PHWiki:Policies
From PHWiki
Contents |
Contents
PHWiki welcomes any information related to homebrew, piracy, hacking and emulation on and of handheld gaming consoles. General information about handheld game systems and games is also welcome, but is best kept brief if it doesn't relate at all to homebrewing or piracy.
All handheld consoles are welcome, current mainstream ones as well as older or more obscure ones. A List of Handheld Consoles is available to give some idea of the intended focus of the site.
Information related to other handheld devices (like PocketPC) or home consoles is only encouraged as long as it relates to emulation on or of the dedicated handheld gaming consoles.
Original Research
Information without an external source is welcomed and encouraged at PHWiki. (the complete opposite of the Wikipedia policy on this.)
Due to the nature of homebrew and piracy, finding external verifiable sources is often impossible, and we encourage contributers to post things they figured on their own or came across in online forums.
However, if the information you are adding can be sourced (even if it's just with a link to a forum post) it is highly encouraged to include the source for reference.
The beauty of the wiki format is that if something turns out to be wrong it can easily be corrected. It's OK to add stuff you're not 100% sure about, but it's a good idea to including a "maybe" or "might" to let the reader know about the uncertainty.
As a reader it's also good to take into consideration that a lot of the information in PHWiki is not verifiable and should not be used as a definitive source.
Neutral Point Of View
A neutral point of view is encouraged but not generally required. However, if there ever are any conflicts a neutral point of view policy will be applied.
See the Wikipedia policy of Neutral point of view for a detailed description of what the neutral point of view entails.
Images
Try to avoid uploading copyrighted or watermarked images. If at all possible, taking your own screenshots of games or images of hardware is most encouraged. A lot of images have been sourced from official manufacturer pages and it's assumed that they are meant to be spread for publicity. A few images are also sourced from online stores that do not watermark their images. It is hoped that including them in the list of Flash Card Stores will outweigh the fact that we use their images.
Assume Good Faith
Assume that most people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it.
If you come across erroneous information, assume that it's a well-intentioned mistake, and just correct it. Correcting a newly added sentence that you know to be wrong is better than simply deleting it.
Improve pages wherever you can, and don't worry about leaving them imperfect.
Consider using the Talk: pages to clarify or discuss if it seems needed. For longer or more general discussions about PHWiki the Offtopic section of the PH Boards can also be used.
Adapted from Wikipedia policy of Assume Good Faith.
Vandalism
The spam we get is generally very obvious and it's deleted and the user permanently blocked.
Any other deliberate vandalism will be dealt with on a case by case basis.
PHWiki Copyright License
See PHWiki:Copyrights for the current license in use on PHWiki.
Copyright Infringement
Pocketheaven does NOT offer roms on its servers. It is an information resource only.
PHWiki encourages information about piracy, but we have a zero tolerance for copyright violations. Material which infringes other copyrights must not be added.
The article will be edited or deleted, and if you persist you will get blocked.
In addition to not allowing copyrighted material on the wiki we also have a very strict policy regarding links to it.
Do not post links to roms or sites with roms, or give detailed explanations on where or how to get roms.
Roms refers to copyrighted commercial roms (including obsolete systems like NES etc), and the same goes for as any other copyrighted material, like warez or mp3s. If you are unsure if what you are posting is copyrighted or not, don't post it.
The only exception to this is links to sites with firmware (hacked or not) from handheld consoles or flash cards, where this firmware is used to run homebrew or pirated games. Currently covered under this exception are FlashMe, the PSP Firmware, the GBAMP NDS Firmware Hack and the Extreme Flash Advance II firmware hack. Other exceptions may be made should the need arise. Note that the BIOS files from various handheld consoles is currently not covered under this exception.
Some specific examples to illustrate this policy follow:
| Allowed | Not allowed |
|---|---|
| DS Firmware (such as FlashMe) | DS BIOS |
| PSP Firmware | PSP BIOS |
| DS Homebrew | DS Download Play demos |
| MoonShell | Conversions of copyrighted video files for MoonShell |
| GSM Player | Conversions of copyrighted recordings for GSM Player |
| Source port of Doom | Doom WAD file, other than shareware version |
| Source port of Descent | Descent PIG and HOG files (shareware versions do not work) |
