The Rules
This page is not complete, and could do with some more editors. See talk page.
The wiki has a number of rules, designed to keep the wiki useful and running smoothly. Like any other rules, they should be applied with common sense.
The Fundamental Rule
- Always act in good faith, never bad faith.
This rule underpins all others. It is our guiding focus, and the most important rule. If the rules ever conflict, this rule overrides any other.
Other Rules
No Alts without Good Cause
An "alt" (short for alternate) account is a second (or third or fourth etc) wiki account. On this wiki, they are (generally) forbidden. This is because of the potential for bad faith actions from them, such as:
- Voting multiple times
- Setting up strawman arguments to undermine an opponent's position
- Giving a false sense of consensus of an issue
- Avoiding accountability for actions
If a user is found to have two accounts for no reason, then the lesser used account is banned, any content in the userspace of the banned account is transferred to the userspace of the main account, and any vandalism records are collated. Having two accounts is _not_ seen as vandalism in itself.
There are legitimate reasons for having an alt, such as for role-play reasons. If you create an alt, it's worth stating the reason for the alt's existence on it's user page, so no-one mistakingly believes it will be used to harm the wiki.
Private Property Pages
Some pages on the wiki are seen as private property. Only the respective owner(s) of a page may edit it. This allows them to cultivate the page to their personal taste.
User pages
You own all pages that start with User:<your name>. No-one else may edit it (unless they are clearly trying to be helpful). That means that you can keep it however you wish. The content restrictions on the wiki are relaxed for user pages.
Group pages
Groups that want to can make wiki pages about themselves, perhaps to attract new members, just to let the world know that they exist or to provide a contact point. The page becomes the group's public face on the wiki. Only group members are allowed to edit these pages. There is one exception: anyone can create or edit a single paragraph at the top of the page written with a neutral point of view.
User and Group talk pages
User and Group talk pages are seen as the property of the User or Group whose name is on them. They may remove discussions (preferably to an archive page) as they see fit, however they may not change other people's signed comments, or otherwise misrepresent what someone has said there.
Don't Make The Wiki Worse On Purpose
Examples:
- Adding information to an article which you know to be false,
- Adding nonsense,
- Removing good content for no reason.
If you make a good edit to an article which could reasonably be mistaken for an edit made to harm the wiki, it's worthwhile (but not required) to write your reasoning either on the article's talk page or in the edit summary. This should help avoid misunderstandings.
It's worth noting that edits can be undone very easily, so don't worry about making the wiki worse by accident.
Breaking the rules
If an editor repeatedly breaks the rules, they can be barred from editing the wiki. The first two times an editor harms the wiki, they will be asked to stop and warned that if they continue, they may be banned. The next time, they will be exiled from the wiki for a day, the time after that, a week, then a month, and finally a year.
Where Rules Come From
Rules come from from two places: Historical policies, set up when the wiki was much younger and Policy Discussion, where new wiki policies are created. Rules can only be created with the consensus of the majority of wiki community. Administrators can't create new rules, but the decisions they make when enforcing the the existing rules set a precedent in how those rules are interpreted. For the sake of consistency and fairness, precedents are generally (but not always) adhered to.
