Guidelines

As an editor, you decide what gets published. Use these guidelines while you make your decisions. 1. Publish celebrity names but reject friends' names. Publish definitions of Jennifer Lopez because she's famous, but reject my girlfriend Sally. First names are okay, because they don't identify a specific person. Same for bands and schools: publish if popular and reject if unknown. 2. Publish racial and sexual slurs but reject racist and sexist entries. Entries can document discrimination but not endorse it. People use slurs in everyday speech, so they should be published. 3. Publish opinions. Don't reject an entry just because it's opinionated. Opinions are useful to readers unfamiliar with a topic. Don't reject an entry because you disagree or are offended. Don't reject an entry because you think it's inaccurate. 4. Publish place names. Publish names, nicknames and area codes of neighborhoods and cities. 5. Publish non-slang words. Ignore misspellings and swearing. Any word from your life belongs here, so don't reject an entry just because it's in a real dictionary. Don't reject an entry because it's misspelled or includes swearing. 6. Publish jokes. Publish sarcastic entries. Reject inside jokes only the author's friends would understand. 7. Reject sexual violence. Reject made-up violent sexual acts. 8. Reject nonsense. Be consistent on duplicates. Reject nonsensical, circular, unspecific or all-caps entries. Reject entries with non-English definitions (non-English words and examples are okay). Be consistent if you see two similar entries. 9. Reject ads for web sites. Reject spammy defs that are written to advertise web sites. 10. Publish if it looks plausible. It's better to publish a plausible entry than to reject it. You might not have heard the word, but it could be the next hyphy.