Policies

Revision as of 23:19, 12 April 2012

Guidelines

Guidelines

Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference

Forum guidelines

Forum guidelines

Photo uploading/deletion policies

Comments deletion policies

Offensive, meaningless, talk between users, or unrelated comments will be removed by the Advanced Users or by the Wikimapia Team.

Regarding Personal Residences

• Koriakine's comments on personal residences: Feature discussion and requests / Private places/homes, page 5

"I think the situation must be logical in this case: any object visible from satellite (or undegroound) or house with a street number must be on the map, whatever, private it is or not! Must be there any more information of the owner - a decision by owner of the house. By any request the private info may be cleared." [sic] Koriakine's post is 13th on page 5

"If a house put on the map does NOT have an address added in the address box or the desciption box, should we keep it there or not? The situatio is - take a look on Wikimapia layer, then yoo will se that if a house exist it must be on Wikimapia layer. Cluttering will not be a problem since soon we will get rig of RECTANGLES (but not very soon - there will be a transitional period)." [sic] Koriakine's post is 22nd on page 5

Restrictions/banning policies ("No penalty without a law")

Restrictions and banning policies are applied to users who infringe Wikimapia's policies. For the purpose of simplicity, a user who commits violations shall be called an infringer.

Ban policy

Banning is the act of restricting an infringer's account, and therefore the privileges it offers, by Advanced Users and Wikimapia Administrators. Although, Wikimapia Administrators reserve the right to ban any user, Advanced Users can only ban an infringer as per the ban reasons listed under section 4. Users ban policy of the Wikimapia Guidelines.

The Ban policy comprises of four core modules:

• Wikimapia Guidelines
• Terms of Reference
• Banning Guidelines
• Ban Moderation

The Wikimapia Guidelines is the official documentation for Wikimapia and should be adhered to as the only enactment of legislation in addition to the Terms of Reference. The Terms of Reference contains the Terms of Use, Copyright Notice and Privacy Notice and is an agreement notice which one must accept to abide by in order to use Wikimapia and its services.

Please note, the interpretation of the Wikimapia Guidelines and the Terms of Reference should be literal (i.e. as is written) and not subjective. With this said however, there is no sure way to apply an absolute definition to the wordings of any written legislation and so there will always be a margin of vagueness or ambiguity involved. In situations where this is apparent, you should either use sound judgement or contact the Wikimapia Administration for clarification.

The Banning Guidelines is provided by the Wikimapia Administration to guide Advanced Users on the process of determining and banning an infringer.

Ban Moderation, explained in detail below, is a corrective procedure that must be followed closely by Advanced Users in order to ensure an infringer is afforded exhaustive resources for rehabilitation before he/she is banned.

Ban Moderation

Ban Moderation comprises of four actions. They are Guidance, Warning, Temporary ban and Permanent ban. To understand how each action works they have been divided into two phases. The first three actions are grouped under the Education phase. The fourth and final Permanent ban action is grouped under the Expulsion phase.

Education

The Education phase is a remedial process which aims to provide corrective assistance to an infringer. A few essential requirements for Education phase to be successful is for you to be friendly, patient, approachable. These qualities shall greatly benefit your communication and mediation skills.

Aside from extremely rare exceptions, you are required to adhere to the conditions listed under section 1. Analysis and 2. Recommendations for using banning system of the Banning Guidelines when communicating and handling an infringer regardless of his/her culpability.

1. Guidance

The Guidance action should always be perceived as the only one required in the Education phase to enlighten new, inexperienced and settled users. It is customary as well as necessary to communicate with an infringer by sending them a polite notice. A polite notice is a message which should:

1. make them acknowledge the error(s) they are committing, be it on the map or with another user
2. show or prove to them why the error is incorrect by citing rules which have been violated
3. provide a solution(s) for them to correct the error
4. advise them to avoid making the same mistake again
5. encourage them to ask questions about things they do not understand
6. notify them that persistent infringements may incur a formal warning or even a ban

Infringers should also be given the benefit of the doubt depending on the level of their cooperation. You are more likely to see positive results with a communicative infringer than one who doesn't respond to messages. At the same time, an infringer who doesn't respond to messages shouldn't be deemed uncooperative if he/she hasn't had the opportunity to open their messages. Each case should be treated using common sense and sound judgement.

2. Warning

An infringer who repeats or commits further violations during or after the Guidance action is to be regarded as a repeat infringer. The repetition of errors or offences warrants the issue of a Warning action because the Guidance action by itself has proven inadequate. Additionally, serious infractions committed by first-time infringers shall also warrant a direct Warning action. Examples of behaviour that can result in a Warning action are:

• persistence in committing similar errors
• cancelling or reverting correct edits
• abusive conduct

Repeat infringers should be cautioned with your acknowledgement of further infringements committed by them. You should repeat the mediation techniques of the Guidance action with a more persuasive approach by emphasizing further failure to comply with the conditions set may result in a temporary or permanent ban.

A second polite notice sent during the Warning action is called a polite reminder. If a repeat infringer commits an infringement a third time or if an initial infringement is considered a serious violation, you may issue a final polite notice - called a final warning.

Warning actions are quite delicate matters and should be conducted with extra care. This action is critical in the Education phase and it can easily erupt into volatile situations if not handled correctly. Remember, calm communication is key.

3. Temporary ban

A temporary ban is an account restriction with variable time limits. An infringer's account can be imposed with a temporary ban if he/she has persisted with infringements despite being given ample warning.

As explained in the Banning Guidelines, you can choose to restrict certain functions for certain lengths of time during a temporary ban. The ban types and ban lengths are shown in the table below. Checks shows permutations which can be used whilst crosses show permutations that can't be used.

Ban term	6 hours	1 day	7 days	1 month	Permanent
Edit map
PMs & forum posts
Full

Please note that if you select the 'Edit map' or 'PMs & forum posts' ban types, you cannot set a ban length for 1 month or permanently. These two ban lengths can only be selected if you choose a full ban.

Expulsion

The definition of Expulsion is to force, drive out or compel to leave. The Expulsion phase is to be enacted when an infringer fails to absorb the Guidance, Warning and Temporary ban stages of the Education phase.

4. Permanent ban

The process of expelling or blocking a user is accomplished by implementing a permanent ban. A permanent ban should applied if an infringer persists with violations after serving a temporary ban term.

Aside from extremely rare exceptions, a permanent ban must only be applied after the failure of the Education phase, that is to say, you cannot directly ban an infringer permanently.

AU Codex