User blog:Meighan/Best Practices & You.

For the most part we all understand the general rules of what is expected online: be polite, don’t spam, be friendly/kind, etc, basically how one should act as you would in real life. Something that may happen when you come into a new online community is that although some rules are very clear, like the above, there are unwritten rules that aren’t always as clear. These rules can be even more elusive especially if you don’t have a lot of experience in online communities. Sometimes out of shear excitement or just plain ‘newbie-ism’ one may not be aware of the code of ethics that go along with a site. Heck, I know I have been there -- I discover a new site and I want to dive in, say hello and mess around! Don't you?

One of the upcoming sections you’ll find here in the coming weeks on Founder & Admin Central is 'Best Practices'. This section will be home to articles about overall guidelines and good practices here on Wikia. Ultimately, I believe we all want to get along and have a good time online. Of course, there are a few real trolls out there that get real satisfaction from wreaking havok on communities -- but that’s for another blog post ;). As I started to get together a group of ‘best practices’ to write, this got me thinking about what we all expect around our's and other's behavior online. I know what I expect from my peers online, but I’d like to hear specifics about what you would like to see as best practice articles here in our new community. What do you think everyone should know when they first join Wikia? What are our golden rules for being a good wikian, editing and running a great wiki?

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think about what good practices are important to know when you first join Wikia. Also please share your best practices from your wikis too (be sure to leave a link to your wiki)! A few users left comments on my last blog post about what they would like to see. You can check that post out here if you need a jumping off point. ;)

Oh! And what do you think of the new theme and wordmark?