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Basic Guidelines
The fun stuff!
- Treating everyone with respect.
- Making online friends
- Talking about things you're interested in.
- Sharing your experiences with the game.
- Planning times to play with great people.
- Taking responsibility for your own actions.
The crappy stuff...
- Personal attacks, harassment, violation of privacy.
- Disrespecting based on age, background, or disability.
- Depiction or description of gory violence or explicit sexuality.
- Breaking the law, plotting, or describing illegal activities.
- Spoiling games with hacks, cheats, or unreleased story details.
- Soliciting, plagiarism, phishing, or impersonation of others.
Basic Policies
- No Fear! - Don't be afraid to make edits and change things.
- Aristocracy - Aristocracy is how the wiki operates and is the model for its decision making.
- Don't delete discussions - Do not remove discussion from a talk page unless it is blatant vandalism. This policy applies to user talk pages as well.
- Don't Run from the Law! - Do not try to escape punishment.
- Just go with it - Use common sense first and then see if a policy applies to the situation in question.
- Red Link policy - Don't make red links to prove a point, only use them for pages that need to be created.
- Signature policy - Images used in, or as, a signature must not exceed 30 pixels in height. Signatures must also clearly state the user's name.
- Spoiler policy - The wiki is an encyclopedia, and as such, certain information contained in articles might spoil story line in the game. Read at your own risk.
- Voting policy - Users must have an account in order to vote in community discussions or consensuses unless they demonstrate prior knowledge regarding wikis.
- Criteria for speedy deletion policy - Most deletions on the wiki are a result of speedy deletion. See this policy to check to make sure if a page meets the criteria to be speedy deleted. If a user thinks that an article should be deleted, but it does not meet the criteria, than he or she may bring it up at Articles for Deletion.
- Edit summary guideline - Always give a reason for undoing an edit.
- Naming policy - Pages are named as they are in the game. If the article is about a character, do not include the rank; simply title the page with the character's first name (if given) and last name.
- Trivia Policy - The trivia sections is always at the bottom of the page.
- All editors are equal - All editors, regardless of status and position, are treated equally and have the same amount of say in their opinion.
- Assume good faith - Unless it is obvious vandalism, always assume that a user's contributions to the wiki are to improve it.
- Blocking guidelines - Destructive editors and vandals that need to be blocked should be barred from editing the wiki in increasing periods of time depending on the magnitude of vandalism or controversial edits and if they were blocked previously.
- Sock puppetry - One editor, one account.
- User treatment policy - Be considerate and not disruptive.
- Warning guideline - Give out warnings appropriately to users that need them.
- Summary - It is required for all non-admin/mods to detail the changes they have made.
Administrative autonomy
Be it a matter of deletion, blocking, or interpretation of existing policy, no single member of the administration may overturn another administrator's decision (unless they're the site owner). Also it should be noted that an admin may block a user without any reason given, if a user feels like they where blocked unfairly they may take it up with the blocking admin. Users must treat admins with respect and as the authority and mentors of this wiki. And Administrators must treat all registered users with dignity and compassion.
Blocking policy
Grounds for blocking
- Vandalism β Vandalism is defined as any bad-faith edit made with the intent to lower the quality of the wiki or disrupt the functioning of the community. In most cases, users should be warned prior to blocking, though final discretion is left to the administrators.
- Spam β Posting irrelevant spam links in articles, or creating articles which are entirely spam is grounds for an infinite block (for registered users) or a shorter-term IP block.
- Move vandalism β Page move vandalism (moving an article to a nonsensical or inappropriate title) is grounds for immediate indefinite bans.
- Inappropriate account naming β Creating an inappropriate account name - such as impersonation/insult, is grounds for a no-warning infinite block depending on the situation.
- Disruption β Users who disrupt the wiki (be it via changing other people's comments, making misleading edits, or harassing other users) may also be blocked.
- Copyright violations β Users who continually post copyrighted material despite being warned should be blocked so as to prevent further violations.
- Blanking pages β Users should typically be warned prior to being blocked for page blanking, except in extreme cases where the blanking is obviously being done with malicious intent - i.e. 4 articles blanked in one minute.
- Fanon β Users adding fanon should almost always be warned prior to blocking. Warnings should also include links to the fanon wikia, (optionally) using templates such as {{msg-fanon}}. Repeatedly posting fanon after being told to stop is grounds for a short-term block.
- Personal attacks β Users attacking other editors personally (in regards to anything) should be given one warning prior to a cool-off ban. The length of the ban is dependent on the severity of personal attacks.
