PathfinderWiki:Interact respectfully with Paizo staff

This page is a guideline on the PathfinderWiki. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow but is not policy.

Paizo staff statements about canon subjects can be helpful resources, and members of Paizo's staff often solicit questions about subjects that are relevant to their role (or anything at all). These channels are often valuable sources of context, corrections, and clarifications to the Pathfinder campaign setting that are never published.

However, we should be respectful of Paizo staff in these channels, especially when such statements are requested for or applied to articles on PathfinderWiki.

Paizo staff are part of our community

Paizo staff are both part of the wiki's audience and have directly contributed to the wiki. PathfinderWiki not only reflects the work of Paizo staff but is also a resource for them when creating new canon works. Assume your statements about or usage of Paizo staff comments will be seen by the person who wrote or said them; make an effort to review your own statements and actions about them with empathy toward them, and consider their perspective.

Respect Paizo's canon development process

Paizo staff publicly announce and discuss major canon changes when they are ready to do so, and they often have different priorities than PathfinderWiki editors. Staff statements in one venue or context, especially about a wide-ranging change, might not be directly relevant to the wiki's mission of compiling canon information. Do not use Paizo staff statements about products that have not yet been published to support canon assertions in wiki articles, as products can change outside of any individual staff member's involvement during development, editing, and publication.

Also, do not confuse Paizo staff transparency for authority. A statement meant to inform Paizo fans and customers about a future change, even if it is from an authoritative staff member about a canon subject they are intimately familiar with, might not represent in that moment Paizo's fully formed and collective plans for how they will implement that change in a future work.

Respect the humanity of Paizo staff

Most importantly, remember that Paizo staff are also people, and asking questions of them that lack context or are about controversial topics, asking many questions in a short span of time, or using their statements out of context can cause unnecessary strain for both Paizo staff and wiki editors. Access to Paizo staff is a rare and carefully afforded privilege; it is not an entitlement.

Avoid soliciting information from staff solely for the purposes of resolving conflicts between editors on PathfinderWiki. Questions asked of staff that resolve an issue in the campaign setting can be valuable to everyone who interacts with it, but using the privilege of access to Paizo staff as a means of resolving a dispute on PathfinderWiki is a poor, and potentially harmful, use of all parties' time.

Using Paizo staff statements

In certain contexts, Paizo staff statements can be used as canon sources. (See the wiki's canon policy.) However, be careful when editing wiki articles with information based solely on staff comments.

Verify the source of all such comments to the best of your ability. Do not cite statements in wiki articles that are attributed to Paizo staff from unverifiable social media posts, and avoid citing statements attributed to Paizo staff from articles in third-party publications unless you can independently verify them.

Closely consider the timing, context, and content of statements made by Paizo staff in unedited audio/video recordings, or in Paizo forums posts. Paizo staff speaking or writing extemporaneously about a canon subject might unintentionally make errors that conflict with published canon; the wiki's canon policy limits the canon status of Paizo staff statements to those intentionally made to clarify or correct an error in canon. Comments lacking enough context to clarify or correct a canon conflict should not be considered canon statements.

Paizo staff playing a Pathfinder product on a livestream are not creating canon content in the process, even if they are portraying characters that appear in other Paizo canon works.

Contesting a change

Wiki editors can edit or revert edits implementing significant canon changes that are based solely on a staff comment, especially if the cited comment lacks sufficient context for its ramifications, and should then open a discussion about the proposed changes.