Rules And Guidelines

## The Do's

### Be good to each other

* Wikis are all about working together, and that takes care, tolerance, and understanding. As a wise man once said, "Be excellent to each other". So treat people well, and talk to each other, and you will have a better chance of building a great community together.

### Look out for each other

* It goes without saying that harassment, threats, bullying and intimidation are not okay. But try to go further, and speak up for others if you see them being attacked - not by attacking back, but by trying to calm the situation and help people get along.

### Look after yourself

* The Internet is a wonderful place but it's not the same as the offline world. You can never be sure who you are talking to online, or that they will always be friendly. So always protect yourself by keeping private stuff private.

* Your real name, address, school name, photos of yourself or your friends and family - all of these are things you should think twice about sharing. Remember, once it's out online, it's out and you can't get it back. Just ask Beyonce!

### Respect people's privacy

* It's especially important not to try and get personal or account info from people under 18, but it's often unnecessary and even rude to bother anyone for information about their offline life.

### Build, build, build!

* Communities work best when they have lots of interesting stuff to bring in new readers and convert them to new editors. So the more good content you can add, the better chance the wiki has of becoming successful.

* Remember that the content is what brings the community to the wiki; it is what you have in common, so focusing on that will help bind the community together

### Attribute fairly

* Fandom believes in the open source movement. Creating content that can be shared and enjoyed by others is a big part of what we do. But, that doesn't mean we should ignore other's rights. Whether you use text, or images under license, with the author's permission, or under "fair use" guidelines, it's always polite to give the proper attribution.

### Keep your account secure

* You are responsible for keeping your account secure. Let us know straight away if you think someone has accessed your account. If your brother gets onto your computer and vandalizes wikis, it's the account (so, you) that will be held responsible. That could lead to your account being disabled.

## The Don'ts

### Don't do anything illegal on Fandom, or encourage other people to

* That includes linking to illegal content (including links to copyrighted movie or TV shows) or creating a wiki that gives instructions on how to do something illegal.

### Don't post hate speech

* We don't allow homophobic language, ethnic slurs or religious hate. That means no language or content that encourages hatred or violence, or that disparages others on the basis of their race, gender, sexuality, religion, country of origin and so on.

* The context of language can matter - what's OK in rap lyrics might not be OK on an image caption. But even casual "I didn't mean it offensively" language can be offensive, so don't do it. And remember, an image of a burning cross might be OK illustrating a history wiki article, but not as your wiki's background image.

### Don't post porn, shock images, or explicit descriptions of sex

* On most wikis, this includes nudity (including bare breasts and butts). Artistic nudity may be allowed - for example a classical painting, or a small amount of nudity from a game screenshot. Medical or educational wikis may also have some nudity. But that nudity should not be the focus of the wiki, nor should it be excessively explicit.

* If you aren't sure if an image is acceptable or not, there are two questions: Is the nudity in an appropriate context? For example, an image of breasts on the Breast Cancer Wiki would be in an appropriate context, the same image on a wiki about iCarly would not. And, is the image intended to be sexual, or to arouse? Or to put it in simpler terms, is it just fap fodder?

* For text, content that just mentions characters have sex is likely to be OK. But content that describes exactly *how* they have sex, is not. Content that describes violent or non-consensual sex is expressly prohibited.

* In the other direction, wikis about young people’s topics (like cartoons directed at young kids) are likely to get *less* tolerance for nudity and similar content. This includes Harry Potter porn.

### Don't pretend to be other people

* Don't try to fool people into believing you are someone else. That means don't impersonate other users, or anyone else - including famous people. Of course, some wikis are all about roleplaying or parodies, but those aren't meant to mislead people. You can role-play as Batman, but don't convince people you are Batman (what do you mean he's not real?)

### Don't spam

* It's not okay to use Fandom to advertise other sites or services. A link to another site might be useful information on a page, but not if it's purpose is to advertise that site. Even worse is if you are adding the link repeatedly, or in places where it's totally off-topic

* "Spam" can also mean repeatedly pasting the same thing on wikis or in chat, even if it's not an advert. Don't do that either.