Bitcoin Wiki:The wiki is not a soapbox

This wiki is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing. This applies to articles, categories, files, talk page discussions, and templates. Therefore, content hosted here is not for:

• Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise. An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your opinions.
• Opinion pieces. Although some topics, particularly those concerning current affairs and politics, may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (for example, passionately advocate their pet point of view), the Bitcoin wiki is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced to put entries, especially for current events, in a reasonable perspective, and represent a neutral point of view. Furthermore, editors should strive to write articles that will not quickly become obsolete.
• Scandal mongering, promoting things "heard through the grapevine" or gossiping. Articles and content about living people are required to meet an especially high standard, as they may otherwise be libellous or infringe the subjects' right to privacy. Articles should not be written purely to attack the reputation of another person.
• Self-promotion. It can be tempting to write about yourself or projects in which you have a strong personal involvement. However, remember that the standards for encyclopedic articles apply to such pages just like any other. This includes the requirement to maintain a neutral point of view, which can be difficult when writing about yourself or about projects close to you. Creating overly abundant links and references to autobiographical sources is unacceptable.
• Advertising, marketing or public relations. Information about companies and products must be written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery. All article topics must be verifiable with independent, third-party sources, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify notable organizations which are the topic of the article. We neither endorse organizations nor run affiliate programs. Those promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a medium other than the Bitcoin wiki to do so.

Non-disruptive statements of opinion on our internal policies and guidelines may be made on user pages and within the Bitcoin Wiki: namespace, as they are relevant to the current and future operation of the project. However, mainspace talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject.

• But so many pages violate these guidelines! We're working on it; don't let all the offending pages act as a green light to join in. All of them will be reviewed eventually, but this is a time-consuming process as there are several years of ads to rewrite into articles.