User:Tommyaweosme/sandbox/history of every rule in Esolang:Policy

this article is related to esolangs in a way that it is related to the esolang wiki itself, and it is WIP.

All content must be public domain or equivalent.

this rule's original form was created on december 27th, 2006, and is this:

Absolutely no copyrighted content.

on february 20th, 2012, it was changed to this:

All content must be released under the CC0 public domain dedication.

three hours later, it was quickly changed to this:

All content must be public domain or equivalent.

it stood this way unchanged for 14 years.

Articles should be on the subject of esoteric programming languages, or about subjects relevant to these, for example computation theory.

this is the same as it was on december 27th, 2006, or just over 19 years.

however, for around 20 minutes in 2015, it was this:

Articles in them main namespace should be on the subject of esoteric programming languages, or about subjects relevant to these, for example computation theory or programs written in/implementing/improving esolangs.

Articles on languages you made yourself are encouraged, unlike for example Wikipedia. However, these may still be mercilessly edited by others. In most cases this is a good thing.

this has also stayed the same since december 27th, 2006. times really don't change, don't they.

Please do not add new category pages without discussing them in Esolang talk:Categorization.

the original form was created on december 27th, 2006, and is as such:

Please do not add new category pages without discussion.

on march 2nd, 2016, the rule was changed to this:

Please do not add new category pages without discussing them in Esolang talk:Categorization.

and that's the way it is now, standing for 10 years.

General links to people should be to a standard namespace article on them, if one exists, and to their user page otherwise. When linking to a user page, the User: prefix should be visible on the link. (See Esolang:Authors for more information.)

the original form was created on, again, december 27th, 2006, and it is:

General links to language authors should be to standard namespace articles under their real name, if available, rather than to user pages.

on january 29th, 2007, the rule was then changed to this:

General links to language authors should be to standard namespace articles under their real name, if available, rather than to user pages. When linking to a user page, the User: prefix should be visible on the link.

on february 25th, 2012, it was changed to this:

General links to people should be to a standard namespace article on them, if one exists, and to their user page otherwise. When linking to a user page, the User: prefix should be visible on the link.

When in doubt, play it safe and take the path of least resistance, which probably means just forgetting about it and closing your browser. Also, be bold in editing pages.

the first part, "When in doubt, play it safe and take the path of least resistance, which probably means just forgetting about it and closing your browser.", is the longest lasting piece of the page, withstanding almost 21 years since its conception on june 11th, 2005.

the second part, "Also, be bold in editing pages.", was added on december 27th, 2006.