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Fallout Wiki:User conduct guideline

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Policies & guidelines
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Conduct
  • Administration
  • Editing guidelines
  • User conduct
  • Voting regulations

    • General

    • Be bold: If you find something that can be improved, improve it and encourage others to do the same.
    • Be polite: It's not only important what you say but also how you say it. Be civil when talking to other people and treat them with respect. This site is built on cooperation.
    • Assume good faith: Do your best to assume that other editors are trying to help unless you have evidence to the contrary. Accidents happen, and not everybody has significant experience editing a wiki.
    • Do not vandalize: Simply put, do not mess pages up on purpose. Blanking articles or sections, replacing content with nonsense or intentionally adding inaccurate information to articles is considered vandalism.
    • Use edit summaries: Edit summaries are there to explain your changes and are mandatory. It helps with getting everybody on the same page and prevents conflicts with other editors when an explanation of changes made is listed.
    • Feel free to leave messages on user talk pages: User talk pages are exempt from the rule above as it is their purpose to be edited by others. The general guidelines for talk pages above apply, with the exception that you are allowed to archive your talk page from time to time.
    • Plagiarism: Do not copy the content of other sites and authors. If a site allows use of its content, reference it appropriately.
    • Do not misuse article talk pages: Article talk pages are for the discussion of their respective topic and not for general conversation. Use Discussion Boards for the latter. Posts that do not pertain to discussion of an article itself may be deleted.
    • Custom signatures: Custom signatures which are obtrusive are not allowed. The compounded images must be no larger than 40 pixels in width and 35 pixels in height. Using the "thumb" or "frame" options is not allowed.

    Inter-User Conduct

    • Comments of others: Editing or removing other user remarks on talk pages is not allowed.
    • Sign comments: Add four tildes (~~~~) to the end of all of comments on talk and forum pages. Do not sign mainspace/articles.
    • User conflicts: This rule is a simple conflict rule. If there is a user conflict and it is disrupting the wiki, it must be brought to the attention of an admin or bureaucrat if an admin is involved in the conflict.
    • Do not edit war: Be ready to discuss your changes with others. If you disagree with another editor, discuss the issue either on user or article talk pages. Repeatedly reverting each other's changes ("edit warring") is bound to escalate the conflict instead of solving it. If you cannot reach a consensus, ask an uninvolved user to mediate. In general, if someone reverts an edit you made, you should not re-add it without reaching a consensus on the article's talk page. Consensus does not have to be reached in cases of disruptive editing.

    Edit summaries

    See: Forum:Edit summary clarity - vote

    Edit summaries are there to explain your changes and are mandatory. It helps with getting everybody on the same page and prevents conflicts with other editors when an explanation of changes made is listed. A summary should not contain gibberish or nonsense. If an edit is likely to be contentious, the summary should not be pointlessly thin, such as "Bad", "Wrong", "Irrelevant", or other language which conveys no real usable information to any other editors visiting the page.

    User, talk, forum and blog pages

    • User pages/sandboxes: Pages in the "User" namespace are the property of the user they belong to. Users may edit their own as they see fit, so long as the content aligns with current conduct policies. No other users are allowed to edit user pages of another without permission.
    • Be Accountable: Users are not allowed to remove comments from user talk pages or blank them, other than to remove insults/harassment or by archiving it (allowed after 40 posts or 32kb of talkpage content). Administrators need easy access to a users' talk page history. When in doubt if a post can be removed, consult an administrator. If a user talk page is blanked by a user, an admin has the right to revert the blanking unless it was done to remove harassment and/or insults. If a user blanks their talk page more than 3 times. it will be considered an edit war, at which point, an admin can step in and may perform a ban at their personal discretion.
    • Don't spam: Comments that are considered spam will be deleted by the staff. Examples of spam include one word posts, meaningless statements such as "Fallout x rocks/sucks" or random, nonsensical comments.
    • Don't flame: Comments intended to provoke other users (flamebait) or insulting them outright (flaming) will be deleted by the staff and may be grounds for blocking.
    • Don't be rude: Excessive rudeness to other posters (whether they are anonymous or not) is not welcome. Such comments will be deleted and may be grounds for blocking.
    • Be readable: If your message can't be understood, it will be considered spam. Leetspeek does constitute unreadability.

    Discussion Boards and Discord conduct

    Use of multiple accounts

    • Using multiple accounts on the wiki is not against our policies or guidelines; however we do insist that any secondary accounts should be identified by placing a link to the primary user's profile. Where this is not obvious in the username itself it should be identified by placing a link to the secondary account on the user's profile page. Use of the {{secondary account}} template is recommended.
    • Bureaucrats may consider requests to have an additional or replacement account.
    • Bans from one account generally carry over to other accounts, and other accounts should not be used to avoid a (non self requested) ban on another account.
    • Use of multiple accounts to evade chat bans or site blocks will result in immediate administrative action.

