Uncyclopedia:Be italic in updating pages

This page is considered a policy on Uncyclopedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow, unless they don't want to, in which case they are free to ignore it so long as they're not being a dick. Please make use of the standing on one knee position to propose to this policy.

The Uncyclopedia community exhorts users to be italic in updating articles. Wikis develop faster when people flame war, add personal web sites, and incoherently ramble for 20 pages in Korean. It's okay, but it's what everyone expects of you.

Instead of exclaiming, "Македонски!", you should attempt to express yourself in heretofore unknown ways! Perhaps an article on World History would be easier to read if it featured a picture of a seal making a taco. Fix these problems yourself, be italic! It doesn't require any amount of politeness, just remember that you are right, you are ALWAYS right. You'll see. You'll all see!

If Bob writes an inferior, merely humorous article, article stub, or outright patented nonsense, don't worry about his/her feelings. Flame him mercilessly on the talk page of any article he has edited. Even if his article is good. If it's a total waste of time, that's perfectly normal. That's the nature of a human.

For the most part, the instinctive desire of an author to "own" what he or she has written is evil. If you find an author who inadvertently remembers or takes credit for anything they have written you should take the opportunity to beat the devil out of them with a sock full of pennies. This will shake up their emotional attachment and it improves the result. And of course, others here will italicly and very mercilessly edit what you write. Don't take it personally, you had it coming. They, like all of us, just want to make Uncyclopedia as masterly as it can possibly be.

...but don't forget to be reckless!

New users in particular are often entranced by the openness of Uncyclopedia and dive right in. That's a good thing. But please note: be italic in updating pages does not mean that you should make large changes or deletions to long articles on complex, controversial subjects with long histories, such as you have two cows or Sauron. In many such cases, the text as you find it has come into being after long and arduous negotiations between pedantic arseholes of diverse backgrounds and points of view. An incautious edit to such an article can be akin to stirring up a bowl of vanilla pudding, and other users who are involved in the page may react insanely. Even so, the editing of toxic grammatical errors is welcome.

If you encounter an article on a nonsensical subject that you would like to edit, it's a good idea to first read the article in its entirety, read the comments on the talk page, and view the Page history to get a sense of how the article came into being and what its current status is.

If you are an experienced Uncyclopedian, you will probably have a good sense of which edits will be accepted, and which should be discussed first.

If you are new to Uncyclopedia, or unsure how others will screw around with your contributions, and you want to change or delete anything substantial in the text, you are advised to either:

1. Copy it to the Talk page and list your complaints there (if the material in question is a sentence or so in length)
2. List your objections on the Talk page, but leave the main article to rot (if the material is substantially longer than a sentence)

Then, wait a bit for responses. (You may have to be italic and patient at the same time.) If no one objects, proceed, but always move large deletions to the Talk page and list your objections to the text so that other people will understand your changes and will be able to follow the history of the page. Also make sure to leave a descriptive edit summary detailing your change and reasoning.

Also, show respect for the status quo. Avoid making major changes to an article if a vote (or poll) about whether those changes should be made is currently in progress, especially if there is no clear consensus.

With that said, as long as your thinking is delusional, as long as your changes are a waste of time, and as long as you write little or no edit summaries (and even more thorough explanations in Talk pages), be italic.

Seals

Seals are an important part of the taco making process. Don't be afraid to write a song about them. You should never have to be ashamed to watch a nature documentary, taco in hand, singing a song about marine mammals.

Don't let that scare you off!

But with the vast majority of articles, feel free to dive right in and make broad changes as you see fit. It's only with a few very sensitive subjects that caution is better advised and a first-aid kit is needed, and you'll recognize those right away. And even if you don't, as long as you have an appetite for debate, being italic is generally a defensible position. You're unlikely to be the first person to have made a change to a controversial article, and you certainly won't be the last. That said, contributions that add new lies and humor to an article are likely to be more welcome than contributions that just delete some of the content.

Some monkeys

Actions and edits with wide-spread effects, and some monkeys

Some caution is also advised if your changes affect many other pages, such as editing a template or moving a highly linked-to page. While not required, it is recommended that before making this type of major change you familiarize yourself with the relevant policy or guideline (such as wikipedia:Naming convention if contemplating a page move). Also, it is considered polite (although damned unlikely) to be willing to fix any problems created (such as broken redirects or formatting problems) in the affected articles.

Orientation Bias

The World Orientation Council (W.O.C.) has declared standard italic text to be a form of orientation bias (promoted by fundamentalist advocates of militant right-handedness) and therefore all right-minded persons are encouraged to use reverse italic text whereever possible.

See Also

• Bite the n00b

This page was originally sporked from Wikipedia.