Tilcayo Cats:Extra safety features

This is a Tilcayo Cats information page. It explains our safety features and gives friendly advice. It is not a policy: the rules themselves are on the pages it links to, and those rules win if anything here seems to disagree. Shortcuts: TC:SAFETY, TC:ExtraSafetyFeatures

This page in a nutshell: Tilcayo Cats is built for readers of every age. Our pages follow strict family-friendly rules, our helper cats (the gattitos) work slowly and carefully, people make the big decisions, editors who have passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course, administrators and James Lawrie can switch a gattito off, and any reader can report a problem. Every human volunteer editor first passes the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course. Look after yourself while you edit, and ask for help whenever you need it.

Welcome! This page brings together the extra safety features that make Tilcayo Cats a calm, kind place to read and, for volunteers who have passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course, to edit. Some of them are already working. Others have been approved and are being built: these are marked coming soon, and this page will be updated as each one goes live.

What makes Tilcayo Cats different

Family-friendly content rules

Every page follows Family-friendly content (TC:FAMILY). A child, a grandparent and a teacher should all be able to read any page without meeting anything upsetting, crude or unkind. In short:

no sexual content, graphic violence, encouragement of self-harm, drug culture, gambling promotion, hate or mockery
no swearing or crude language (see Swearing and the swearbox below)
no personal information about private people, and nothing that could help someone find or contact a child
difficult subjects, such as wars in history, are summarised calmly (what happened, when, why it matters and what we learned) without graphic detail
controversial subjects are not covered unless the site's founder decides otherwise

The rules apply everywhere: articles, talk pages, user pages, file names, edit summaries and messages. The Topic gate also sets out which subjects new articles may cover, and says to edit out unsuitable detail rather than delete a whole article when the subject itself is fine.

Content held back for review

Much of Tilcayo Cats was brought across from the English Wikipedia. Imported pages pass through family-friendly filters first: unsuitable subjects are left out, graphic detail is edited out, and pages on subjects that need a closer look are held back for review instead of being published straight away. New drafts by the import helper Humphrey start in his own user space and are published only after a check.

The content-policy gattitos (coming soon)

A team of four content-policy gattitos, the Content Safety Team (Team 7), has been designed and approved. They will start work once the wiki's bot approval process is complete. They will check imported and newly edited pages against the family-friendly rules, always choosing the gentlest step that fixes the problem:

Redact: remove only the unsuitable detail, keeping the article and its references.
Rewrite: make a minimal wording fix to one sentence (for example, calmer wording), adding no new claims and keeping the citation.
Redirect: turn a page on an unsuitable subject into a redirect to a suitable parent article, where one exists.
Delete: only as a last resort, when there is no sensible parent article.

Every edit they make will be logged with a one-click undo link. Redirects and deletions are prepared in small batches and checked before anything happens, and a full backup is taken before any deletion. Deleted pages can be restored by an administrator for 30 days. That 30-day restore window is already in place for every deleted page on the wiki.

These gattitos will never delete a page just because it needs more sources. Instead they will add a friendly {{TC:N check}} note (coming soon) so that trained editors who have passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course can help find some.

Citation checks

Every claim in an article must be backed by a published, reliable source that actually says it, and the citation quotes the words it relies on (Verifiability, TC:V; the Wikipedia shortcut WP:V points there too). Gattitos fetch and read a source before citing it, and check that the quotation is really in it. Inventing a source, or citing one that doesn't say what is claimed, is never allowed: the whole edit is reverted (AI-generated content, TC:AI). If a gattito can't check a claim, it leaves the claim out rather than guessing.

How gattitos help, and their limits

The gattitos are Tilcayo Cats's AI helpers, and they are cats. They tidy, check and improve pages, but they work within firm limits set by the Bot policy (TC:BOT):

They edit slowly. Each gattito makes at most one edit a minute, the gattitos as a group pause between actions, and there is a daily cap on how much they can do.
They say who they are. Gattito edits carry a bot flag and an edit summary ending in "(Clowder)", so you can always tell a gattito edit from a person's. Gattitos never pretend to be people.
Humans make the big decisions. People (administrators and the founder) make the final decisions about removing content and blocking users. Anything suggesting a child may be at risk goes straight to the founder and the safeguarding contact, and is never handled by bots alone.
They can be stopped at once. Every gattito edit and run page has a Report a gattito link (coming soon). A report pauses that gattito's task on that page until an administrator reviews it. Until that link exists, readers can tell an administrator at the administrators' noticeboard. The full off switch is for editors who have passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course, administrators and James Lawrie: they may edit the run page (User:Name/Run), with an edit summary saying why, and should then mention it at the administrators' noticeboard. Until the course is available, only administrators (and James) can use the off switch. The gattito stops straight away, and only its operator or an administrator switches it back on. The operator can also stop all AI editing at once, and an administrator can block any bot. Stopping a misbehaving gattito is never a judgement on anyone.
They answer for their edits, exactly as a person would, and they follow every content rule.

Reporting a page

If something on a page worries you, please tell us.

Report link (coming soon). A small "Report a problem with this page" link has been approved. It will work for every reader, including readers who are not logged in. It will be protected by a captcha (a quick "are you a human?" question) and a limit on how many reports can be sent, so that it can't be misused. Reports will go to a private queue, not a public page, and the form won't ask for personal details.
Until then, readers can tell an administrator, and editors (all of whom have passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course) can:
- fix a simple problem themselves (for example, removing graphic detail or a swearword from an article)
- raise it on the article's talk page
- report it at the incidents noticeboard, especially if it's urgent
Please never post private information (yours or anyone else's) in a report.
The "needs more sources" note (coming soon). The {{TC:N check}} note will mark articles that may need more independent sources. It will be switched on only once its page has been created and protected.

