Rules

Welcome to **Warriors Diversity**! We aim to have a fun, easy-operate roleplaying environment without OOC drama. This rules page may seem pretty strict but if we're going to keep this a safe space, we all need to be on the same page. Can't enforce rules that nobody knows. If you have any questions or if anything is unclear, please feel free to contact our staff and they will get back to you as soon as possible. If we do *not* see your message for some reason, the Discord channel in the right-hand sidebar is a more effective way of contacting us. Reading the New User Guide is also highly recommended, as more detailed rules, roleplaying guidelines and terminology and other essential things are laid out in there.

# Rules

## General Rules

### Respect other users

No one here deserves to be treated with disrespect, no matter the situation in question. If you have a disagreement with someone, please contact staff - our discord is the most reliable way of doing this. Do not attempt to solve it yourself, as this can grow heated and we want as little conflict as possible. If you are found to be harassing or intentionally excluding other users you will be blocked for a period of time, determined by the existence and severity of any past offenses. Note this most certainly includes misgendering or repeated misuse of pronouns. If you do not believe in the validity of LGBTQIA+ individuals, we request that you either remove yourself or simply do not join the wiki, as this is very much intended to be a safe space for people wishing to roleplay LGBTQIA+ characters which is often not accepted in the wider Warriors roleplay community.
### Blocking

If you feel you have been unfairly blocked, you may contact the staff through the community discord or talk pages. Discord is most reliable, but be warned that if you are blocked on the wiki you will be assigned to a 'sin bin' role until your block is up and have limited contact with the rest of the wiki members. Any profanity or harassment of staff or users will result in your block being extended. For staff, if you do not fulfill your obligations you may receive a block also.
### Art, Lineart and Credit

You can use any lineart you like to portray your character, I personally like Wildpath of ShadowClan'slinearts but it's up to you to choose. However, if lineart is used a credit to the artist must be visible on the image. If you have used a resource such as GIMP brushes, leave a link to the artist who you got them off in the description of the image. If you are uploading original artwork please credit any stock used for references and sign your work in the interest of protecting yourself against art theft.

## Character Rules

### Mental Illnesses & Neurodiversity

We ask that if you wish to portray a character with either a mental illness or non-neurotypical identity, that you **research** it. In-depth, thorough research - don't skimp on it, this stuff is important. Portraying these sensitive issues incorrectly harms an at-risk community who already struggle for validation and visibility, and any representation needs to be fair and free of negative stereotyping. If you are incapable of putting this work in or choose to create an imbalanced character that you associated with a neurodiverse condition, you may be asked to remove the trait or the character entirely. While this could be seen as harsh, we need to be aware of how what we say and do can affect this vulnerable group of people. Several of our staff have close personal knowledge of mental illness and varied diagnoses, and we would be happy to answer your questions and help you build a balanced character that doesn't cause offense by misrepresenting a vulnerable community.
### Transness and gender non-conformity

As with mental illness and neurodiversity, we request that if you wish to create a gender diverse character that you do your research. Several of our staff members are trans and will happily guide you in which words to use and how to create a balanced character, we would love more gender diverse characters in roleplay so long as they are portrayed appropriately. We would appreciate if you did not refer to (for example) trans men as 'biological women' or 'born women' - trans people were born who we are, the world just didn't know it for a while. There is no real need to mention a character's transness except for a quick note at the top of the character section stating "assigned gender, identifies as gender and uses x pronouns" purely for reference if kits were wanted in future or some such. It is 100% okay to roleplay characters who suffer from gender dysphoria but we request that you do not imply anything along the lines of non-dysphoric trans individuals being less valid or not trans enough. Neopronouns are also fully accepted and we request that you do use the character's preferred pronouns rather than defaulting to they/them. Some grammatical help for neopronouns can be found here, note that this is not intended as a complete guide to all neopronouns ever but merely a guideline for how to work them into sentences.

Note: Some abbreviations for queer identity are very problematic. Please do not use nb to abbreviate nonbinary, nby is an acceptable replacement. The abbreviation nb belongs to people of colour, as in nbpoc. In the same vein please do not use poly to abbreviate polysexual, polygender or polyamorous. Poly is the abbreviation for polynesian and as the queer community as a whole can be very racist and appropriating (like the rest of society) we'd like to just at least make that inacceptable in this space. Polyam is the acceptable abbreviation of polyamorous/polyamory, I'm sure we can find others for everything else.
### High Ranks

