Shattered Wiki:Wiki Rules and Blocking Policy

Introduction

 * Hello and welcome to the Shattered Wiki! Whether you are a brand new editor looking to help or an experienced editor looking to refresh yourself, this page details our rules, some of our policies, and blocking policies. Please make sure to abide by these rules, and if you have any questions, contact a member of staff!

Basic Rules

 * 1) Keep it civil: Do not make personal attacks on other people. If you need to criticize another user's argument, do so without attacking them as a person. Do not use bigoted language, including slurs which degrade another person or group of people based on gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, etc. Please also refrain from general rudeness, judgmental terms in edit summaries, especially when it comes to undoing edits, and belittling other users due to their writing style, or what they choose to include. For further information, please see our civility policy below.
 * 2) Be a productive member of the wiki: Contribute to the wiki in line with the established processes and conventions. Need help or want to know how to contribute? Ask an admin or check out our community tab! Disrupting the wiki with “edit warring” over differing opinions of a topic with another user or group of users is not productive.
 * 3) Do not harass other users: If somebody asks you to stop posting certain content on their talk page, respect their wishes. It is their talk page.
 * 4) Do follow community guidelines for formatting: When a community has established formatting, it's important to adhere to that, especially when spoiler content is involved. For more information, see our spoiler and unreleased books policies below. Each of our projects have style guidelines, such as our character articles, books and chapter subpages, and world articles.
 * 5) Do not engage in excessive original content: The wiki is a collaborative community resource for Erin Hunter's Warriors, and therefore only canon content from the series is allowed. This wiki is not a publisher of original thought, a blog, web space provider, art site or social networking site, or a role-playing website or a repository for fanon creativity. For further information, see our Shattered Wiki is NOT policy below. Have a question about whether your content counts as canon? Ask a staff member!

All users are required abide by FANDOM's Terms of Use and the additional guidelines found there. This also includes the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule stating that users must be 13 years of age (or 16 years of age for California and the European Economic Area) to be online.

Policies
The following lists some of our specific policies regarding various aspects of the wiki. All policies are voted via a community consensus and all users are required to abide by them. Have any specific questions about the wiki's policies? Ask an administrator!
 * 1) Civility - Provides further examples of incivility, how edit wars occur, how to reduce the likelihood of them, and when a staff member should intervene.
 * 2) Image Use - Users may have one personal image file and it must be named . Users violating the one personal image rule will have their additional images deleted and their file renamed. Need help renaming your file? Ask an administrator and they'll be happy to help! The only exceptions to this rule is alternating between file extensions such as ,  , or.
 * 3) Personal Attacks - Please refrain from personally attacking other users, including but not limited to racist, sexist, and homophobic comments directed against another user, profanity, threats of violence including death, threats of vandalism, and being rude in general, attacking someone for their views on certain things. Personal attacks do not include, but are not limited, to disagreements such as "I disagree with your comment" or "Your statement is a point of view, not a fact" or an edit summary such as "reverting vandalism," but assume good faith before saying that. Personal attacks will result in a ban.
 * 4) Signatures - Custom signatures are allowed on the wiki, but they must include links to your user page and talk page, and bear some resemblance to your actual username.
 * 5) Sock puppetry - Please refrain from creating alternate accounts, particularly to avoid a ban. Any instance of this will involve an immediate ban. If you wish to move to another account, you are free to do so as long as it is explicitly clear.
 * 6) Staff - Introductions to the current staff members along with brief summaries of their duties and how to apply to become a staff member. Feel free to reach out to any staff member on their talk pages!
 * 7) The Wikian's Code - Users of the wiki are strongly suggested to follow a moral code much similar to the warrior code to improve their experience on the wiki and their status as an editor. This includes assuming good faith, respecting everyone, learning from mistakes, forming friendships and stifling anger.
 * 8) Shattered Wiki is NOT - This wiki is an encyclopedia intending to document all content regarding Prin Pardus' Warriors series. This wiki is not a publisher of original thought or a blog, webspace provider, or social networking site. Please refrain from role-playing, writing excessive fanfiction, fanart, or posting theories on the wiki. You are more than welcomed to post an picture of your original character as your personal file, and limited to writing a brief summary of your original character on your user page.

Blocking
The following explains the blocking procedure performed by admins and block lengths. Blocks may only be issued for violations of the stated rules or FANDOM's Terms of Use. Keep in mind the block lengths are merely suggestions and not concrete ban lengths as admins reserve the right to ban a user for a specific length given the context of the ban.

Grounds for blocking

 * 1) Vandalism - Vandalism is defined as any bad-faith edit with the intent to disrupt Wiki articles or purposely damage their credibility, or adding fake edits on purpose. Usually, the editor must be warned prior to blocking, but if the editor decides not to comply, this is grounds for a ban. Those who are found guilty of vandalism despite being warned not to may be blocked for three (3) days or more. If they continue to do so, the ban will be extended.
 * 2) Spam - Posting irrelevant spam links in articles, making bad faith edits that make no sense whatsoever, or creating useless articles are grounds for a short-term ban. Editors must be warned prior with a reminder of the rules (particularly the NOT policy). Those who are found guilty of spam despite being warned not to may be blocked for three (3) days or more. If they continue to do so, the ban will be extended.
 * 3) Inappropriate account names - If there is a slur used in someone's name, or in general an inappropriate username in terms of rudeness / personal attacks, this is grounds for an immediate, no-warning infinite block.
 * 4) Disruption - Users who purposely join the wiki just to cause chaos will be blocked permanently, although a warning should be placed on their talk page prior. Those who are found guilty of disruption despite being warning not to may be blocked for one (1) week or more. If they continue to do so, the ban will be extended.
 * 5) Personal attacks - If any user is caught purposely attacking a user, insulting them, or being rude continuously after being asked to stop, they will be warned on their talk page. If they refuse to stop, a ban will be issued to them. It will be up to the admin who is distributing the block to decide the length, though these typically range from one (1) week to one (1) month or more.
 * 6) Sock puppetry - If there are users who have been found to have more than one account, for any purpose that is not explicitly approved by an administrator, they will be infinitely blocked and have an IP block placed upon their accounts. Using more than one account to influence a vote, spam, or evade an existing block will result in action taken.
 * 7) Any rude messages left on talk pages, whether it be about the wiki, about a certain person, etc. It will be up to the admin who is distributing the block to decide the length, though these typically range from one (1) week to three (3) weeks or more.
 * 8) COPPA violation - As stated previously, all users are required abide by Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule stating that users must be 13 years of age (or 16 years of age for California and the European Economic Area) to be online. While no staff member shall ever ask for personal information, if any user willingly and without prompting discloses they are underage, they will be banned until they are of age. This is either 13 or 16 years of age depending on their geographical location, but the default will be 13 years old.

Asking to be have a ban lifted
Users who believe they have been wrongfully blocked may contact the blocking administrator in good faith on Community Central. Good faith means actually giving the admins time to respond. Escalating to FANDOM staff when you've not given the admins a fair amount of time to respond will not be seen as a good faith effort. At least 24 hours is sufficient.

Only send in a support ticket via ZenDesk about a block if you have made a good faith effort to discuss your block with the admins (or can't) and the block is longer than two (2) weeks. You will be required to submit a link to said discussion. If a user continues to ask for their ban to be lifted, they will not have it unless they can prove their worth. However, if they have committed several grounds for a ban, and have been let off the hook too many times, alongside making plans to evade their ban, they will most definitely not be even considered to be have it be lifted.