Site Policies
Contents
General Statement
My goal for making this site is to help educate the widest audience possible. As such, I chose a wiki format for fast editing, as well as to allow anyone to update content. To this end, the wiki is currently very open. I may have to start ammending policies as we encounter abuse.
Account Creation
Account creation is currently open.
Creating New Pages
You are free to create new pages as you see fit. Just be sure to add Categories at the bottom of the page to tag the relevant subjects. See the current categories to make sure an existing category doesn't fit before creating a new one. Make sure the page is linked appropriately from a given parent page or the table of contents. If fitting the page into the ordered lessons, be sure to add relevant lessons, particularly the prev/last lessons. Please make some attempt to follow the formats already established, unless there is a good reason to break from them for the given content.
Remember, this site is dedicated to educating individuals about music, particularly focused on guitar playing. It is not designed for tangential purposes, such as documenting all the in's and out's of every piece of gear ever made or discussing the complete history of some genre of music; although such topics may come up when explaining how to play guitar or understand music.
I chose to create my own wiki vs. using Wikipedia or a similar wiki, so that I could freely express opinions and viewpoints and without requiring stringent source documentation. I encourage others to voice their opinions as well, but this should avoid controversy and debate. If you want to make what may be considered a contrary opinion, that's acceptable, but please use the quote wiki template to ensure it is marked as a personal viewpoint, not a standard/majority opinion.
Editing Existing Pages
Please feel absolutely free to fix typos or other inaccuracies. Also, if you can more clearly explain a concept, feel free to add it. Please label your changes using the "Summary" field.
But try not to make the pages unnecessarily verbose. And do not delete content added by someone else unless it is clearly no longer necessary. Do not "battle" others by replacing their opinions with your contrary ones. If questionable, use a quote template to demonstrate this is your opinion, not a majority/universally-accepted one. Also, feel free to discuss such topics using the given page's talk/discussion page, accessible through the "Page" menu at the top of every page.
Please conform to existing formatting/standards on the page. Do not add images, obtuse tables, giant block quotes, or other unsightly content that obscures one's ability to read the page.
Uploading Images
As of now, this site is capable of uploading images. This is designed to upload educational content only - diagrams, photos, etc. No personal pictures, advertisements, or memes will be tolerated. Please make sure your image is not obnoxiously sized or otherwise detrimental to one's ability to read the page. Please proceed conservatively - do not make me turn off uploadable images!
Posting Copyrighted Material
Do not post any copyrighted material you do not have permission to post here (see compatible licenses below). Please post the copyright holder's name and the date of copyright, and additionally the license by which the material is shared. Please make it clear what content is subject to the external copyright.
Unauthorized copyrighted material will be removed, and malicious or repeated offenses will result in being banned.
You may post your original content on this site; however, if you wish to retain any rights to it, they must be explicitly stated on the article, along with the license under which you are distributing the content. Do not post license contents on articles - link to the license you are using to distribute. Any material posted without an explicit copyright declaration is assumed copyright of MAB Wiki.
Compatible Licenses
Most Creative Commons-licensed material should be ok, but be aware that there are numerous kinds of CC licenses with various requirements, and each of those may have numerous revisions. If the material is licensed with an attribution requirement, be sure to fulfill that (usually it just requires stating the title, author, source, license - see CC best practices for attribution). Most copy-left licenses require redistribution to carry the same license as the original distribution (Creative Commons Sharealike (BY)) - you cannot change the license to fit this site.
If the material is licensed for non-commercial usage only (Creative Commons "NC" designation), it is not legal to post here - this site is not owned by a non-profit institution and accepts donations. I also intend to expand the services offered on this site - non-commercially licensed content would hamper that.
If you are unsure if a license is compatible with this site, ask the author and/or carefully read the license text. If you are still uncertain, please do not post here.
All material on this site is licensed for use by others under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 License (CC-BY-SA) unless otherwise stated. If you wish to post material that is incompatible with this license, the material must be explicitly identified along with the license being used to share it.
Sharing Site Material Elsewhere
I encourage sharing content from this site elsewhere, particularly forums where it could be helpful. Just remember that all original content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 License (CC-BY-SA). Be sure that wherever you are posting is compatible with this license and that proper attribution is given to this site, with the exception of content that is copyrighted by someone else, which would have to abide by their licensing.
Material that is not original to this site may or may not be shareable on other sites - the copyright holder and license used to redistribute should be written on this site by whoever posted it, so you can determine if sharing elsewhere is acceptable. When in doubt, ask the copyright holder.
Trademarks
If you use a product name, slogan, or other word/phrase that is trademarked, please include the trademark holder's name. It is usually obvious which term/phrase is trademarked due to capitalization; however, if there is ambiguity, use the ™ symbol ({{TM}}).
For example, rather than say Bad Horsie, say Morley Bad Horsie.
If there is a phrasing reason to avoid mentioning the trademark holder's name, you can use and asterisk and note it below. This would be handy when fitting a product name into a known lyric.
Example: "Me and my Mark V*".
* Mark V™ Mesa/Boogie.
See Wikipedia conventions on trademarks.
Banning
I will ban accounts as I see fit in response to the following:
- Purposefully attempting to subvert this site's main goal
- Adding advertisements or promoting products that clearly do not relate to the content
- Spamming users
- Personal attacks on myself or other users
- A history of questionable activity (such as making the same "mistakes" repeatedly)
- Failing to disclose a commercial endorsement or arrangement that would lead you to promote certain products or opinions
- Removing content without explicitly stating why or without legitimate cause on the talk page
- Cluttering the site with jokes or off-topic content
- Posting anything pornographic or otherwise explicit (this site is designed for all ages). PG-13 words/phrases are ok if not obnoxious.