Community Central Chat Guidelines

Other recommended policies:
**General Guidelines · **Chat policy** · User page policy Spelling and grammar · Assume Good Faith**

Chat on Community Central is a great place get help with starting a wikia or to get any questions about Wikia answered.
If you need immediate support from a Wikia staff member, please contact Wikia Community Support or email community@wikia.com directly.

## Chat Guidelines

We want to make chat a welcoming and helpful place for new and returning visitors. In order to best provide an environment to give help and support to users who need it, please keep in mind the following guidelines when using chat.

* **Be polite** - Everyone else on chat is a Wikia user just like you! Speak to them as you would want to be spoken to yourself. Real people use these sites, so treat them as you would someone in person. Don't swear, use vulgarities, insult users, or tell people to shut up - even when no bad words are used, it isn't a nice thing to do. Be excellent to each other.
* **Be welcoming** - New users join Wikia every day! Remember when you were a newbie? Everyone is welcome at Community Central, regardless of what community they're from or what language they speak.
* **Be helpful** - Make sure to pay attention to other users, but build constructive conversations, and keep role-playing to a minimum. Feel free to offer help if a user joins to ask questions. Talking about your cute puppy is fine, but if someone is asking for help, please take off-topic conversations to private messages.
* **Be patient** - You may ask a question when no one is around to answer it. If no one appears to be active, stick around for a while or try coming back later. The chat's not dead, it's resting! If you are looking for staff or the VSTF, please use Special:Contact or the VSTF Wiki. Community Central admins and chatmods look after Community Central and cannot help you with your block on other communities or to clean up spam elsewhere.
* **Be a catalyst** - If nobody's talking, try bringing up something you want to discuss. Need help on your wikia? Seen any good movies? Have an awesome day at school or work? These are all are good starting points for conversation.
* **Don't flood or disrupt the chatroom** - Doing so makes it difficult for users to communicate and answer questions, as messages quickly disappear. This includes (but is not limited to) typing random letters, typing each word of a sentence on a different line, excessive use of the `/me` command, creating ASCII art, or lines in ALL CAPS. PLEASE DON'T SHOUT! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
* **Don't try to replace the moderators** - You're free to let users know of the chat guidelines, but please do not tell them what to do or not to do. If there are moderators present and active in chat, it is their responsibility to give warnings to users. Be sure it doesn't seem as though you are trying to take the role of a moderator.
* **Feel free to tell people about your wikia** - But please keep in mind that not everyone may be interested your wikia's subject. You may need to look for fellow fans elsewhere, then you can bring them back to Wikia! You can also write a blog about your wikia, or put a link to it on your profile to make it more visible. Please don’t link directly to your chat, link to the wikia instead.
* **Keep it fun!** - Chat should be fun for all participants. Chat is a great tool for meeting great people and building community, so relax, enjoy yourself, and help others have a good time, too! :)

Sometimes the chatmods may ask you to move on from a topic. This might be because it's likely to cause argument (like some religion or politics conversations) or make the environment uncomfortable to others (like using the chatroom as a dating site or canoodling nook). Please listen to the mods and drop a topic if you are asked to.

If a user bothers you, feel free to block their private messages. If ''you'' are blocked from PMing someone, it means they do not want to talk to you there. Please respect their wishes. Admins and chatmods cannot monitor PMs, and we do not accept screenshots (because they can be faked). So while it's okay to report a PM problem, simply blocking PMs is best. If many people in the channel are having the same issue, then please report that to the chatmods.

**At all times, please comply with admin, chatmod, and Staff requests. If you don't, it may result in a warning which then may lead to you being kicked or banned from Chat.**

If you feel that a Community Central moderator or admin has been unfair, then you should bring this up with that moderator via PM and be sure to clearly explain why you feel that way. If that doesn't help, you can contact staff via Special:Contact. Please do not complain about one mod's decision to another. Remember, when a moderator asks you to stop doing something they don't mean for the next few minutes/hours/days, they mean to not do it again at all.

## Chatmod Guidelines

* **Be a Facilitator** - As a Wikia chatmod, your primary focus is on encouraging conversation, supporting users and, in general, making sure Community Central chat is a welcome environment for all. The ideal chatmod is encouraging, and helps people feel supported and empowered. Chatmods are not police, they are guides and try to move the channel gently towards being a better place for all.
* **Be Friendly** - The most important role of a chat moderator is in setting the tone of the channel. If you are friendly and welcoming, others will follow your lead. If others in the channel are rude or confrontational, always react calmly and politely. Avoid responding in kind, even if provoked.
* **Assume Good Faith** - Since Community Central is open for anyone to contribute to, users of all skill levels and opinions are welcome to participate. There may be users who join Community Central chat who are unfamiliar with what being in a joint chatroom is like - assume that these users want to be a part of the discussion and that any mistake they make is just that - a mistake. Be kind in your correction and offer education to them.
* **Be a Leader** - The best leaders lead by example - in communications, in supporting new users, in offering assistance to all, and in facilitating conversation within Community Central chat. Chat moderators are not "in charge" of the channel, but represent the community and Wikia as leaders.
* **Kickban with great care** - Kickbanning should never be your first option when facing a challenging person in Community Central chat. Kickbans should be used only in extreme circumstances; kickbanning is NOT a tool to "handle" someone you find annoying. Everyone is welcome in Community Central chat.
* **Keep it fun** - Chat should be fun for all participants - including chatmods! If you find yourself getting stressed, it's always OK to take a break. Chat is a great tool for meeting great people and building community, so relax, enjoy yourself, and help others have a good time, too!

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