WikiDanceSport

Overview

WikiDanceSport has been created for the DanceSport community to collaboratively organize and promote the sport throughout the world. Anyone who can access this site can edit most of its articles and create new ones.

Currently, WikiDanceSport supports only an English version.

For the WikiDanceSport home page, see WikiDanceSport Main Page

Purpose

After discovering a gap in the DanceSport industry regarding a lack of information and knowledge base, Michelle-Angela Blank and Igor Golovach were able to develop and implement a free and widely accessible encyclopedia platform that is currently being viewed by users from over 200 countries.

Goal

The main goal of this non-profit organization is to spread knowledge and educate anyone that has the desire to learn more about Ballroom Dance and its competitive DanceSport associate.

Legends of the practice, champions, adjudicators, instructors, etc. have the ability to view their professional profile on WikiDanceSport. Seeing such achievements being recognized goes a long way in proving one's life path through this industry.

WikiDanceSport also documents history, terms, dances, events, federations, and other various terminology related to the DanceSport industry. For this reason, the goal of spreading knowledge will continue to grow generation after generation as anyone has the chance to share their knowings with the world through the Wiki platform.

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Further Information

Restrictions

Only registered users may create a new article. Some particularly controversial, sensitive and/or vandalism-prone pages are protected to some degree from public alteration. A particularly contentious article may be locked so that only administrators are able to make changes.

In certain cases, all editors are allowed to submit modifications, but review is required for some editors, depending on certain conditions.

Review of Changes

Changes to WikiDanceSport articles are not systematically reviewed. WikiDanceSport provides certain options allowing anyone to review changes made by others.

Policies and Laws

Content in WikiDanceSport is subject to the laws (in particular, copyright laws) of the United States and of the U.S. state of New Jersey, where WikiDanceSport’s main place of operation is located. Beyond legal matters, the editorial principles of WikiDanceSport are embodied in the "five pillars" and in numerous policies and guidelines intended to appropriately shape content. These rules are subject to changes and updates. Editors can enforce these rules by deleting or modifying non-compliant material.

Content Policies and Guidelines

According to the rules on WikiDanceSport, each entry in WikiDanceSport must be about a topic that is encyclopedic and is not a dictionary entry or dictionary-like. A topic must have been covered in mainstream media or major academic journal sources that are independent of the article's subject. Further, WikiDanceSport intends to convey only knowledge that is already established and recognized. It must not present original research nor the opinion of any kind or anyone. A claim that is likely to be challenged requires a reference to a reliable source.

Among Wikipedia editors, this is often phrased as "verifiability, not truth" to express the idea that the readers, not the encyclopedia, are ultimately responsible for checking the truthfulness of the articles and making their own interpretations. This can at times lead to the removal of information that is valid. Finally, WikiDanceSport will always maintain neutral point of view (NPOV).

Editors

Editors are the contributors with editorial access to the Wiki engine with permission to alter, close, or delete pages. To become a full access administrator, contributors must be approved by the WikiDanceSport processors.

Community

WikiDanceSport does not require that its contributors provide identification information. Anyone can become a contributor or Editor for WikiDanceSport as long as they keep the rules of data entry and follow the guidelines.

Accuracy of Content

Articles for traditional encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Britannica are carefully and deliberately written by experts, lending such encyclopedias a reputation for accuracy. Conversely, WikiDanceSport might contain some factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations.

Because WikiDanceSport is an open structure platform, it makes no guarantee of validity of its content, since no one is ultimately responsible for any claims appearing in it.

Quality of Writing

Since our contributors might rewrite or add a small portion of an entry instead of making full-length revisions, high and low-quality content may be intermingled within an entry.

Due to collaborative efforts from many different contributors, some articles can be written in a poor and almost unreadable format.

Some of the active articles that are still open for changes and updates might not be very readable and might delivery unreliable content.

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