Guidelines

To help ensure that this wiki is as useful and vibrant as possible, we ask that you follow these guidelines when contributing to the Real Estate Guide.

Do:

• Be clear and concise.
• Be a good neighbor (as defined in Zillow’s Good Neighbor Policy).
• When you create a page, place a link to that page in the appropriate category page.
• Stay balanced and objective with your writing.
• Correct mistakes you see in other pages. 
• Stick to the topic of this wiki -- real estate.
• Correct or delete incorrect information.
• Indicate your sources (our Terms of Use prohibit using copyrighted material).
• Use active verbs rather than passive:

                Wrong - The data has not been given to us.
                Right - The data is not available.

• Use bulleted lists where appropriate.
• Have fun!

Don't:

• Duplicate pages. Before creating a new page, check the A-Z list of pages to see if a similar page already exists.
• Advertise yourself.
• Personally attack or otherwise fight with other contributors.
• Place abusive or offensive content in the Real Estate Guide.
• Argue your opinion. A good way to do this is to avoid writing in the first person (i.e., “I, me, mine”).
• Upload content that infringes copyright.
• Enter abbreviated articles and then link off to another Web site for the complete article.
• Use photos that are not yours (again, our Terms of Use prohibit using copyrighted material).
• Create articles that are news items, timely, or will be outdated quickly (i.e., "This March 2007 newsletter...")

Style tips:

• This wiki's easy editing tool allows you to create various types of subheadings.
• A title is the name of the page; subheadings are used within the page to break up topics. 
• Use the larger headings for "umbrella" topics and subheadings for lists or narrower topics (think of how a how-to manual is laid out).
• Use boldface text for emphasis, but use it sparingly. 
• Italicize the titles of books, movies, television shows, and other works.
• Do not use all capital letters in pages or in page titles.

See also:

• About the Zillow Real Estate Guide
• Guideline Changes - A blog post giving some rationale as to why Zillow is enforcing these guidelines