Some types of articles really do not belong on TechNet Wiki.

While we love folks to contribute, the following types of articles should be corrected immediately or they will be removed within a week (with few exceptions):

Table of Contents

When articles are reported and tagged for deletion (See: Wiki: How to Report a TechNet Wiki Page), the Wiki administrator will add an explanation as much as possible, when applicable.

In some cases, it might be just an 'administrative tag' in the title, in the comment or in the updated body of the article. In the section below you'll find the reference to the administrative tags.

 

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Product questions, or requests for product help, discussions

  • These types of articles are more appropriate TechNet or MSDN Forum questions. The TechNet and MSDN Forums are a place where your questions can be discussed and answers fleshed out. However, we think it would be fantastic if, after you've gotten an answer to your question, you come back to the TechNet Wiki and create an article, or edit your submission to be a helpful article for the entire community.
  • Lessons learned, practical solutions, hints & tips from forum post threads are perfect baselines for Wiki Articles

Admin tag: FORUMS, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#Forums

 

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Articles that don't meet the requirements of the TechNet Wiki Balanced Point of View

  • The TechNet Wiki Balanced Point of View describes the expected behavior and tone of articles for the TechNet Wiki. If your article does not meet the requirements for the balanced point of view, please edit it to align with the balanced point of view, or it will be removed.
  • Articles that are clearly potentially or directly harmful, even considered with common sense (aka "quick-and-dirty" solutions)

Admin tag: BPOV, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#BPOV

 

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Articles without valuable content, 1-liners, articles with only links to 3rd party information, ...

  • Articles must contain an original, valuable collection of information.
  • Which means articles with only a hyperlink to 3rd party information do not comply to the BPOV.
  • This also includes articles with a single link (or embedded link) to a video hosted on another platform.
  • A 1-liner introduction, or a simple introduction paragraph is not sufficient to add value to a video hyperlink. (See more: below in the videos only section of this article. )
  • The same guideline applies to a single link or screenshot of other sources (like links to TechNet gallery) without any additional explanation.
  • Also applies to Wiki articles with only screenshots, external links, ... You must provide an explanation of the screenshots, details of the step-by-step procedure...
  • It's not sufficient to simply copy paste data from other sources (refer to the piracy guidelines) or just create simple lists of topics, that are easily and readily available in depth somewhere else.

Carefully check:

Admin tag: QUALITYBAR, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#QUALITYBAR

 

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Articles with potential harmful content

  • Articles that clearly violate accepted or acceptable best practices.
  • Articles that can render a configuration in defunct, unsupported state.
  • Articles that can cause significant damage to normal operations of the target platforms even operated with common sense.
  • Articles that solve a very particular, exceptional situation which should not be implemented in normal operations.

Admin tag: HARMFUL, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#HARMFUL

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Source code & script management, ...

  • It's not sufficient to simply copy and paste a piece of source code or script into your article.
  • An article should contain a decent explanation of the purpose of the code/script. Provide some info on the functionality, functions used, reference articles, purpose of the code...
  • If you wish to share and maintain an open source project (publishing your source code), better use Codeplex, MSDN Code sample Gallery,

Carefully check:

Admin tag: CODEONLY, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#CODEONLY

 

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Videos only

This topic has been discussed in a separate article: Wiki Governance: Guideline on Publishing Videos.

Admin tag: VIDEOONLY, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#VIDEOONLY

 

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Articles unrelated to Microsoft Technologies

Please check this article, where the guidelines have been clarified a bit more:  Wiki Governance: Target Microsoft Related Content
  • You have a recipe for a great chicken noodle soup? Great, but this Wiki is not the place for it! :-)
  • The Wiki is focused on Microsoft technologies. This means that the core content of Wiki articles must be dedicated to Microsoft technology.
  • It's not sufficient to quickly name or reference to a Microsoft technology. 
  • It's essential that the majority of the content focusses on core Microsoft technology/products/services.
    • You can add 3rd party technology 'flavor' on top of it, but it must not be the primary focus.
    • Discussions on 3rd party products with 'just' a Microsoft flavor, with a single, basic reference to Microsoft is not ok.
  • The community will edit and/or remove topics that get too far off track.
  • Some sample topics, without any clear and explicit reference to Microsoft technology, tools and platforms....
    • HTML, CSS, JavaScript,
    • AngularJS, ...
    • IoT (Internet of Things), ...
    • Java, ...
    • Hardware, 3rd party technology, network technology.
    • IP4, IPv6, ...
    • Google Apps, Google Material, Android,
  • General management techniques, HR management, interview techniques, ...