High ranks are leadership, second in command and healers. In the Clans this would be Leader, Deputy and Medicine Cat but our alternate factions feature unique hierarchies. Currently high ranks remain in the control of staff but as the wiki gets up and running this will change and application for open ranks will be possible. Applicants must have been active on the wiki longer than three months and be a capable roleplayer, meaning no shortposting or one-liners. There will be no planned queue of succession, meaning you cannot ask to be the *next* deputy. When the position opens or is about to open we will notify the userbase and you may apply for the position. There will be no bashing of staff for our choice of high rank, our decision is final and we probably stressed ourselves a lot making it.
If you repeatedly nag for a high rank you will be barred from consideration until staff believe you show the maturity to apply again, which will likely be at least the life of a leader.
### Activity

We ask that you keep as active as you can manage, and your character amount and responsibilities should reflect that. Unless you have contacted us, we would appreciate at least one post a week per major character, ideally. This is purely so the roleplay does not stagnate. We absolutely understand if you get busy or sick so just notify a staff-member and we will organise getting a temporary replacement or controlling your character if you have a high rank, or temporary NPC status for any low-ranking characters. There's no need to try to justify your absence, any notification is accepted and we fully understand everyone has different commitments and energy levels for roleplay.
Roleplay pages will also be archived around the beginning of each month. Mid-month archives typically only occur following gatherings or time-skips, which we try to avoid but sometimes they are necessary to keep timelines moving. Generally we will check if there is anything unfinished before archiving, but you may contact a staff member and ask them to help if the post you were replying to was archived. Please do not edit the archived pages, or archive existing ones. This is a staff-only job.
### Realism

Ideally, we would like to keep this wiki as realistic as possible. That means that what was possible in the books may not be possible on this wiki, simply for realism purposes. If your cat is green, pink-striped or otherwise rainbow-shaded, that is of course out. Failure to comply will result in a minor genetics lesson, repeated trolling with rainbow-coloured cats may earn you a small block as we have no time for trolls.
In terms of how we deal with realism; it comes down to pelt colours and eye colours. Use this and this as a starting guide, but also remember that if you are unsure you can ask around for an admin for help - we're a bit nerdy and would love to help you out. So using the chart it gives an idea of what pelt colours are acceptable. On eye colours we're a little more flexible - for example, we'd allow a tortie to have blue eyes, or a seal point with green ones. Just no purple, red etc. Realistic pelt and eye colours only but they don't necessarily have to match the pelts they'd traditionally be associated with in real life.
## Joining Groups & Accepting

### Approving Clan Members

Admins and the bureaucrat are the only members who can approve join requests. If no reply has been made to your join request, please contact a staff member either on their talk page. This is just in place so we always know which characters are where, so we can add them to the allegiances pages and just keep everything organised.
## Chat Rules

Conversations in chat should be kept to PG-13 for the sake of all users. Cussing is allowed, but please keep major cussing - no use of c and minimal use of f words for example - to the minimum. There will be no tolerance for oppressive slurs such as f\*g, tr\*nny, d\*ke, n\*gger, r\*tard and more. The use of these in a negative way will incur a warning and short-term block, with longer blocks for repeat offenses. While we understand these terms are being reclaimed (such as the term queer) we do ask that you be very careful in doing so and accept that not all words can be used fairly by all people, particularly racial slurs.
While this site is aimed at older players, we have no way of really verifying anyone's age and have to assume younger players could read our wiki at any time, so please do keep everything clean.
Currently we have no wiki chats set up, but a discord server can be joined from the right-hand sidebar. If you can't find this, leave a message on a staff-member's wall and one of us will send you an invite link.
## Enforcement

Only our core staff (admins and bureaucrats) have the power to block users. These are the consequences that can be incurred by violating the rules.
1. A **first warning** with detail of why the action taken was unacceptable. We operate on a two-strike system, meaning up to two warnings may be incurred before further action is taken; though in the case of serious rulebreaking this is overruled.
2. **Blocks lasting 1 to 7 days** for minor rulebreaks following the two strikes.
3. **Blocks lasting 1 to 3 weeks** for persistent rulebreaking, harassment or otherwise bad behaviour.
4. **Blocks of 1 or more months** for repeated, widespread and numerous cases of rulebreaking and bad behaviour.
5. **Permanent blocking** is usually reserved for vandalism, sockpuppetry or serious bullying, however users who repeatedly prove they cannot integrate into the community and respect the identities of everyone here may also be perma-blocked.

If you have incurred a consequence, an administrator will start a thread on your personal talk page to inform you of the consequence. They should explain what the offence was, and will inform you when it ends if your consequence is more serious than a warning. If you have been blocked (except in the case of perma-blocks), you will also receive a 'sin bin' role in the community discord. This restricts your access to chat channels so that you cannot continue to misbehave while serving your block, while still being able to contact staff.