Style Guide

Editorial rules for all content in History of Hackers. Applies to the current

index.html articles and to future structured content under data/.

Core principle

**Historical accuracy > quantity. Primary sources > rumors. Contributions >

controversy. Knowledge > sensationalism.**

A smaller, correct encyclopedia beats a large one built on invented facts.

Tone

• Neutral, factual, encyclopedic. Not a fan page, not a tabloid.
• Written by someone who understands security deeply, respects hacker

culture, and can tell legend apart from evidence.

• Accessible to a newcomer, still worth reading for a specialist.
• No sensationalism, no "world's most dangerous hacker" framing.
• No ranking content ("Top 10 Hackers", "Best Hackers"). This project

documents history, it does not run a leaderboard.

What to prioritize in a subject's page

Contributions, research, discoveries, vulnerabilities, tools, publications,

techniques, influence, impact, legacy, historical context — in that order of

emphasis. Personal controversies get only the space needed to understand the

historical event; they are not the center of the article.

Handling illegal activity

Describe illegal acts factually and only when necessary to understand the

historical event (e.g. an intrusion that led to a landmark prosecution or

policy change). Never:

• provide operational/how-to detail that functions as a criminal instruction;
• romanticize the act;
• editorialize a moral verdict on the person.

Claims and evidence

Every non-trivial claim needs a source. Distinguish explicitly between:

When in doubt, omit rather than guess. Do not invent dates, aliases,

nationalities, CVEs, affected companies, exploits, quotes, events, tools,

conferences, arrests, or relationships between people. The more

extraordinary the claim, the stronger the evidence required.

Living people

Extra care applies to still-living subjects:

• Report facts vs. allegations separately and explicitly.
• Avoid speculation about ongoing legal matters.
• Do not infer identity, nationality, or personal details not confirmed by

the person or a reliable source.

• Do not infer pronouns from a name; use they/them unless the subject's

stated pronouns are documented.

Writing mechanics

• Short paragraphs, clear headings, no filler.
• Dates in full (August 6, 1963, not 8/6/63) to avoid regional ambiguity.
• Introduce acronyms once (Chaos Computer Club (CCC)).
• Internal links over repeated explanation — link to the related person,

group, tool, or event page instead of re-summarizing it.

• Every article ends with a sources list; no source, no claim.

What NOT to do

• No AI-generated portraits or invented images. If no properly licensed

image exists, use none — see SOURCES.md for image sourcing.

• No copy-pasting text from Wikipedia or any other site. Use sources as

references to write original text, not as text to lift.

• No new pages created just because a name appears in a seed list somewhere

(including this project's own planning docs). Confirm the subject exists

and has sufficient reliable documentation first — see

RESEARCH_BACKLOG.md.