Rules & Guidelines

If you are a new member of the Necrophage Wiki, it is important that you read the rules and guidelines to better understand what is and what isn't allowed on the wiki. Violations of the rules and guidelines we have set will result in action being taken by moderators unless explicitly told otherwise.

Foreword
This page is primarily to convey, on paper, the rules and guidelines that staff are enforcing for the duration of the wiki's existence. We will not feed off of vague or indiscriminate rules for this reason. These have been documented for all to see.

Do keep in mind that these rules are not meant to be overly restrictive; Section VI (Editing rules) explicitly states that breaking this section of rules does not warrant moderation immediately except in cases of severe violations (Such as vandalism).

When referring to these rules, use the numeral of the section first followed by the rule, e.g., Section III, Rule 2: “Rule 3-2”.

Terminology

 * NP: Necrophage.
 * Staff: People responsible for the administration and moderation of the wiki.
 * Mod/Moderator: A member of staff responsible for rule enforcement and quality control.
 * Admin/Administrator: A member of staff responsible for both management and moderation.
 * Sysop/System Operator: The leading member of staff responsible for maintaining the wiki's integrity.
 * Block: The act of blocking a user from the wiki. Blocked users cannot edit or create pages.
 * Spam: Repeated usage of a single phrase.
 * Account: A Fandom account. Not to be confused with ‘user'.
 * User: A human who is using an account. Not to be confused with 'account'.
 * Alt/Alternate Account: An account created as an alternative means of accessing a wiki.
 * Bot: An account created or used by a computer and not a user.
 * Thread: A discussions post. Can be used interchangeably with 'forum post' in certain contexts.

Core Rules

 * 1) Follow Fandom's Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.
 * 2) *Do not perform acts that violate the Terms of Use or Community Guidelines such as vandalism, trolling, or other illegal behavior. Violations of these policies will result in a permanent block.
 * 3) **Fandom's Terms of Use can be found HERE.
 * 4) **Fandom's Community Guidelines can be found HERE.
 * 5) The harassment of another user for any reason is prohibited.
 * 6) *Do not attempt to attack, demean or otherwise instigate behavior against a person, including staff.
 * 7) **Do not campaign or instigate other users to target a singular person with the intent of getting them blocked from the wiki.
 * 8) *Do not instigate or provoke long, heated arguments about issues, especially if they begin to disrupt the wiki as a whole.
 * 9) **It is also important to avoid getting into arguments, especially with staff members. Do not argue with staff.
 * 10) *If you have a serious disagreement with another user, you are both encouraged to ignore each other and move on.
 * 11) **Disagreements happen and are normal, but continuous negative comments or opinions may cross the line to harassment.
 * 12) The usage of alternate accounts or bots in simultaneous usage is prohibited.
 * 13) *Do not use alternate accounts or bots, especially if used for the purposes of attacking someone, including staff.
 * 14) *Do not use bots for the purposes of spam, advertisement, or vandalism on the wiki.
 * 15) *Do not use alternate accounts to circumvent or evade blocks issued by staff members.
 * 16) Do not use profanity or slurs.
 * 17) *Vulgar, obscene, or offensive content is not allowed on the Necrophage Wiki under any circumstances. This can include racial slurs or other offensive names and content.
 * 18) **Do not complain about your rights being violated. The First Amendment does not apply to the Necrophage Wiki, Fandom or other private entities.
 * 19) Gatekeeping is discouraged and heavily frowned upon.
 * 20) *Gatekeeping is when someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity. Such individuals are called gatekeepers.
 * 21) *The Necrophage Wiki has a zero-tolerance policy for gatekeeping and is a punishable offense.