Admin tag: NOTMSRELATED, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#NOTMSRELATED

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Violation of TOU & any form of advertising

  • Any advertising explicitly violates the requirements of the balanced point of view.
  • Advertising and similar spam-type articles will be removed.
  • Please check carefully the Terms of Use.

Admin tag: VIOLATIONTOU, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#VIOLATIONTOU

 

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Content that does not belong to you

  • Someone else has relevant content and you want to help them share it with the world. It's a nice thought, but do not copy other people's content to the Wiki, even if the owner said it was OK.
  • If you are writing an article taking reference from an already existing article and adding some important points and views which would really give value to the topic such articles are welcome but you must include reference to original article otherwise it would be seen as plagiarized content.
  • More detailed guidance on piracy is available at: http://aka.ms/wiki_piracy
    VERY IMPORTANT
    Do not copy/paste from TechNet/MSDN or other websites, or blogs, or other sources of material that you did not create. When you take content from someone else you are plagiarizing another's work, even when you simplify, rephrase, rewrite the content, then save this under your own name.

    If you are working on material that started on a 3rd party blog, another website or any other source, it is important to link to the original material at the top of the article.

    For example, "This document was originally published as <link to original> and has been reproduced here to allow the community to correct any inaccuracies or provide other enhancements before updating the original version of this topic.".

    Copy/pasting content and then saving under your name without proper source reference, is plagiarism. We frown on that here. Violations of copyright will be deleted.
  • Guidance on providing proper source references and credits is here

Admin tag: PIRATED, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#PIRATED

 

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News & Announcements

  • Articles with short term value do not belong to the Wiki
  • Even if the article is about Microsoft technology, TechNet Wiki does not exist to give news and announcements.
  • That type of content should be posted to your personal blog instead.
  • However, you can strip out the "news" content from your article to focus on technical content. For example, if your news article lists out the new features of an SP2, then the article could be about the SP2 release. (Rather than about the fact that it was released or speculation about the impact or reasoning of the release).

Admin tag: NEWS, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#NEWS

 

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Personal blog style, Personal/Private messages

  • As Ana mentioned in this blog post, Wikipedia has this to say about signatures: "When editing a page, main namespace articles should not be signed, because the article is a shared work, based on the contributions of many people, and one editor should not be singled out above others." - Wikipedia: Signatures
  • If you're pasting from your blog, where you use first person, you and the community should change it to third person instead.
  • Remove any unnecessary personal commentary that might have been in the blog post.
  • More guidance in Wiki: User Experience Guidelines
    • Signatures, Credit and Personalization:
    • Do not use first person
    • Turn personalization and opinions into sections with lists
    • Do not use greetings
    • Do not use a personal or any other signature

Admin tag: PERSONAL, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#PERSONAL

 

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Banned Wiki content

Already since the early start of Wiki, some topics have been flooding the TN Wiki.

Although certain content might fit the Wiki from a technical point of view, the high volume of spam and highly commercial/marketing sensitive content, the following topics will be banned by default from TNWiki:

  • References to 3rd party tools for migration EML, PST, OST, backup,...
  • Outlook file, OST, EML, PST migration tools
  • Outlook repair tools
  • Outlook backup tools
  • any alike or variations of above...

Reason: the majority of these articles focus on 3rd party commercial tools and have no real added value. So these can be categorized under marketing.

Admin tag: BANNED, http://aka.ms/NotForTNWiki#BANNEDCONTENT

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Short URL

 

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See Also

   

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Other Languages

This article is also available in the following languages:

 

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