LGBTQIA+ Wiki:Article Guidelines

(Check out our example page, for a more concise explanation of the formatting.)

The LGBTA+ wikia is intended to be a resource to learn about sexualities and genders, particularly those that don't have much information about them online. You do not have to ask before making pages but it's recommended that you read this page or the formatting guidelines page to ensure your page meets our standards.

Rules

1. Follow the community guidelines. Hate speech will result in an indefinite ban, this includes anything that promotes TERF, truscum, or exclusionist ideology or anything that implies that these ideologies are legitimate.
2. No trolls. Joke pages will be deleted.
3. Any pages that imply fetishes, pedophilia, or similar are LGBT+ will be deleted and the user will be banned.
4. Do not plagiarize. You can paraphrase or quote sources if you can't find a better way to put the information, but try to put things in your own words or add something to it.
5. You do NOT have to ask to make a page.
6. You do NOT have to personally identify as something to make a page for it. (As long as you are able to accurately understand the concept.)
7. If you make a page for an identity and the definition is basically identical to a pre-existing term then your page may be deleted.

Additional Reminders

1. You are responsible for making sure your page meets the standards listed here. If there are minor aspects to that are wrong it will likely be edited moderator. If there are major sections that are wrong or missing (such as, not including a definition) then it will be deleted.
2. This is not a social media platform. Do not make a page to promote discord servers, social media accounts, or other websites.
3. We do not do pages that are [specific character]gender, if the definition is just "a connection to [specific character]". Unless the definition is more complex then that the page may be deleted.
4. We do not do [real life person]gender or [real life group of people]gender. Any pages like this will be deleted.
5. We do not do any pages that are [specific person]sexual or [specific small group of people]sexual, real or fictional. Any pages like this will be deleted.
6. We do not do pages for specific subcategories of objectum or the attraction to specific non-human/non-humanlike objects.
7. We do not do pages for individual pronoun sets.
8. We do not do pages for alternate spellings or alternate names of terms that already have a page.
9. We do not do pages specifically or a flag or an alternate flag.
10. We do not make pages for individuals, couples, or small groups. This wiki is for primarily for identities, terminology, and occasionally large or significant groups.

Do Not Include

These are things that should NEVER be included in an article:

1. Do NOT mention the "possible pronouns" or "recommended pronouns" for a gender. Any gender can use any pronouns.
2. Do NOT include X-sexual and X-romantic in the same page. Choose one and make the page solely about that. You can say "the romantic equivalent is [insert link here]".
3. Do NOT make WIP pages. They will be deleted.
4. Do NOT include WIP sections. They will be removed.
5. Do NOT ask other users to do things within the article. (Do not say "idk how to add images can someone else do it" or "if someone else wants to make the flag please do that".)
6. Do NOT beg the reader to do something (Do not say "please respect people's identities").
7. Do NOT talk about how the reader can identify however they want. This does not have to be said.
8. Do NOT address the reader. Articles should be written purely as an accumulation of knowledge with no intended reader.
9. Do NOT say "it doesn't have a flag". If it doesn't have a flag then don't bring it up at all.

Required Sections

Try to keep the formatting the same as already completed pages. The diamoric page and the agender are good examples of how a page should be formatted. Also read the formatting guidelines for more details.

Definition (Intro):

1. The first sentence MUST be a definition of the term. The sentence MUST start with the title of the article. The definition can be short, but try to write more than a single sentence. A short paragraph or two is preferable.
2. The name of the article MUST be in the first sentence and must be bolded.
3. Any alternate terms or spelled should also be in the first sentence and should also be bolded.
4. The first sentence definition cannot be a quote.
5. Even if the orientation is easily explained try to write multiple sentences. If you're struggling to write more try explaining what this orientation is not, talk about similar orientations, and why this orientation is different from similar ones.
6. If you cannot write more than one or two sentences please use the article stub tag.
7. Use full sentences.

Categories

Articles MUST have one of the following categories:

• Sexuality: For (non-aspec) sexual orientations.
• Ace-spec identity: For asexual spectrum identities. Do not tag something as both 'sexuality' and 'ace-spec identity'.
• Aro-spec identity: For aromantic spectrum identities. Do not tag something as both 'ace-spec identity' and 'aro-spec identity'.
• Gender: For (anthro)genders. Do not put xenogenders in this tag. They are separate for a reason.
• Xenogender: For xenogenders. Do not tag something as both "gender" and "xenogender" (unless it's genuinely unclear which category it should fall into). They are separate for a reason.
• Identity: For things that one can identify as, but are not sexualities or genders. (Ie: butch, sex-repulsed, and gender non-conforming).
• Terminology: Terminology used by the LGBT+ community. This is a good place for articles that don't fit into any of the other categories.

Do not create new categories.

Resources

1. If you make a specific claim (such as the: who coined the term, when the term was coined, who made the flag, when the flag was made) you MUST include a source. The exception is when the term and/or flag was created on the article itself.

Optional Sections

Images

1. Include a pride flag if one exists.
2. If you reference the flag in the text you MUST include a picture of the flag.
3. High quality PNGs are preferred. The DeviantArt page Pride-Flags is a good source of many high quality pride flags.
4. All images must be captioned.
5. The main image should appear at the top of the page.
6. When sizing an image, the length should either 180 pixels (the default) or 220 pixels. The height should be whatever height allows for one of those lengths. No images should never be larger than 220 pixel in length.

