Stargate Wiki:News policy

This policy deals with how Semantic Stargate Wiki deals with news or rumors that it, or its members, uncover.

Policy
Semantic Stargate Wiki's mandate is to collect, categorize, and disseminate information regarding the aired episodes, books, comics, and other officially-licensed Stargate stories into a reference medium. During this process, and due to the openness of the wiki, we may encounter people who tell us a piece of news that no one else knows about. Sometimes we are asked not to release such information until certain events come to pass, or we are given the go-ahead from our news source(s).

However, since contributors are more than likely not journalists and the Wiki is not a news reporting site, we do not have the ability or the network needed to corroborate such information, as to determine its authenticity. Nor do we contain the experience or training of journalists, which is tantamount to properly presenting and breaking a story.

It is therefore in our interest, as well as the interest of the greater Stargate fandom, that the people responsible for coming across previously unreleased news or rumors to partner with a news site that deals with Stargate news and rumors.

Partnerships
Essentially, how this partnering process works is that the person(s) involved in discovering the story would submit a tip to the director of a news site of their choice. From there, the director of the site would determine the validity of the claim by corroborating with their sources. Should the news or rumor item lead to a story publishable on the site, the site would then credit us (or the person) for tipping them off.

If you encounter a news item, relay it to the administrators first
Semantic Stargate Wiki has two items where news on the shows, their cast or crew, or media can be published: the News portal (which allows a brief bullet item that will appear on the Main Page), and the Community Portal.

Because not all "news" is genuine, authentic, or sourced, it is strongly recommended that contributors (including administrators) post the item FIRST on the administrator's noticeboard as a query to other administrators. This way, other administrators (who are tasked with enforcing the wiki's citation and sourcing policies) can determine if the item is authentic before the item is posted to the Wiki or relayed to a news partner. This might take time, but time is important for verification.

It is important not to believe that news bits must be immediately posted on the wiki; no matter what the source, Semantic Stargate Wiki prefers news of notable caliber to be sourced not only from cast, crew or popular news source, but to be confirmed by the highest series executives or network executives available. Battlestar Wiki is not a news forum or chat forum for such information, and "first posting" is never a mandate.