- Posting personal information β The posting of personal information regarding other people (i.e. their home address, phone number, etc.) is unacceptable, and will be enforced with blocks. Users doing so should be warned, and blocked if they continue.
- Open proxies β Due to vandalism concerns, we do not allow editing from open proxies. When they are found, they are to be blocked indefinitely and marked with {{proxy}}.
- Editing only user pages and not articles β Users that consistently edit and add to their user pages and subpages without contribution to the main article namespace will be warned and then blocked. As this is a sensitive issue, good judgment should be made pertaining to the user in question and whether or not it is likely that they will actually contribute to the main article space after a warning and a block.
- Abuse of Evolve's file upload function β Our policies for uploading images are clearly stated on the upload form itself and the image use policy and user image policy pages which are linked from the upload form.
- Violation of consensus β Many decisions on Evolve are determined by Administrators. And some are by consensus. Do not violate that consensus or you will be blocked.
- Sockpuppetry β Per our sockpuppetry policy, use of multiple accounts to have multiple vanity userpages, influence votes, or evade blocks will all result in blocks being handed out.
- Anonymous User β Non-registered users may be subject to blocking automatically instead of a warning for a first offense.
Block length guidelines
With the exceptions noted above, blocks should usually progress according to the following table. Final discretion is left to the blocking administrator on a case-by-case basis.
Regarding vandalism: | First instance | Second instance | Third instance | Repeated |
---|---|---|---|---|
Registered users | Warning | 1 week | 2 months | Infinite β |
IP addresses | 1 week or β | 2 months or β | 1 Year or β | Infinite β |
When blocking a user or IP for anything less than infinite, {{blocked}} should be subst'ed on talk pages with the appropriate length. {{Banned}} should be left on userpages only following an indefinite block.
Equality
While Evolve Wiki recognizes and accepts the special needs of certain individuals, those individuals cannot be considered exempt from the standards of conduct that all hunters and monsters alike must abide by.
No physical or mental condition shall be considered cause to suspend the enforcement of any Evolve policy or guideline, including the blocking policy.
Vandalism
Vandalism on Evolve Wiki is defined as any edits made in a deliberate attempt to lower the quality of the wiki. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Replacing the text of an article or a section of an article with blank text.
- Uploading inappropriate images, or replacing existing images with inappropriate images.
- Adding nonsense, obscenities, or bad jokes to existing articles.
- Creating new articles which are entirely off-topic nonsense.
- Moving a page to a new, nonsensical title.
- Adding external links to pages for the purpose of advertising. (This is a form of spam, sometimes called "linkspam" or "spamdalism".)
An editor who vandalizes the wiki may be blocked from making further edits, according to the Blocking policy.
Any good-faith attempt to improve the Wiki, even if it is misguided, should not be considered vandalism. This may include:
- Adding information to the wiki from unreliable sources (assuming the editor in question is not aware that the sources are unreliable).
- Adding information which may or may not be correct, but doing so in a way which violates the rules of American English grammar and spelling.
- Removing information which the editor believes to be incorrect.
No personal attacks
Do not make personal attacks anywhere on the Evolve Wiki. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks will not help you make a point; they hurt the Wiki community and deter users from helping create a good environment.
Just don't do it
There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors. Please do not make them.
Being reasonable
Different contributors may not agree on an article. Members of opposing communities reasonably wish to express their views. Synthesizing these views into a single article creates a better, article for everyone. Remember to accept that we are all part of the same community as we are all Hunters and Monsters!.
Examples of personal attacks
Specific examples of personal attacks include but are not limited to:
- Accusatory comments such as "X is a troll", or "Y is a bad editor" can be considered personal attacks if said repeatedly, in bad faith, or with sufficient venom.
- Negative personal comments and "I'm better than you" attacks, such as "You have no life."
- Ageist, religious or ethnic epithets directed against another contributor. (Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse.)
- Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views β regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme.
- Profanity directed against another contributor.
- Threats of violence, including death threats.
- Threats of vandalism to userpages or talk pages. May be direct or indirect.
- Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly-accepted threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the substance of that attack into wiki discussion. Suggesting a link applies to another editor, or that another editor needs to visit a certain link, that contains the substance of an attack.
