Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Rules

These are the rules of the Plants vs. Zombies Wiki.

## General

* You must be at least 13 years old to join Fandom. If you say you are under 13 or heard about it on another wiki, you will be blocked until your 13th birthday. More information is available on this blog. **This is not our rule; we have to have this rule according to Wikia and the United States's Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)**. However you can simply not tell your age.
* **Never** reveal your own personal information, especially your home address, phone number, password, or credit card number. We never ask for these, and we do not want you telling us these. These are for **your own** personal safety, and will result in indefinite ban.
* Do not link, upload, or suggest versions of *Plants vs. Zombies* or other games to people, unless if it is one of the free editions of *Plants vs. Zombies*, such as *Plants vs. Zombies 2*. This is pirating, an illegal action in which will result in a block on this wiki, along with probably a global block if needed.
* Do not be rude to anyone, swears are allowed but mean behavior is not. More of this is mentioned in the user treatment policy.
	+ Swears are not allowed on mainspace unless the games themselves reference or use swears.
* No spamming, vandalism, or page blanking. If you use your account to only vandalize, you will get an indefinite block.
* Articles are not a place to put your opinion or speculation. Keep it on your userpage, your blogs, or in discussions.
* **Fanon content is not accepted on mainspace.** There is a wiki for fanon *Plants vs. Zombies* content.
* No undoing/reverting good edits without a good reason.
* No offensive or inappropriate content (including harassment, smoking or drug related, racism, sexism, or any types of bigotry).
* Two accounts are not allowed. There are exceptions if you forgot your password on an account (or a backup account), or if you want to create a bot. A bad name is not a reason to have two accounts, as renaming your account will allow you to change your username without the need to create a second account. In addition, test accounts, backup accounts, and bots are also permitted, as long as they are not abused (for example, [[User:Brainulator9|]] uses the backup/test account [[User:Brainulator10|]] and the bot account [[User:BULBot|]]). For more information, see Wikipedia's guidelines on sockpuppetry.
	+ An exception to this rule is that if the reason of making a new account is because of being globally disabled due to being underaged. If they have turned 13 or above, they will be allowed to make a new account. Otherwise, sockpuppets of currently underaged users will still get blocked.
* Advertising for other websites, purchasable products, services, or other promotional content is prohibited. Promotional or advertising-only accounts will receive an indefinite block.
* Backseat moderating, also known as mini-modding, is prohibited. That means you must not tell someone to stop doing something that breaks the rules. Just report them to the staff.
	+ You may also not edit the userpages of banned users; that's a staff member's job.
* Do not leave links to the same page, or redirects leading to the same page.
* Do not create duplicate pages. While not a bannable offense outside of spamming, this only serves to clutter the wiki.
* Do not make pages in the Plants vs. Zombies Wiki/Project namespace without permission from the administrators.
* You may make templates for your userpage, but ask a staff member before making a template for further use in the wiki. If the template was not permitted, you can just copy the source onto your userpage.
* Any copyfraud (copyright-stealing) is strictly prohibited.
* Do not fluff edit. Fluff editing is where one "cheats" at making an edit that is obviously unnecessary or when one removes things from an article and puts them back just for the sake of editing.
* When reverting or undoing an edit, always try to assume good faith if the edit is not obvious spam/vandalism.
* As of July 10, 2017, the Discord server is now considered official, meaning all rules will apply there as well.
	+ Discord servers other than the official wiki one are still not considered "valid," including Direct Messages, as they are still considered "off-wiki." Thusly, what one says or does in these can not be validly used to promote, demote, support, oppose, or punish a user.
* Do not create clickbait or pointless blogs. These are blogs that either have an interesting title, but lead to bad or spam content in the blog. Pointless blogs are usually blank or contain very little text that does not explain anything.
* While shipping users is not banned, please follow the user treatment policy. In short, do not ship users unless you were given permission, or if it is a harmless joke.
* If you see someone trolling, it is advised that you do not respond to them. Feeding the troll will only make things worse.
* If you think that a major change to the wiki needs to be made, contact a moderator, administrator, or bureaucrat. In addition, add the reason why the change should be applied.
* Do not impersonate people by creating an account or renaming an existing account to something similar, then act like them.
* It is forbidden to use scripts, plugins, or other means that grant normal users additional tools/privileges. These privileges are reserved for staff members.
* **If something is not listed here that is not appropriate to do, it does not mean you can do it without a punishment.**

