Help:House Rules

House Rules
Like every site on the internet, we have some house rules around here. Here's the general rules of style and conduct you need to follow while you're here.

Working template
When doing any significant edit of a page, you should mark the page with the Working template first. To do so, you simply add the following text to the top of the page and save:

This will insert a large notice across the top of the page. If you encounter a page with this banner, you know someone else is editing it and should not try to edit it yourself. This goes for creating long, new pages as well - you should immediately save the page with just the working template, so no other users try to create the same page.

Using the Working template ensures that users don't accidentally over-save each others' work. Imagine working for an hour on a page, saving it, and the coming back five minutes later to see it over-written. Although changes can be rolled back, whoever made the other changes will have worked hard on their version as well, and combining the two can be a painstaking process. Easier just to let a single user work on a page, and then have other users come by and make the changes they see fit.

Not Your Personal Playground
Remember that this is a community project. If you have an drastic idea that requires significantly changing or reorganizing multiple pages, suggest it a discussion page, explaining your intention. If people generally agree that it's a beneficial change to make, the whole community can then pitch in to making the changes. Not talking about changes and coming to a consensus could lead to stylistic tug-of-wars, where two or more people are trying to change the Wiki in conflicting ways.

In fact, if you need a Playground, click this link. This page is open for anyone to stop in and mess around with code, allowing them to learn without affecting the content of the Wiki.

Language
We are working on a site based on a show intened for adults. However, in keeping with the show itself, please limit vulgarity and cursing to the level depicted within the show. I.E., "Ass", "Hell", and "Damn" are okay. Anything more severe than that is too severe. Also, "Sweet Zombie Jesus" is questionable, and can be offensive (most know it's been censored on Adult Swim), so try to avoid over-use.

Vandalism
Erasing all the text from a page (called "blanking") is not acceptable behavior. Although any damage can be repaired, this creates work which wouldn't have been necessary otherwise. The same applies for replacing some or all of the text on a page with inappropriate or abusive language. This is a place for Futurama fans to join together to create this repository of knowledge, as well as casual fans being able to look up anything they might be curious about.

If someone has blanked or vandalized a page, you can repair the page yourself. Every page has a "history" tab at the top; by clicking it, you can view past versions of an article. Only an administrator can officially "roll back" an edit, but anyone can edit the archived version to copy and paste it back over the vandalized version. If you find a page that has been vandalized, tell an admin (currently Buddy 13 or Quolnok) and the situation will be taken care of.

Punishment
General punishment for these offenses is a banning of varying lengths of time - though each offense will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis (i.e., there is no "standard" punishment). Though, for the most part, we will go by the following guidelines:

Although these are serious offenses, we will in good faith assume that the first time you blank some pages, it was an accident. You will be banned for one day, and issued a warning. If it happens again, the ban will last for one week. The third offense will net you a permanent ban.

Abusive language, however, can hardly be categorized as accidental, and, based on the severity of the offense, you could be permanently banned on the first offense.

However, we are not heartless. You can [mailto:jcrogers@overt-ops.com contact me] to plead your case, if you'd like to be unbanned.

Talk Sigs
Talk sigs are more of a local custom than a house rule. When in a discussion on a talk page, identify yourself before the text of your message. For example: [HelpfulGuy]:I can answer that question...

Your sig can be as simple as your name and possibly the date/time, which can be entered with the shortcuts, ~, or which produce your name, your name and the time, and the time only, respectively. As so: Gopher, Gopher 06:28, 13 February 2006 (PST), or 06:28, 13 February 2006 (PST)

To include a graphic, like Gopher's or Buddy 13's, you must first select and upload an appropriate image. Then you create a template page. The template page's name should follow the format User: /sig. Gopher's is User:Gopher/sig. Edit the template page and make it include the image and/or your name. For reference, you can look at these two: Gopher's and Buddy 13's.

Once created, you use it by doing a template link to it. Example: Have you seen my sombrero? which produces Have you seen my sombrero?

We'd like to keep them small, no taller than the a single line of text (16 pixels). This isn't a hard rule, but the admins reserve the right to remove oversized or obtrusive sigs at our discretion. And though animated sigs are okay, obnoxiously flashing is not. If you ignore the admins warnings and persistently try to use objectional sigs, you may be temporarily banned.