Monster High Wiki:Haunted house rules

Dear contributors and visitors of the ,

The management wishes you a pleasant experience at the. To make this possible, a few rules have been put in place both to protect the wiki and its audience as well as make management a little less bad than pure pain. Whether you read them or not, you are expected to know them. This may not be a pleasant welcoming message, but the admins will act if the rules are broken. A first time offense that is not outright malicious can earn you anything from a warning to up to a week of banishment, depending on the situation. And of course, past that punishment will be harsher.

The management would rather not be pressured into hitting the "Block" button, so please take your time reading the rules. Again, these are here to make the wiki a better and easier place for everyone.

General rules

 * 1) Contributors and visitors are assumed and expected to know the rules.
 * 2) The admins are free to protect the wiki if an influx of undesirable contributions is expected. This can lead to a situation in which any such edit is met with a one-month ban to simplify the admins' work. If such a situation occurs, a notice will go up on the main page.
 * 3) Edits should be made to improve the wiki. Edits for the sake of acquiring badges are strictly forbidden.
 * 4) Vandalism is not allowed, not even as a form of protest.
 * 5) The  is for Monster High canon only. Do familiarize yourself with wiki's guidelines for what constitutes canon.
 * 6) You are responsible for your account. That means that if the account does something bad, you can blame your sibling/cousin/friend or whomever, but measures will be taken against the account still. Even if you are believed, your account has been proven to be not secure and you cannot guarantee it won't happen again.

Rules regarding images

 * 1) This wiki is not anyone's personal image database. User-only images are only preserved as long as a user is active (inactivity is relative to account age and contributions). An excessive amount of user images for one user may lead to a request to give up a few. Currently, the wiki strives for a number of user images that doesn't exceed 10% of the whole image database.
 * 2) Unless for a specific layout reason or a wiki-worthy discussion, do no add images to user talk pages.
 * 3) Do not upload and add images to pages for the sake of acquiring a badge. Badge hunting is strictly forbidden.
 * 4) Do not upload and add images to pages for the sake of creating a greater allowed number of user images.
 * 5) Special circumstances aside, do not upload images you have no plan of use for.
 * 6) Do not add animated gifs to articles. Animated gifs may be uploaded for use on user pages, but keep in mind that they usually don't work on the wiki.
 * 7) Do not add fanart to articles. Fanart may be uploaded for use on user pages and, if relevant, on blogs only.
 * 8) Images on the internet are generally not just up for grabs. Fanmade photos, especially when (water)marked, are not okay for use in an article because they'd be stolen material. Temporary uploads are okay for the sake of discussion in blogs if they deal with new or upcoming releases, but that's the limit. The wiki would appreciate not to have a reputation of being a thieves' nest.
 * 9) There is currently no system in place to regulate any fanmade photos that are contributed by or with permission from the owners. This will be made at a future date.
 * 10) If you are not a regular on the wiki, do not assume you have a scoop before the regulars. Every once in a while, the wiki has to deal with uploads of fanart-mistaken-for-official-art, uploads of webisodes not out in English yet, and uploads of leaked photos. In fact, the wiki has gotten in trouble with Mattel once because it hosted leaked photos of the late 2012 dolls and playsets. Rather, this kind of situation is avoided, as well as situations of false information, so unless you are a regular and have the knowledge to recognize legit and legal new material from not-legit and not-legal material, please don't upload any such images.
 * 11) The above rule applies not only to images on articles, but also to those on user pages, user blog pages, and user talk pages. Simply put, do not even upload questionable scoop material.
 * 12) Do not upload over existing files unless you mean to upload a better quality version of that same file. You get a clear warning when you are about to upload over another file, so there is no excuse for that 'mistake'.
 * 13) Please upload files under a descriptive filename. "TumblrXB57gb.JPG", "Clawdeen4.PNG" and "MazX345121212.jpeg" do not make image management any easier. A general guideline is to name an image "[source] - [short description].[png or jpg in lowercase letters]". For instance, "Tumblr - Cleo Clawdeen fall fashion.jpg" would make a nice filename for an image taken from the Gory Gazette that displays Cleo and Clawdeen in fall-related fashion.
 * 14) Do not upload entire scenes worth of images. Even the most intense scenes won't require more than, at most, three well-chosen screenshots to represent them.
 * 15) Unless there is a specific focus-requirement (like screenshots for the toy sections), don't upload partial screenshots. Say, if a scene displays five characters, preferably the wiki has one screenshot of the entire scene than five broken up screenshots focussed on the separate characters. It preserves the context of the scene and makes image management five times as easy.
 * 16) Before you upload an image, check if it's not already in the database. The wiki has an elaborate image database setup that should make searching not too much of a chore. A better quality file (within the same file type class) is, of course, a welcome upload. Seven different uploads of essentially the same file (see above two rules) are not.
 * 17) The wiki does not allow user images that are photos of people below 18 and discourages such images to be in use by older users.

Rules regarding templates

 * 1) Don't touch if you don't understand.
 * 2) Speak to an admin if you have a suggestion for a template, whether an old or new one.
 * 3) If you change something crucial about a template, like the name of a parameter, you are responsible for updating the template on every page that carries it. These pages can be found with the "What links here" function.

Rules regarding categories

 * 1) Don't touch if you don't understand.
 * 2) Speak to an admin if you have a suggestion for a new category or category branch.
 * 3) Always check if a category exists or if you've got the right category name before adding one.
 * 4) There is an order to the way categories are to be placed on a page. Learn it before adding categories.

Rules regarding pages

 * 1) The "preview"-button is your friend.
 * 2) Make sure you know what is expected of the relevant type of article if you are about to create a new page. This includes capitalization, template needs, article layout, and category needs.
 * 3) Make sure that a new page you are about to create doesn't already exist. Or that a page with similar function doesn't exist.
 * 4) Notes sections should only contain data that has nowhere else to go in the article. 'Statistics' data, like "Character X is the second to wear their hair in a ponytail", is not to be added. Also unappreciated are rampant speculation and irrelevant comparisons to franchises that Mattel has nothing to do with.
 * 5) Images are important, but they should only be added if there is place for them. Layout is more important than images.
 * 6) Don't ever make an edit for the sake of acquiring a badge. Badge hunting is strictly forbidden.

Rules regarding comments

 * 1) Do not post hate or negative comparisons on character pages. Critique is allowed as long as it is written as open to and inviting of discussion.
 * 2) Post positive messages about characters only on those characters' pages.
 * 3) Do not use vulgar language or make threats.
 * 4) The wiki strives to be inclusive for all fans, so comments that are or can be read as racist, sexist, heterosexist, cissexist, etc. have little chance of not being removed.
 * 5) Don't post images in the comment sections if they are not necessary to what you have to say.
 * 6) Don't post leaked information in the comment sections.
 * 7) You may use the comment sections to ask questions, but please read the article first. It is discouraging for contributors when people ask for answers the article already gives.

Rules regarding blog posts

 * 1) Blog posts may not contain offensive or vulgar language and subjects.
 * 2) One is not allowed to bypass the rule against Original Characters by dedicating a blog post to them. If you wish to talk about you OC, post about them on the Monster High Fandom Wiki.