Staff Provisions

 * 1) All rules and guidelines are subject to change.
 * 2) *Staff may add or change any of these rules or guidelines at any given time upon their discretion.
 * 3) Staff have the final say in moderation decisions.
 * 4) *Staff are allowed to enforce any content or user that they personally deem rule-breaking or obtrusive to the wiki, and their decision is final unless appealed or stated otherwise.
 * 5) Rule enforcement is up to staff discretion.
 * 6) *Staff retain the authority to ignore the enforcement of specific rules at their discretion.
 * 7) **However, this does not mean they have the authority to break their own rules, and they will be held fully accountable for any consequences that may result from their actions.
 * 8) **In full compliance with Fandom's policies, any staff member who is caught abusing their status will be subject to severe punishment, followed by loss of local user rights and, in extreme cases, additional disciplinary action.
 * 9) Do not impersonate staff members or Fandom employees.
 * 10) *Do not claim to have personal ties to a staff member or Fandom employee if you do not have evidence to prove it.
 * 11) *Do not attempt to pretend to be a member of staff or pretend to be roles which staff can only occupy (Such as rollback moderator).
 * 12) **This also means you are not allowed to pretend to be a Fandom employee, or other roles Fandom employees may occupy.
 * 13) Call moderators for good reasons only.
 * 14) *Issues that can be resolved between two people such as arguments should not have a moderator required to come in to solve them. You as a member are expected to resolve arguments unless it gets extremely heated or begins to break the rules.
 * 15) *Do not abuse the report system.
 * 16) **If you are reporting something that does not violate the rules and guidelines, it will be considered an abuse by the staff and will be ultimately ignored.
 * 17) Do not ask to or attempt to apply to become staff using informal channels.
 * 18) *If staff applications or hiring is not explicitly open (Such as a link being posted to a hiring form), do not attempt to self-advertise yourself or ask to apply to become staff through messaging staff or through other informal channels.

File & Template Rules

 * 1) Do not use disruptive audio.
 * 2) *Audio files include MP3 files, MP4 files or OGG files for a page. Using these files should be restricted to certain appropriate pages and should not be used unnecessarily.
 * 3) *This means no background noise that makes the intended audio unintelligible, excessive loudness, screaming, or high-pitched noises.
 * 4) Use the infobox for important information only.
 * 5) *Infoxboxes are the method of providing important information to the reader via a textbox at the right.
 * 6) *Do not argue over the infobox. Avoid using the infobox for unrelated information or arguments.
 * 7) Do not use files if you are not doing any notable work with them for editing (Unnecessary upload).
 * 8) *If you are uploading a file, such as an image, without actively using it, you are considered unnecessarily uploading it.
 * 9) Do not upload pornographic or sexually suggestive images or audio.
 * 10) *The use of images or audio containing or depicting pornographic actions or content are strictly prohibited. This can include, but not limited to, partial or full nudity, pornographic images or audio, and sexually suggestive themes.

Editing Rules
''Editing guidelines should not be strictly enforced; however, these practices are frowned upon by the staff. Action should only be taken if a user begins to disrupt the wiki or breaks other mentioned rules.''

Staff can take punitive action on editing guideline violations if such are done in spite, are highly disruptive to editing, or otherwise are repeated even after told to cease by staff.


