsmith's Shovel) does not merit a page and should be merged into that character's biography page. Ex: BMW Lighter

5. Page content relating to a character: Needs only one appearance in Homestar Runner toons, as long as it is not a minor variation of one of the already established characters, a character in a costume, or a different personality of that character. Also, it must have a moderate role in the toon and/or a spoken line. Movie and theatric character play characters are an exception. Ex: The Yello Dello

6. Other pages: Any repeating, dominant part of the Homestar Runner toons that could not be fitted into the toon's page as a fun fact (Ex:The Periodic Table of Candy Elements), part of the transcript (Ex: Experimental Film Visuals) or Easter egg (Ex: Strumstar Hammer) are allowed. This is rare, however.

7. Inclusion into existing article: Generally, if all information known about the subject of the article could easily be included in a few lines on any other related page or page section on the wiki, it isn’t worthy of its own page. Also, a page should not exist if it doesn’t offer a unique opportunity to expand on its topic in ways that aren't possible in other pages and a good article will include substantial information beyond a general description of an item and where it appears. Good Ex: Carol

On Deleting Pages

Here are some guidelines sysops should follow when making the decision to delete a page or not:

1. When deleting a page, one may or may not want to delete its talk page or any subpages as well. If the talk page is not deleted, put a link to the deletion discussion thread on the talk page.
2. Simply deleting a page does not automatically delete its talk page. If you delete these as well, do that first, and then the main page.
3. When filling in the "Reason for Deletion" text, ensure that the following is not included:
   • Any copyright infringing text
   • Personal information, e.g. content was: 'John Doe smells bad and his home phone # is (481) 555-2416
4. Don't delete pages unless you know how to undelete as well.
5. Redirects to deleted pages should be deleted or redirected elsewhere to avoid broken redirects.
6. If an article title needs to be deleted, but some of the content could be used in a different (existing) article, proceed as follows: {Note: do not create these articles} Move the article from its really silly article title to a better title, in order to preserve the history. Next, copy the content to the existing article with an edit summary such as (moved content from really silly article title - see the page history of better title for author attribution). The really silly article title will then be a redirect with no page history which can be deleted. better title would then be changed to redirect to existing article.

Remember that even once a page is deleted, it can be restored. For instance, if an article is deleted on the grounds that it is not noteworthy and then starts appearing many times in subsequent toons, the page can be brought back and updated.