Style guidelines

General

(This section is currently intended to be descriptive rather than prescriptive/proscriptive. This may change.)

As should be obvious to anyone from either the site name, the front page, or any of the longer established articles on here, this site is slanted against those who presume to dictate to the general public as to how they should live their lives.

Pro-pruitanical prose, as a result, is generally not welcome here.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, like Wikipedia, bold statements require citations. Strong statements against a person, body, policy etc. requires backup. Unsubstantiated rumour is not welcome.

In general the following are fair game for quotation:

• Most generally read (serious) media outlets where the article in question is being serious. For (UK) example The Daily Mail just qualifies. The Daily Mash, The Onion don't (they can be cited on here, just not to support an argument)
• Ditto long-standing blogs, again if they (or the cite in question) is serious.
• Research websites, whether or not the word research should be in scare quotes or not.

Basically this site is intended to be a serious place to look up stuff for those researching the lengths governments (and their sockpuppets/fake-charities) go to to harass their citizens, but humor is permitted. However the serious stuff needs backing up, and the serious stuff takes priority.

Unlike Wikipedia, there is (currently) no strenuious objection to self-edits; i.e. if the page is about you, or your website, or your campaign, or whatever, you are more than welcome to edit your, but bear in mind that this presumes you are in favour of what this website represents, and you adhere to the above.

Removing inconvenient facts about your puritanical behaviour are not really acceptable. Especially if you are still doing it.

Promoting your cause against a government inititive is more acceptable.

Notwithstanding the above, My decision is final on any edits or arguments resulting from this policy.

Essentially: My site, my rules.

If you find that offends your sensibilites of free speech, please remember that the concept of free speech generally relates to governments stopping you from having it, not some private website that doesn't want to bother, and where you have the perfect right to go set up your own website and have your opinions over there instead. The one thing it doesn't do is give you the right to have your opinion over here.

Creating a new page

Every page should have the following at the bottom:

==References==

{{Reflist}}

[[Category:XXX]]

[[Category:XXX]]

Research pages

Pages that document research should be named after the surnames of the authors listed for the research, followed by the year of the research paper in parentheses, for example:

• Munafò, Roberts, Bauld & Leonards (2011)

The first paragraph should contain the title of the paper linked to either a copy of the paper uploaded to this site or a link to the paper/summary on the internet. From the example above:

The title of the study Plain Packaging Increases Visual Attention To Health Warnings On Cigarette Packs In Non-Smokers And Weekly Smokers But Not Daily Smokers pretty much sums up the findings [...]

The page should also have, in addition, a block at the end listing the authors (Forename Surname), in the order they are listed in the paper, hyperlinked to their page on here (it doesn't matter if the page doesn't exist yet.) This should immediately precede the References section:

== Authors ==

* [[Marcus Munafò]]

* [[Nicole Roberts]]

* [[Linda Bauld]]

* [[Ute Leonards]]

==References==

{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Research]]

[[Category:XXX]]

People

Where relevant, the first section for a page about a person should be Positions held, listing in chronological order the positions that person has held (first by start date, then by end date if necessary.):

== Positions held ==

* <start year> - <end year> - position held

* <start year> - <end year> - position held

==References==

{{Reflist}}

[[Category:People]]

[[Category:XXX]]

References

References should use the Cite extension. As mentioned above, every page should have the {{Reflist}} directive.

The format of references should follow the following format, with the second being used for the first instance of a repeated reference, and third for subsequent instances:

<ref>[http://www.example.com/directory/page.php Page title] - Site name</ref>

<ref name="shortname">[http://www.example.com/directory/page.php Page title] - Site name</ref>

<ref name="shortname" />

Charities

When referencing the Charity Commission (England and Wales) or the Office of the Scottish Charity Register (Scotland,) use the following templates to directly link to the relevant pages:

{{UKCharity|<charity number>}}

e.g.: #000000

{{ScotCharity|<charity number>}}

e.g.: 000000

Quotations

There are (currently) 10 quotation templates with different colours:

{{quote|quoted text here}}

{{quote2|quoted text here}}

{{quote3|quoted text here}}

{{quote4|quoted text here}}

{{quote5|quoted text here}}

{{quote6|quoted text here}}

{{quote7|quoted text here}}

{{quote8|quoted text here}}

{{quote9|quoted text here}}

Prefer to use the earlier ones to the latter ones (since the colours may change,) and unless it's necessary to clearly show that two different sources are being quoted (for example a conversation) try to stick to just one; {{quote|...}}

If the "quoted text" contains an equals sign, then prefix the quote with `1=`