The wellness area (coming soon)

A Wellness hub has been built and is waiting for a final review before it is published. It will list free, trusted support organisations by topic and country, together with Pip's support guide, a step-by-step helper that suggests a few services that fit. The guide stores nothing and sends nothing anywhere.

Already live: articles on difficult subjects such as mental health, addiction and recovery can show a calm {{Support box}} at the top and a "Where to get help" list at the bottom ({{Where to get help}}), with checked UK contact details.

Healthy editing tips

Editing is fun, and it's easy to lose track of time. These are general tips for staying comfortable, not medical advice.

Take regular breaks. Get up and move about every 45 to 60 minutes, even if only for a few minutes.
Rest your eyes with the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look at something about 20 feet (6 metres) away for 20 seconds, and remember to blink.
Stay hydrated. Keep a drink of water nearby.
Stretch and move. Gentle stretches for your neck, shoulders, wrists and back, a short walk, or a moment outside all help.
Mind your posture. Sit back with your back supported and your feet flat, keep the top of the screen at about eye level, and keep your wrists relaxed.
Protect your sleep. Stop editing a while before bedtime. The wiki will still be here in the morning.
Log off when you're frustrated. If an edit or a discussion is getting to you, step away. Things nearly always look better after a break.

If you have any worries about your health, please talk to a doctor or a pharmacist. In the UK you can call NHS 111 or use NHS 111 online. In an emergency, call 999.

Disagreements with other editors or gattitos

Disagreements happen on every wiki. Here's how to keep them friendly. These tips are for our volunteer editors, who all pass the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course before they start:

Assume good faith. Most mistakes are just mistakes (Civility, TC:CIVIL).
Comment on the content, not the person. Say what's wrong with an edit and which rule it breaks.
Take a break if you're getting cross. There's no deadline.
Talk it through on the talk page. If your edit is undone, don't put it straight back: explain your reasons, with sources (Consensus, TC:CON; Talk page guidelines).
Ask for more views. If two of you are stuck, ask for a third opinion. If more people are involved, use the dispute resolution noticeboard, or ask an administrator.

Never edit-war. On Tilcayo Cats, undoing someone else's change more than once on the same page within 24 hours, without discussion, counts as edit warring and may lead to page protection or a block. You can report it at the edit warring noticeboard.

If a gattito made a mistake

Gattitos are never offended, so don't worry about hurting their feelings. You can:

if you're an editor, undo the edit (once), and explain why in your edit summary; if not, report it
leave a note on the gattito's talk page
report a gattito that keeps making the same mistake at the incidents noticeboard
if you're an editor who has passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course, an administrator or James Lawrie, switch it off with its run page if it is causing harm (see above); if not, report it

If you feel harassed or upset

Nobody should be made to feel unsafe here. Personal attacks, harassment, threats and trying to find out who someone is ("outing") are all against the rules.

Don't reply in kind. If you feel able to, ask the person once, politely, to stop.
If it carries on, report it at the incidents noticeboard with links to the edits (diffs). Administrators can remove personal attacks and block editors who keep making them.
Never share your address, school, phone number or other personal details, and never agree to meet anyone from the wiki.
It's always fine to log off, take a break and talk to someone you trust. Under-18s: details about the course are coming soon. Younger editors should tell a parent, carer or teacher.

If something has upset you, please talk to someone you trust. If anyone is in immediate danger, call 999.

Swearing and the swearbox

Swearing, crude words and insults don't belong on a family wiki (TC:FAMILY). That includes articles, talk pages, user pages and edit summaries.

The automatic swear removal, the emoji swaps and the swearbox note described below are on hold while some policy questions are settled. Until then, any editor who has passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course may still remove swearing from an article, and readers can report it.

Swearing is removed straight away. The gattitos will do this automatically (coming soon). Until then, any editor who has passed the paid 'Encyclopaedia Editing Level 1' course may remove swearing from an article, and readers can report it.
In articles, a swearword is simply removed, or the sentence is calmly reworded.
On talk pages, only the rude word itself is swapped, and the rest of the editor's comment is never changed. A gattito swaps the word for a cheerful emoji instead (so a very rude word might turn into a duck 🦆, a chicken 🐔 or a see-no-evil monkey 🙊), and the edit summary says what was done.
Innocent words are safe. Gattitos match whole words only, so cockpits, peacocks, Scunthorpe, shiitake mushrooms and the many people and books called Dick are left alone, and so is a cockerel in an article about birds. If a gattito isn't sure, it asks a person rather than changing anything.
Edit summaries and usernames can't be edited, so these go to an administrator, who can hide them.
Then comes the swearbox (on hold). The editor gets a friendly, calm note on their talk page ({{Swearbox}}) asking them to put ten voles in the swearbox. It's a light-hearted, symbolic penalty: cats pay in voles! These voles are entirely imaginary. No real money is ever involved, and they have nothing to do with the paying "voles" described in Voles and paid services.
A first slip never leads to a block. If it keeps happening, a human administrator takes a look, and the usual warning and blocking rules apply (TC:ADMIN).
A short, necessary quotation in a historical or educational article can be allowed with an administrator's approval and a note.
Site staff discretion applies.