R.L. Stine Wiki:Simplified ruleset

## R.L. Stine Wiki Rules

1. **Explain what you're doing.** When editing articles, it is important to inform others about what you are doing.
	1. Before making a large or potentially controversial edit, discuss your decision with an admin, in the forums, or on the talk page for the article that you're editing.
	2. When saving your edit, try to write a summary about what you've changed.
	3. Repeatedly making controversial edits without explaining yourself can result in a ban.
2. **Watch your profanity!** Many of R.L. Stine's books are designed for all ages, so please do not swear on articles or their talk pages. In addition, do not swear at other users.
	1. Exception #1: If you are *quoting something*, profanity can be acceptable in *some* cases. However, consider if the quote is absolutely necessary for the article. If you use profanity, you will likely need to mark the article as mature.
	2. Exception #2: There are mature novels from R.L. Stine, so only use profanity if in relation to books like Fear Street, but be sure to, once again, mark the article as Mature.
3. **How do I become an admin or apply for another right?** For the time being, you can apply for a right.
	1. View the R.L. Stine Wiki:User Right Requirements page for specific details.
	2. Before applying, you must consistently make meaningful edits for a considerable amount of time. The current admins can deny granting a user rights if they believe that the user isn't fit for the right that they have applied for.
4. **Don't make pages you don't intend to edit.** If you want to create a page, *please do!* ...*However*, when you create a page, don't simply write a sentence and move on to another page. Add as much meaningful information as you can.
	1. In addition to this, don't create a page for something that doesn't need a page. Please do not create pages for background characters/creatures without any significant information about the character.
	2. If a user creates a poorly written or poorly formatted page, and the admins believe that the user does not intend to fix the page, the admins may mark it for deletion or delete the page.
5. **How much should I write?** Only add useful information to an article. Before publishing, ask yourself this; would you want to read your own writing?
	1. The typical length for the summary of a Stine book should be between 4,000 characters and 8,000 characters. Use a website such as WordCounter.net to make sure you didn't write too much!
6. **How should I cite information?** Citation is not required in most instances. You only need to cite your sources if the claim that you make cannot be easily confirmed.
	1. If another user asks you to cite your source, and you cannot, the information that you are unable to cite may be removed.
7. **No speculation!** Don't insert opinions/ideas into articles. Only include information that can be confirmed. If you have an interesting theory about a book, feel free to discuss your theory on a talk page or in the forums.
	1. **Example of speculation 1**: "*This character probably wasn't Included because the author wanted to save time.*" This is speculation because it makes an assumption about the author.
	2. **Example of speculation 2**: "*Fans hate this book.*" Don't speak on behalf of all fans. However, you could say; "*This book isn't very popular, as the book has a 1.5 on GoodReads.*"
	3. **Example of speculation 3:** Personal ideas or things that you thought up.
8. **Try not to spoil books randomly!** Don't spoil books if you don't *need* to. There are instances where spoilers are fine, but try to be mindful of all readers.
	1. Don't spoil a book at the beginning of a summary; save spoilers for the end of the summary.
	2. Avoid putting spoilers into the "Trivia" section.
9. **Check before categorizing.** Before adding a page to a category, check the category description first. Here's a quick list that will help you avoid accidentally using the wrong tag:
	1. If the category says that it is only for books and short stories, then don't add character pages.
	2. Look at the pages that are already tagged in that category. If there are only books in that category, then don't add a character page.
	3. Don't tag lists pages with information regarding individual books featured in that list. There may be some exceptions to this rule, but try to avoid overusing tags or adding too many tags to one page.
	4. Don't tag blog posts; blog posts don't belong in the same categories as other media. The only tag that blog posts need is the "Blog Post" category.
10. **What people deserve articles on this Wiki?** In general, only people who have worked on official pieces of media related to R.L. Stine (Books, TV, Movies, etc.) deserve their own article.
	1. The *only* other reason why someone would deserve an article is if they meet the two following standards: popularity and notability.
	2. "Notability" is measured by the amount of external sources that discuss the subject. Any external sources must be reasonably reliable and discuss the subject in a way that isn't trivial.
11. **Do not vandalize.** Vandalizing articles or any other aspect of this Wiki is never acceptable. Depending on the severity of the vandalism, vandals may be dealt with in several ways.
	1. If a user's only edits are vandalism, they are likely to be banned without warning.
	2. If a vandal's edits are profane or incredibly malicious, the vandal will be banned without warning.
12. **Quality standards:** In order to keep the Wiki clean and pleasant, the admins have the right to remove anything that doesn't meet certain quality standards.
	1. If a user adds or creates poorly formatted pages, poorly worded information, or low quality images, the admins may remove what the user contributed.
	2. Admins have the final say in what belongs on the Wiki. If you disagree with one admin's revisions, try discussing your edits with that admin or *another* admin. Don't simply repeat your edits.
13. **Piracy isn't allowed.** Encouraging other users to engage in digital piracy is not permitted on this wiki. Do not attempt to link to pirated material or give instructions on how to obtain pirated material.
	1. If a user makes an honest mistake, or if they don't fully comprehend how piracy works, they will be warned by the admins. If a user repeatedly encourages piracy after they've been warned, they may be banned.
	2. Users blatantly encouraging piracy may be banned.

