wikishia:Policies and Guidelines
This page is about the general policies and guidelines of WikiShia. These policies are expected to be followed by all contributors of WikiShia. However, these rules and policies can be challenged by any of the users based on their new experiences, and eventually changed and improved through discussions and conversations. So feel free to talk about them in the discussion page.
Content Extension
WikiShia is a free online encyclopedia about Shi'a, Islam. The content of WikiShia should be categorized in one of these major fields:
- Beliefs
- Personalities
- Books
- Places
- History of Shia and important historical events
- Ceremonies
- Rituals
- Sects believing in the Ahlul Bayt (a)
- Ahl al-Bayt (a) or any other issue which is related to them in some ways
- General Islamic concepts which are accepted by all Muslims or are related to the Islamic history
- Concepts related to other Islamic sects will be introduced in WikiShia only if they are related to the school of Ahlul Bayt (a) in some ways or if they are frequently mentioned in WikiShia's articles.
Who Can Edit
WikiShia is currently running in a limited way but it is planned to be opened to all Shi'as so they can contribute too. Currently, signing up in this encyclopedia is possible only through permission of the managers.
Neutrality
The policy of WikiShia is to be neutral in the concepts of Shi'a and the Ahlul Bayt (a), but the bottom line is that WikiShia is preaching the school of the Ahlul Bayt (a) and the entries are written to explain and defend their teachings.
- WikiShia entries are not scientific-research, which means the discussions are not first hand and original and do not try to solve scholarly problems; therefore, WikiShia tries to present available information of current resources and thus authors should not present their personal ideas.
- Judgment about scholarly and historical disagreements is left to the reader; thus, WikiShia stays neutral in such cases.
- The sources of the both two great Islamic schools (Shi'a and Sunni) are used in WikiShia's articles.