Tardis:Forum policy
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No personal attacks → Discussion policy → Do not disrupt this wiki to prove a point → You are bound by current policy → Who writes policy → Desktop is definitive → Forum policy |
People from all around the world read and edit the forums. Like any other collaborative project, not everyone will agree all the time. Keep discussions civil and be open minded about differing opinions. We're all here because we love the same topic.
So don't say nasty things about other people — only comment on the substance of their ideas. If you choose to disregard this warning, you will most definitely, most swiftly, and most infinitely be blocked.
Editing your own posts
You may edit your previous posts so long as:
- No one has already quoted your comments. It's not fair to make a later poster look like they've misquoted you.
- You are not changing your basic position. Don't agree to a certain position then edit your post such that it appears you now disagree with that position. If you want to change your mind, you must do so in a wholly new post.
When your post may be deleted or moved
Tardis admin may move your thread or post for the purposes of archiving a closed discussion, or if you appear to have posted in the wrong Board. They may delete your thread or post if they believe:
- you have posted off topic
- you have introduced unhelpful language in a technical thread
- you have created a secondary discussion point about the same or similar topic being discussed in another thread
- your post is materially wrong in a technical thread, and could therefore lead to confusion about how to use the MediaWiki software or any services provided by Wikia, Inc.
- your post or thread violates our rule against disrupting the wiki by making the same point in several different places — particularly one that has been defeated by the community
- your post or thread attacks another user or offends other, reasonably-applicable policies
Things to avoid
Aside from violating T:DISCUSS and T:ATTACKS, please avoid doing the following things in the so-called wall forums:
- Over-quoting. As Thread:223085 explains in greater detail, posts with wholly original content are far more effective than ones that contain a lot of quotes. If you must quote, quote only as much as is necessary for readers to understand what you're talking about.
- Nested quoting. In general, nested quotes — where you quote someone who might have quoted someone else, who might be quoting yet a third person — are probably unnecessary. They definitely are a massive waste of space, which makes the thread look forbiddingly long to the new reader. Again, if you genuinely feel you need to nest quotes, truncate the quotes substantially. And try to keep them to only one person quoting another.
- Replies that tell us nothing about why you feel the way you do. Replies like "Agreed," "No," "Yes," kudos, or even longer sentences that amount to little more than a statement of being for or against something are usually deeply unhelpful. Unless an admin asks for a simple show of hands on a purely arbitrary matter, it's important to tell us why you feel the way you do. If you don't, your opinion will likely be discounted in the final closure of the thread.
- Argue with the ref. Complaining about the way a forum thread was closed or otherwise handled by an admin may be a violation of T:ATTACKS, T:POINT or T:BOUND, depending on the language you employ — and it doesn't matter where that injudicious complaint is found. Please try to remember that admin often put hours, days or sometimes months figuring out the fairest way to end a discussion. Also remember that everyone, including every single admin, has at one time or another failed to prevail in a forum discussion. Once a decision has been reached, your best course of action is to accept it and move on.
Penalties for violations
Repeated violations of these rules can lead to your prohibition from the Forum and/or Discussion areas, to a general block from editing at �Tardis, or to both.
- Due to the the underlying code of the so-called "wall forum" forum threads are administered differently to talk pages. In other words, our discussion, user page vandalism and other policies do apply to the forum — but they also partially conflict with this policy because forum threads work differently. In the case of conflict, this policy controls.
- This page shall be transcluded at MediaWiki:Forum-policies-and-faq, so that it can be immediately linked to Special:Forum.