## Image Rules

1. **What images should I use?** All of the images that you add to articles should come from an official *R.L Stine* product. In addition, all images should be of reasonable quality (if possible).
	1. **Acceptable sources:** Book covers, TV show screenshots, movie screenshots, video game screenshots, and official merchandise.
	2. **Unacceptable sources:** Fanart, miscellaneous images, and profane images.
	3. Exceptions: Under some circumstances, you may retrieve pictures of real people from sources outside of the R.L. Stine media.
2. **Don't upload duplicates.** If an image is already on the Wiki, don't upload it a second time. Instead, link to the original image.
	1. Mistakenly re-uploading an image on the Wiki is excusable, but uploading many duplicate files may result in a ban.
3. **Properly name files.** File names should never be abbreviations or random strings of text. Choose a meaningful file name related to the image.

## Formatting Rules

(The rules in this section are strongly held guidelines and not unusually bannable offences.)

1. **Italics!** The names of series, books, video games, and movies must always be *italicized*.
	1. When *italicizing* a link in the source editor, try to do it like this: ''[[Night of the Living Dummy]]'', and not like this: [[Night of the Living Dummy|''Night of the Living Dummy'']]
	2. TV episode titles and short story titles belong in "quotations marks" and not *italics*.
2. **Arranging articles:** Look at how other pages are arranged and try to arrange new pages in a similar style.
	1. Sections like "Physical appearance" and "Personality" on character pages should always be sub-sections under the "General information" section.
3. **Linking to Wikipedia:** Linking to Wikipedia on articles is encouraged, but keep this in mind:
	1. Use discretion. If a page mentions a tree, you don't need to link to Wikipedia to define that.
	2. Try not to link like this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree tree]
	3. Try to link like this: [[wikipedia:tree|tree]]
4. **Should I use American or British grammar?** Since many R.L. Stine books are American-Made, American grammar and spelling is preferred on articles.
	1. Exception #1: In American English, writers are discouraged from placing periods or commas after quotation marks in all cases. In Britain, writers are encouraged to choose whether the punctuation goes inside or outside based on situational logic. The latter of these methods is preferred.

## General Rules

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is the largest and most successful wiki. This section lists some of the overarching guidelines that have helped make *Wikipedia* a success.

1. **Be civil** to other users at all times.
2. **Assume good faith**; in other words, try to consider that the person on the other end of the discussion is a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to the project — unless, and only unless, you have firm, solid, and objective proof to the contrary. Merely disagreeing with you is no such proof.
3. Particularly, **don't revert good faith edits**. Reverting is *too* powerful sometimes. Don't succumb to the temptation, unless you're reverting very obvious vandalism (like "LALALALAL\*&\*@#@THIS\_SUX0RZ", or someone changing "1+2=3" to "1+2=**17**"). If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like "(rv) I disagree strongly, I'll explain why in talk." and immediately take it to talk.
4. **No personal attacks**. Don't write that user such and so is an idiot, or insult him/her (even if (s)he *is* an idiot). Instead, explain what they did wrong, why it is wrong, and how to fix it. If possible, fix it yourself.
5. **Be graceful**: *Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do*. Try to accommodate other people's quirks the best you can, but try to be as polite, solid, and straightforward as possible yourself.
6. **Sign your posts on talk pages** using ~~~~, which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit Save. But don't sign on mainspace articles.
7. **Use the preview button**; it helps prevents edit conflicts and mistakes.

It's important to have fun... but try to make sure those around you have fun too!

Follow these Rules, and your stay at R.L. Stine Wiki will be a scary good time!