Wiki Rules

### General Rules

1. **The minimum age to be allowed on the wiki is 13 years old.** Any users discovered to be below this age will be blocked until they turn 13 in accordance with Fandom policy.
2. **Blanking pages is considered vandalism and will be automatically reverted, and will result in a 4 hour block for the offender.** "Blanking" includes replacing page contents with gibberish or a message, or removing all content. *Please note, blanking your page does not delete it; ask a moderator if you want your page deleted.*
3. **Minimodding is not allowed:** Do not move someone else's page without permission if you are not a moderator, instead add the deletion template.
4. **Harassment, slurs, and general disrespectful behavior are not tolerated.** It is expected to be generally courteous to all; any users found harassing others or calling people slurs will be banned. Harassment of other users is a violation of the Fandom Terms of Use.
5. **Using alt accounts as sockpuppets to evade a ban or rig a vote will result in a non-negotiable ban for all accounts involved.** Socks will be banned forever; if you rig a vote, all alts will blocked across all of Fandom.
6. **Edit-warring will not be tolerated.** You must have a valid reason for reverting someone else's edit.
7. **Editing pages to add nonsense is considered vandalism and may result in a block for the offender**. Please make constructive edits.

### Rules for Page Creation

1. **At the bare minimum, all pages must satisfy the following requirements:**
	1. **Originality:** The concept/subject of the page should be unique and creative, developing an aspect of the Hidden Areas that has not previously been explored. Imitations and slight variants of existing pages are highly discouraged.
	2. **Tone:** The page must be written in a mature and professional manner. A strictly clinical tone is not mandatory, but effort should be displayed, with at least a basic level of subtlety and nuance.
	3. **Spelling, punctuation, and grammar (SPaG):** The page should be written in fluent, unbroken English, with few errors.
	4. **Flow:** The page must be structured and organized in such a way that its information is presented clearly. This also includes functional, clean-looking code (never use "zalgo text" under any circumstances).
	5. **Completion:** The topic of the page should be explored and developed to a satisfactory degree, with a sufficient amount of detail. Work-in-progress (WIP) and unpolished works may not be published, and should remain in your Sandbox until completed. However, this does not prevent you from further expanding a page of yours that is already considered "complete." It is also recommended that you get critique from another member of the community before publishing your page.
2. **All pages must fit in the Hidden Areas setting.** Although the exact nature of the Hidden Areas is subject to broad interpretation, your page should not seem out of place among the rest; it must be related to the Hidden Areas in some way and should be connected to lore that already exists.
3. **Pages should not conflict with each other.** Personal canons may have more leeway, but all pages should generally be able to fit with each other, or at least not outright contradict anything else on the wiki.
4. **Handle sensitive topics with care.** If you wish to include subjects in your page such as politics, mental health, religion, etc., it is highly recommended that you do proper research on the matter to ensure that you are not misrepresenting or harmfully portraying it.
5. **Plagiarism of content from other sources is strictly prohibited.** Porting external content from other authors and Hidden Areas-related wikis may only be allowed with permission from the original creator(s), proof of permission, and attributed credit to them on the page, unless you yourself are the original creator. Failure to provide proof may result in a block for plagiarism.
6. **Area naming rules:**
	1. **Areas may not be numbered higher than 1000 or lower than -1000.** This remains in effect until all 1000 positive and negative Area slots are filled.
	2. **Subareas may not have more than two digits after the decimal point.**
	3. **Symbols/emojis are not allowed in Areas names/titles.** Anomalous Areas may only be titled as words.
	4. **"-rooms" pages are not allowed:** They imply separateness from the Hidden Areas, the focal setting of this wiki.
7. **Additionally, Canons must obey the following rules as well:**
	1. **Canons must be first published with at least three pages to accompany their hub page.** This is primarily to prevent low effort canons with little to no base lore from being uploaded.
	2. **Canons will be deleted if they ever go under 3 pages (Keep in mind: the canon hub does not count as one)** This is to punish authors who abandon their canons.

Failure to abide any these rules may result in your page being moved to your Sandbox, the deletion of your page, or possible disciplinary action.

### Discussion Rules

These are the rules for the Discussions section of the Hidden Areas Wiki.

1. **Only discussions and posts pertaining to the Hidden Areas Wiki are allowed in the General category.** If it does not relate to the Hidden Areas, it belongs in Off-topic; things such as goodbyes, personal posts, etc. belong in Off-topic as they do not pertain to the Hidden Areas. Spam, meme images, and nonsensical posts that do not have any purpose or content to them will be deleted.
2. **Harassment, slurs, and generally disrespectful behavior will result in a block.** It is expected to be courteous to all.
3. **Do not advertise.** This includes topics such as YouTube channels, other wikis, games, and more. Advertisements will be deleted.
4. **Posts relating to possibly controversial topics and/or drama are not allowed.** Everyone is unconditionally welcome here, but discussions pertaining to politics, orientations, ongoing drama, etc. should be kept to a minimum as they have nothing to do with the Hidden Areas and are likely to incite arguments.