Flag

1. Who designed the flag and when?
2. What is the meaning of the colors?
3. Sources are required.
4. If the history sections and the flags sections are both relatively short you can combine them into one section.

History

1. Who coined this term?
2. When and on what site did they do it?
3. Is there any other interesting information about the origin of this term?
4. Sources are required.
5. In some cases only an approximate date can be found. (For example, if the original poster deleted their Tumblr account you could find someone who reblogged the post shortly after it was originally posted and find the date there.) In cases like this you should say the term was coined "on or before [earliest date you can find]".

How to Find Dates on Tumblr Posts

This is how it will look, the date is underlined in red.

Not all Tumblr themes readily show the date posted. In this case here is how to find the date. This definitely works for Chrome, I'm not sure if it would work the same for other browsers.

1. Right click the page and click "Inspect". OR press Ctrl+Shift+I.
2. With the inspect window open press Ctrl+F.
3. Type "date".
4. Either the first or second instance of the word "date" should be "datePublished". Next to that you will find the date you want. It's in year-month-day format. See the above picture to see what to look for.

Etymology

1. Is this term derived from another word?
2. Does this term use roots from another language?
3. This section can be as short as a single sentence. 
4. This section is optional. You do not have to explain things that are obvious. (ie: On catgender, you do not have to explain that "cat" means cat and that "-gender" means it's a gender.

Additional Formatting

Try to keep the formatting and spelling the same as already completed pages. The diamoric page and the agender are good examples of how a page should be formatted. Also read the formatting guidelines for more details.

Do

• DO bold the title of the article (it should be the first word in the first sentence).
• DO bold any alternate terms or spellings (it should also be in the first sentence).
• DO add links to the first instance of a different topic mentioned in the article.
• DO use formal writing.
• DO capitalize the beginning of each sentence and proper nouns. (Genders and sexualities are not proper nouns).
• DO use punctuation.
• DO put a period at the end of sentences.
• DO use the word "one" when talking about a hypothetical person.
• DO add categories.

Don't

• Do NOT bold anything other than the title of the article (and alternate names/spellings).
• Do NOT capitalize random words (Names of genders and sexualities are not proper nouns).
• Do NOT italicize random words.
• Do NOT use exclamation points.
• Do NOT use the word "you".
• Do NOT write things in the first person.
• Do NOT link to pages outside of this wiki, instead use references.
• Do NOT create new categories without asking.

Language Use

• American English spelling should be used unless it's in a direct quote.
• The months in all dates should be spelled out. Do not use abbreviations.
• The word non-binary should be spelled with a dash. (The exception is when the word is part of a larger word such as deminonbinary.)
• Do not say "NB" or "enby". Say "non-binary".
• Do not say "enbys" or "non-binarys". Say "non-binary people".
• Do not say "transmen"/"transwomen" or "trans-men"/"trans-women". Say "trans men"/"trans women".
• When talking about identities, especially genders, avoid using doubtful language such as "they believe they are..." or "they identify as...". Instead use terms like "they are..." or "their identity is..."
• Don't misgender people when talking about them in history section. If the term was coined on Tumblr or DeviantArt the creator might have their pronouns on their profile. If they don't have their pronouns listed or it's unclear which pronouns to use it's recommended to simply refer to them by their user name.
• Do not use "he or she" or "s/he" or anything similar.
• Words in other languages should be italicized.
• All website names should capitalized.
• For sexualities the title should always be the adjective form of the word. (As in, the title is "asexual", not "asexuality".)
• For page titles with multiple words all words should be capitalized.

What Should Be In A Page

When writing you should assume that the person reading your page has little to no knowledge of this term, the LGBT+ community, and internal LGBT+ politics. Explain your topic from the ground up, do not use overly complex and specific terminology unless it's necessary.

Present your article objectively. You should objectively describe what the term is, who identifies with it, and why. Do not bring up "discourse" or similar things in the article unless that discourse is important to the formation of term as we know it (such as the case with allosexual) in which case put it in the 'history' section.

Prescriptive vs Descriptive Definitions

Prescriptive definitions of terms focus on what a term "actually means" or how it "should" be used. Descriptive definitions, on the other hand, focus on describing how to term is used in practice. For example, a prescriptive definition of bisexuality would say that bi- means two, and therefore bisexuality is the attraction to two genders only, no more and no less. A descriptive definition of bisexuality would see that, while some bisexuals are only attracted to two genders, the general view of gender has changed greatly in the past few decades; many bisexuals are attracted to non-binary people, so bisexuality could be described as the attraction to two or more genders.

On this wiki we should try to strike a balance between prescriptive and descriptive definitions. You should open your article by talking about the most widely used definition of a term. The majority of your article should focus of this most commonly used definition. Whether that usage of the term is prescriptive or descriptive doesn't matter.

To bring up the prescriptive definition of a term you could say something like "Traditionally this term means [prescriptive definition] however, in modern times many people define it as [descriptive definition]". To bring up the descriptive definition of a term you should bring up how other people might use the term that doesn't completely fit the most strict definition of the term. As an example from the agender page: "While some agender individuals completely lack gender, some may call themselves agender their gender is neutral or neutrois, or their gender is unknown or undefinable..." These alternate definitions should should only be a minor part of the article, the majority of the article should focus on how most people use the term.

Do not say that people using a term in a certain way are using it "wrong". Unless the creator has explicitly stated that the term was not intended to be used in such a way. Unless this alternate definition is genuinely wrong and reinforces negative stereotypes about the group in question there is no "wrong" way to use an identity.