 * 1) Any user can edit a page for any reason as long it is out of good faith.
 * 2) *Editing is the Necrophage Wiki's form of contributing; if you see a mistake on a page, correct them.
 * 3) **If you have an issue with someone editing a page, you should contact them externally or via a second person.
 * 4) **You cannot report someone for editing a page under the assumption of good faith, and staff will take no action for such.
 * 5) Do not vandalize, spam, or otherwise add unnecessary information on pages.
 * 6) *This is defined as editing a page and deleting information, such as infoboxes or image galleries, and adding irrelevant or nonsense content, usually out of spite. The Necrophage Wiki has a zero-tolerance policy for vandalism.
 * 7) **Adding unreadable text is spam and deleting texts on a page and replacing it with mockery or nonsense is vandalism.
 * 8) Permission to edit is encouraged, but not enforced.
 * 9) *Permissions relating to the editing of pages, such as characters, are not enforced by staff, but are highly encouraged.
 * 10) **Pages that are not edited into the community policies or guidelines will not have these provisions applied to them.
 * 11) Give other users a chance to edit pages.
 * 12) *Edit warring is highly discouraged and frowned upon.
 * 13) **Editing warring is defined as when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions, such as reverting a page's recent edit in whole or in part.
 * 14) Do not disrupt edits.
 * 15) *While you are editing, do not disrupt others from editing nor instigate hostile actions through malicious or spiteful means.
 * 16) Use proper grammar and adjectives.
 * 17) *Pages cannot state others in a first-person or second-person perspective; for example, use 'the player' instead of 'you' or 'me' when referring to a game.
 * 18) **The only exception to this rule is a quote from a character, or sentences from the novels.
 * 19) All information and lore are mandatory to follow.
 * 20) *You are required to follow all lore and/or guidelines available, and you are not allowed to disregard it and create your own lore.
 * 21) **The information found on the Necrophage Wiki serve to provide readers with information for the universe that the novel is set in. However, it is not intended to restrict your editing.
 * 22) Do not use real-world people or characters from pre-existing fiction.
 * 23) *Characters must remain original. Copying a character or group of characters from an existing work of fiction is not allowed and strictly prohibited. Historical or current figures such as the President or other figures are not allowed either.
 * 1) *Characters must remain original. Copying a character or group of characters from an existing work of fiction is not allowed and strictly prohibited. Historical or current figures such as the President or other figures are not allowed either.

Prohibited Groups
This list will expand based on staff rulings on what has been explicitly prohibited by the staff. Any group on this list explicitly cannot be used and violations WILL be subject to moderator action.


 * Bureaucrats (Exception is Sysop and Fandom employees).
 * Map-tester or rollback moderator (You must apply for this).
 * Thread-moderators or content-moderators (Exception is administrator or moderator).

Block Prohibition
In compliance with Fandom's blocking policy, blocking users for no good reason are STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

Maximum Groups Per User
Staff are NOT allowed to outrank the Sysop via groups; the Sysop must remain as the leading authority on the Necrophage Wiki (With the exception of legitimate visiting Fandom employees). The maximum number of groups per staff member is two. Groups for moderators above three are prohibited and administrator groups above four are also prohibited. Autoconfirmed users also cannot occupy map-tester or rollback moderator UNLESS they have applied for these groups.

Role-playing Forums
Effective on February 5th, 2022, role-playing on the Necrophage Wiki's discussion forums are strictly prohibited. Any discussion thread engaged in role-playing will be locked by staff. Participants of the role-playing thread will receive minor punishments.

Hate Speech
In full compliance with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Necrophage Wiki staff reserve the right to restrict access to objectionable content in the discussion forums or blogs. As such, any hateful or offensive posts WILL be taken down by staff and the offender will be severely punished as a result.

Escalation Procedure
Violations of these rules and guidelines may result in blocks without any prior warning. Staff reserve the ability to choose to bypass the escalation procedure in exceptional circumstances. Users who violate the rules will be subject to moderation at staff discretion following order of escalation:


 * Wiki Violation: Verbal/informal notice or warning. This will not be logged unless poor behavior continues, or other rules are broken.
 * Minor Violation: Verbal warning and/or admin message. May escalate if poor behavior continues.
 * Moderate Violation: Temporary block. Blocked users cannot edit/create pages.
 * Major Violation: Permanent block. Permanent blocks cannot be appealed.

 NOTE:  All temporary blocks last for 30 days minimum and are permanent until appealed by messaging a staff member on Fandom's Community Central. Staff may escalate to a permanent block if the offender continues to violate the rules, attacks the staff team, or demonstrates poor behavior.

Any severe offenses (Such as vandalism, pornography, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and bigotry) will result in an immediate permanent block WITHOUT any chance of appeal from the staff team. There are NO exceptions.