## Event-specific rules

* April Fools' Day (April 1) is not a justifiable time to vandalize. Vandalism then will be considered the same as vandalizing any other time.
* If you do prank on April Fools' Day, do not make it offensive or inappropriate.
* On closed beta instances, do not update the articles with information from the game. It is closed for a reason.
	+ Public information (such as posts from PopCap) is accepted.
* Speculation about new features should be kept off mainspace. Userpages and blogs are the best places for these.

## User treatment policy

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:User treatment policy.*
## Article rules

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Manual of Style.*
### Strategy rules

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Manual of Style/Strategies*.
### Image rules

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Manual of Style/Image policy*.
### Trivia rules

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Manual of Style/Trivia policy*.
## Uploads

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Manual of Style/Image policy for general uploads. See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:User uploads for the uploading of Zombatars and Player Towns.*
## Message Wall rules

* Do not spam messages.
* Do not close discussions you have with staff without their permission.
* Do not remove warnings left by staff.
* Replies that derail a serious thread aren't allowed.
* Do not reply to threads that haven't been active for over a month.

## Promotion rules

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Requests for user rights.*
## Discussions

* Spamming and fighting are prohibited.
* Do not make discussions about Plants vs. Zombies Character Creator plants and zombies, as none of them are real.
* Do not post in **all caps**. Abbreviations on the short note are exempted.
* Only moderators and above can create continuing threads where the previous ones are too long.
	+ Only create the continuing thread when the previous one has over 300 replies.
* For more information, please read the discussions guidelines.

## Comments

* Roleplaying is prohibited.
* Spoilers are not allowed.
* Fan-made ideas are not allowed.
* No off-topic comments.

### Distribution of modded *Plants vs. Zombies 2* OBB/RSB files

* They must not contain paid content unlocked by normal means (Snow Pea by beating a level, for one).
* They must stay off of mainspace, even they cannot be in comments. Put them in blog posts.
* Everything changed inside of the modded OBB/RSB must be clearly stated so that people know exactly what they are getting.
* They provide a link to a clean copy of the OBB/RSB, just in the case that someone loses their backup file.
* It must be stated which version(s) the mod is compatible for.

## Hyperlink colors

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Hyperlink colors*.
## Staff rules

### Requests for user rights

*See Plants vs. Zombies Wiki:Requests for user rights*.
* Follow all the above rules.
* You may not abuse power.

### Bot rules

* You must have permission from a bureaucrat *before* you can create a bot account. If permission is not granted, unauthorized other accounts will be considered sockpuppets and will get banned.
* If the permission is accepted, a bureaucrat will promote the bot, but do not edit on the bot account until it is promoted.
* Although bot edits are usually hidden, note that it does not mean no one can catch it misbehaving.
* If a bot is having a problem, report to an admin or its owner immediately. If you are an admin or bureaucrat, block the malfunctioning bot immediately.

### Rollback rules

* Do not abusively rollback or edit articles. Think carefully before performing an action.

### Moderator rules

* Only close posts if they are spam or vandalism, your own, if you have permission from the author, a vote that has finished, or it reaches 300 posts.
* Do not abusively edit replies.
* Changing rules or passing major changes without an appropriate agreement will result an immediate warning.

### Administrator rules

* You may not add unfair rules.
* "Friendship unblocks" and "rivalry blocks" are prohibited.

### Bureaucrat rules

* "Wikia dictatorship" is prohibited. It is defined as abusing bureaucrat privileges to not be punished for defying certain rules. This includes, but is not limited to:
	+ Forcing members to do things unless they get a false warning;
	+ Unfairly punishing members or closing threads, in order to either silence them or for acting in a way you merely dislike despite being allowed;
	+ Attempts to remove or modify the "Wikia dictatorship is prohibited" rule without a vote is often prohibited, and could potentially count as an offense. This is to prevent cheesing this rule's existence by removing it.
* "Friendship promotions" and "rivalry demotions" are prohibited.