Examples that are not personal attacks
Users engaging in debate is an essential part of the culture of Evolve Wiki. Assume good faith, be civil and adhere to good wiki etiquette when stating disagreements to avoid personalizing them and try to minimize unnecessarily antagonistic comments. Disagreements with other editors can be discussed without resorting to personal attacks. It is important not to personalize comments that are directed at content and actions, but it is equally important not to interpret such comments as personal attacks. Specific examples of comments that are not personal attacks include, but are not limited to:
- Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not personal attacks.
- Personal attacks do not include civil language used to describe an editor's actions, and when made without involving their personal character, should not be construed as personal attacks. Stating "Your statement is a personal attack..." is not itself a personal attack β it is a statement regarding the actions of the user, not a statement about the user. There is a difference between "You are a troll" and "You are acting like a troll", but "You seem to be making statements just to provoke people" is even better, as it means the same without descending to name-calling. Similarly, a comment such as "responding to accusation of bad faith by user X" in an edit summary or on a talk page is not a personal attack against user X.
- A comment in an edit history such as "reverting vandalism" is not a personal attack. However, it is important to assume good faith when making such a comment β if the edit that is being reverted could be interpreted as a good-faith edit, then don't label it as vandalism.
Alternatives
Instead:
- Discuss the facts and how to express them, not the attributes of the other party. This does not mean that you have to agree with the other person, but just agree to disagree.
- Never suggest a view is invalid simply because of who its proponent is.
- Explore issues in a less public forum like e-mail if a debate threatens to become personal.
- Read Resolving disputes.
Remedies
If you are personally attacked, you should ask the attacker to stop and note this policy. If they continue, consider following the telling an Admin. Typically Admins don't get involved in user to user disputes; users should try and sort out personal problems/arguments them selfs preferably.
In extreme cases, an attacker may be blocked under the "disruption" clause of the blocking policy, though the practice is almost always controversial.
A misguided notion: "Kicking them while they are down"
Note: There are certain Wiki users who are unpopular, perhaps because of foolish or boorish behavior in the past. Such users may have been subject to disciplinary actions by the administrators. It is only human to imagine that such users might be fair game for personal attacks. This notion is misguided; people make mistakes, often learn from them and change their ways. The rules still and will always apply to all users irrespective of their past history or how others regard them.
Community spirit
It is your responsibility to foster and maintain a positive online community on Evolve. Personal attacks against any user—regardless of his/her past behavior—are contrary to this spirit.
Consequences
Remember that disputes on talk pages are accessible to everyone on the Internet. The way in which you conduct yourself here, reflects on the site and on you.
Some users have be blocked for repeatedly engaging in personal attacks. Abusive edit summaries are particularly ill-regarded.
Note: If something/anything is not mentioned directly, it is allowed.
Sock puppetry
Sockpuppets are alternate usernames created by a registered user. The term also applies to IP addresses used by banned users to evade their block. The use of sockpuppets is discouraged on most wikis, including Evolve. Sockpuppetry may be dealt with by administrators as follows:
- The use of sockpuppets to get around a ban will result in the sockpuppet username being permanently blocked. The use of an IP address to evade a ban, whether it be on a registered username or another IP address, is considered sockpuppetry and will result in the IP address being banned in accordance with Evolve policy. The use of proxy IP addresses to evade blocks is also forbidden, and will result in the permanent block of the proxy address. At the discretion of the administrators, the length of the original username's block may be extended.
- The use of sockpuppets to create the impression that multiple users support a single user's views will result in the sockpuppet username being permanently blocked. However, the original user should not be blocked: only warned. Persistent use of such sockpuppets may be considered disruptive behavior similar to vandalism, however.
- Encouraging friends or online associates to create new user accounts in order to bolster support in a vote or discussion is also heavily discouraged. Users tempted to do this should be aware that if these new users use the same computer or even ISP, they may be found to share an IP address. In this situation, regardless of who is behind the account in reality, it is difficult to tell such new users from sockpuppets of the original user. Further, administrators may discard votes which come from very new users regardless of their origins.
- If a registered user wishes to change his username, thus having two separate usernames, this is not an example of sockpuppetry. The old username need not be blocked: however, it is recommended that a note be placed on their old userpage noting the change of name.
- Similarly, if a user who has used sockpuppets in the past wishes to change their username to that of one of their sockpuppets—even one which has been previously blocked—this is acceptable if the original username is not currently being blocked. The "new" name must then be unblocked, and the old user page must note the namechange.
Notes: Anything and everything written here can or will be change if felt necessary by the site Admin.
Terms and Conditions
Terms and Conditions do not have to be clearly stated/may be changed at any given time.
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