    Blocking

    Editors whose contributions are clearly disruptive to the site or who fail to behave appropriately towards other contributors may be blocked. The possible reasons for blocking include (but are not limited to):

    Reason Duration
    • Vandalism
    • Personal attacks or threats towards other editors
    • Violating site policies
    • Spamming links to external sites
    • Abusing multiple accounts
    • Creating an account with an unacceptable username
    • Making unnecessary edits to pages in order to gain wiki achievements
    • Starting or being involved in user conflicts
    • Three days, first offense
    • One week, second offense
    • One month, third offense
    • Any additional offenses may result in a permanent ban (only for registered users).

    These are just guidelines for usual cases. Blocks and their duration are generally up to the discretion of Nukapedia's administrators.

    Plagiarism policy

    As a trusted source of information, the wiki's content needs to be unique. The plagiarism policy serves to ensure all work is credited correctly.

    Plagiarism policy

    What is, and what is not, plagiarism?
    As a trusted source of information, we want as much of our pages as possible to be made up of original content that you can't find anywhere else. To this end, we would prefer you to, whenever possible, create original works that do not directly copy anyone else's work.

    This is not to say you can't be inspired by it; maybe you saw something somewhere else that you thought might improve a page. By all means, feel free to bring that to the wiki, but make sure its your own work and written in your own words, and if you can improve and develop the idea further.

    Sometimes you may have to use other people's words and work. Here are some (but not all) situations where this is acceptable:

    • Licensed content: If you have prior permission from the content owner, you can reuse their content - We've asked permission to present to you many of our sound files for example. You should still cite who the owner of the work is though.
    • Copyleft/Creative Commons/public domain: This is a specific form of licensed content. The owner of the work has made it available for anyone to use without prior permission, but in the case of the first two this is subject to some rules. You should ensure that you follow any requirements set by the content owner (such as following the license conditions, or attributing in the way that they request). If no attribution standard is given by the owner, then you should ensure that they are identified and if at all possible the original is linked in the references. For non-displayed content, the comments may also be acceptable.
    • Quotes: It's perfectly permissible to quote a person or even a copyrighted work. Your quote should be limited to the amount you need to make your point. For example, you can't quote an entire magazine article, but a paragraph or two may be acceptable. You should use the {{Quotation}} template and link to the source of the quote wherever possible, giving credit to the author/speaker/publication.
    • Fair use: There are also times where it is possible to reuse content within the US's "Fair Use" exemption. Much of the source files and screenshots fall into this category, as do images used in news reporting. The origin should be credited and linked wherever possible.

    What happens if I break the rules

    • Good faith attempts to attribute shouldn't ordinarily see punishment. If you have done something incorrectly, we'll show you how to put it right. We appreciate the thought and effort you make, and won't punish you for a simple mistake. If you keep making exactly the same mistake, we may have to restrict your ability to edit the wiki.
    • If you are a new user, or someone who is new at editing, and make no effort to attribute content that is not your own, then you will receive a maximum of one warning for this behavior. After this warning, we expect you to make a good faith attempt to attribute. (Getting it wrong is better than not doing it at all.)
    • If you have already been warned, or are someone who we feel should know better (this includes experienced editors and the entire admin team) and you fail to make even a good faith attempt to attribute, enforcement action will be taken. For users in this group, there is zero tolerance.

    What happens if I see someone who breaks the rule, or I suspect content has been copied?

    • If it is a fresh edit, you should undo (or revert) the edit (or if it's just part of a larger edit, remove just the suspect content), and leave a note on the talk page indicating what you have done, why, and where you think the information has been copied from.
    • If it is existing information, then remove the specific content and leave a note on the talk page.
    • If you are a content owner (or other responsible person for the source), and you believe your content has been misused or copied, please instead notify our Plagiarism Point of Contact.
    • If you notice a user repeatedly using plagiarized content, please alert an administrator.

    Point of contact
    The Plagiarism Point of Contact (PPOC) is an administrator who accepts reports of potential plagiarism. Nukapedia's PPOC is FDekker. They have no special enforcement powers beyond being an administrator but instead act as a single point to report issues to.

    The PPOC may investigate issues directly or may ask a fellow member of the admin team to handle an issue. If the PPOC hasn't replied to a talk page comment in one week's time, any admin is free to take the lead.

    See also

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