Metopedia's Code of Conduct exists to protect research integrity, source-based correction, and accountable editing.

Metopedia allows disputed claims, institutional criticism, and strong analysis. It does not allow harassment, threats, doxxing, source fabrication, personal abuse, or reckless allegations.

Basic rule

Challenge claims, sources, methods, and conclusions. Do not target people.

Metopedia is built for difficult subjects. Editors may disagree strongly, but disagreement must remain tied to sources, evidence, wording, method, and policy.

Expected conduct

Contributors are expected to use sources accurately, distinguish evidence from inference, correct errors, avoid personal attacks, discuss disputes on talk pages where needed, follow article and source standards, respect page protection, disclose uncertainty, preserve important sources when possible, avoid exaggerating claims, cooperate with administrator review, and write in a controlled encyclopedic or investigative tone.

Prohibited conduct

The following conduct is prohibited:

harassment;
threats;
doxxing;
stalking;
intimidation;
personal attacks;
hate-directed abuse;
spam;
vandalism;
edit warring;
impersonation;
evading restrictions;
publishing private information without policy basis;
knowingly false claims;
fabricated citations;
altered quotes;
plagiarism;
malware links;
commercial promotion;
using Metopedia to target private individuals;
using talk pages as debate forums unrelated to article improvement.

Personal attacks

Do not attack contributors, sources, living persons, or public figures with irrelevant abuse.

Allowed statements include: the source does not support this sentence; the conclusion exceeds the evidence; this section needs a primary source; the method does not show how the result was obtained; this claim should be attributed, narrowed, or removed.

Not allowed: insults, ridicule, name-calling, accusations without evidence, claims about mental state without strong sourcing and relevance, threats, or attempts to shame, expose, or intimidate.

Disputed subjects

Metopedia covers disputed subjects. Contributors should not use labels as substitutes for analysis. Do not dismiss a claim merely by calling it conspiracy, misinformation, fringe, propaganda, denialism, institutional, mainstream, debunked, or pseudoscience. Such labels may appear only when they are sourced, relevant, attributed where necessary, and not used to avoid explaining the evidence.

Evidence disputes

When disputing a claim, identify the exact problem. A useful dispute statement includes the article sentence, the source being used, the problem with the source or wording, the proposed correction, and a stronger source if available. A poor dispute statement attacks motive, intelligence, identity, credentials, or assumed ideology without addressing the article text.

Edit warring

Repeatedly reverting or forcing the same edit without resolving the dispute is prohibited. Editors should use edit summaries, talk pages, citation requests, administrator review, temporary page protection, and review pages. Administrators may protect pages, revert disruptive edits, restrict accounts, or require formal review.

Source integrity

Source misuse is a serious violation. Do not invent sources, cite a source for a claim it does not support, alter quoted text, remove context that changes meaning, hide source limitations, present opinion as fact, use broken links to avoid verification, or claim an archive says something it does not say. Editors who fabricate or manipulate sources may lose editing access.

Living persons

Content about living persons requires care. Do not publish private addresses, private phone numbers, private email addresses unless clearly public and relevant, family information without public-interest basis, medical or mental-health claims without strong sourcing and clear relevance, criminal accusations without reliable sourcing, insinuations disguised as questions, or irrelevant personal details.

Public figures may be criticized for public actions, public claims, public records, and public institutional roles. Criticism must remain source-based.

Privacy and security

Do not publish information that creates unnecessary privacy or security risk. Restricted information may include passwords, private keys, access tokens, private contact information, home addresses, personal identification numbers, non-public personal records, instructions for unauthorized access, and operational security weaknesses that create immediate risk. Security-sensitive material may be removed, suppressed, or redacted.

Talk pages

Talk pages exist to improve articles. Acceptable uses include proposing corrections, discussing sources, explaining method disputes, requesting page protection, identifying missing context, proposing structure changes, and raising policy concerns. Talk pages should not be used for personal arguments, general debate, harassment, campaigning, repeated unsupported claims, off-topic discussion, or attempts to overwhelm editors.

Account restrictions

Metopedia may warn, restrict, suspend, or block accounts for conduct violations. Possible actions include informal warning, formal warning, temporary edit restriction, topic restriction, page protection, account suspension, account removal, and emergency suppression of harmful content. Severity depends on the conduct, risk, history, and willingness to correct.

Administrator conduct

Administrators should apply policy consistently and preserve transparency where possible. Administrators should explain major actions, avoid unnecessary deletion, preserve records when safe, use narrow redactions, disclose conflicts when relevant, avoid using tools to win content disputes, log takedowns and deletions where possible, and distinguish legal, privacy, security, and editorial reasons.

Takedown and deletion transparency

When content is removed for legal, privacy, security, copyright, abuse, or policy reasons, Metopedia should record the action where possible. Transparency records should include date, affected page or file, requesting party where publishable, stated reason, action taken, administrator or internal actor responsible, full request or full reason where legally and safely publishable, and redactions with reasons.

Redactions should be narrow.

Reporting problems

Reports may be sent to [email protected]. Useful subject lines include Conduct Report, Privacy Request, Security Concern, Copyright Notice, Correction Request, Government Takedown Request, and Transparency Report Inquiry.

A useful report includes page title or URL, exact content at issue, reason for concern, relevant policy, supporting source or explanation, and requested action.