SpongeBob New Fanon Wiki:Policy

This is the main page for the rules and regulations of this wiki.

I. Main Guidelines (revised January 21, 2018)

1. Don't Violate FANDOM's Terms of Use: Please don't create pages violating FANDOM's terms of use, anyone who does will be seen to appropriately.
2. Articles must be related to SpongeBob or the wiki: While it should be a given, there have been problems with this rule in the past. Pages for crossover characters are acceptable, but you must include some kind of indication of their relationship to SpongeBob, the fanon, or the wiki (user articles, etc).
3. No Vandalism: It's not funny; it's just crude and rude. You will receive one warning, then a block. If this continues on, the blocks will get longer until you are banned infinitely.
4. Don't Discriminate: Don't discriminate against anyone on the basis of their race, sexuality, religion, gender, Hoopla fetishes, or any other such characteristics. Bigotry will not be tolerated here.
5. No copying: Please don't copy other people. It confuses the members.
6. Do not add incorrect, random, or pointless categories: It creates clutter around the wiki, which is something we do not want to have here. The user will be receive a punishment based on type of offense. (Example: If a user creates a random category by mistake, a friendly reminder will be given out. If a user has created multiple random ones, the user will most likely be given a block for a certain amount of days.) (Good Category Examples: Episodes, Livin' With The Squid, Spin-Offs.) (Bad Category Examples: GROJBAND SUCKS!, Pinkie Pie is Cute, So long suckers!) For a list on which categories are appropriate for whichever article, click here.

II. Proposal Policy (revised May 6, 2018)

1. Proposals, except proposals that seek to raise the passing threshold, must gain 51% support in order to be passed
2. Proposals that seek to raise the passing threshold are required to meet their own proposed threshold
3. Polls are not a valid deciding factor: Support, opposition, or neutrality gained through the usage of polls will not be factored into a proposal's final results. Polls can be easily manipulated/rigged and thus can not be trusted to accurately measure the community's opinion.
4. Proposals must be open for at least a week: This is so all of the active members of the community have a chance to voice their opinions on the matter. Proposals closed before a week passes will be promptly re-opened and have their time extended.
5. Proposals can't be open for more than three weeks: This is to prevent the unnecessary drawing out of voting periods.
6. Shortening of voting lengths is prohibited: Only extensions may be made to a proposal's voting length. No shortening is allowed. This is to prevent users from deliberately deciding to close their proposals when the numbers are favorable to them.
7. Any user can vote on any proposal: No matter their edit count, how long they've been on the wiki, or if the proposal revolves around them. They're still a part of the community and are allowed to vote. Sockpuppet accounts and blocked users are excluded from this.
8. Users can only be promoted or demoted once a supportive consensus is reached by the community: Users are not to be randomly appointed or fired. The community must form a supportive consensus before either of these things will happen. Users that have been promoted without consensus are excluded from this, and will be swiftly demoted.
9. If you'd like to attain control over someone's piece of fanon work (such as a spin-off), you'll need to receive permission from the owner themself, if they are still active on the wiki. If they haven't edited on the wiki for at least two years, you may make a proposal to adopt such via a blog post. Anyone can vote, and it is yours as long as the proposal passes. If the piece of fanon you want to adopt is owned by multiple people (e.g. Basket Sponge), you must either ask permission from all the active owners, or proceed to create a proposal if none have edited in two years. In the unlikely event that the original owner does return, the rights will have to be given the back if asked, after finishing any work that has been started but not finished (e.g. episodes). Spin-Off seasons do not apply to this rule. If the adopter is inactive and the original owner would like their fanon work back, they must ask someone of the administrative position or higher.
10. Users Cannot Add A Provision to a Proposal Two Days Before It's Closing: Exceptions include if another user requests the change to be added.
11. Users cannot force or bribe someone to change their vote: If it was the user who proposed or not, forcing or bribing anyone to support or oppose a proposal is strictly prohibited.

III. Promotion Policy (revised January 5, 2018)

General Requirements

1. All promotions must have gone through the application process: Unless approved by FANDOM staff, no administrator/bureaucrat should promote any user without community consensus.

Application Process

1. Users must request via valid formats: This means requests must be done through blog posts.
2. Applicants shall not force other users to support them: Applicants are allowed to notify other users of such discussion, without imposing an agenda.

Voting and Closure

1. All requests for rights are considered to be proposals and are to be held under the same guidelines as them seen here: SpongeBob New Fanon Wiki:Policy#II. Proposal Policy

IV. Staff Activity Policy (Revised January 24, 2018)

1. Any staff member (except for bureaucrats) who has not edited in one month, unless they gave prior notice, will be swiftly demoted.
2. Any staff member who has given prior notice would keep their rights until they have reached three months of inactivity.
3. Bureaucrats are exempted from the policy due to their scarcity. However, any user can start a user rights review for a bureaucrat for any reason and the bureaucrat will be demoted if the community approves it.
4. If a staff member was globally blocked for up to six months, they will be exempt from demotion without community consensus. As said before however, any user can create a demotion request for any reason at any time, and if the grounds behind your global upsets the community, keep in mind that you might be demoted. You could also be demoted during your block.
5. If a staff member was globally blocked for more than six months, they will be swiftly demoted.
6. If a staff member was locally blocked for more than one month for any valid reason will be swiftly demoted.

V. Featured Content (revised February 25, 2018)

Users will be encouraged to nominate articles here.

• At the start of the month, the two at the top of both categories will be pitted against each other in a blog made by someone of an administrative position or higher.
• Users will be able to vote for the two articles from each category they would prefer to win by stating the names of them.
• The election would take the entire month, and the winners will be on the main page for the duration of th next month.
• If there is a tie, the vote will continue for a further three days. If the result remains a tie, then they will both be featured on the main page.

VI. Automatic User Rights Reviews (revised January 5, 2018)

1. All administrators will have an automatic user rights review every six months.
2. All content moderators, discussions moderators, chat moderators, and bots will have an automatic user rights review every twelve months.

VII. Content Ownership Policy (revised May 8, 2018)

Vandalism

1. Any user may edit fanon content owned by someone else only if;
   • They themselves are worker/s of the content.
   • The edit being made is simply for grammatical adjustments.
   • Formatting adjustments.
   • The edit was productive and/or was given consent from the owner/s of the fanon.
   • Does not alter the plot or any major point of the fanon content without the consent of any of the owner/s of the content. These may include release dates, adding of workers, change of plot, or any other edit in which the owner/s' consent was not given.
2. Any major adjustments that may come off as vandalism: Vandalism such as blanking of the page, drastic changing of content, adding spam content, etc. should immediately be reverted by any online staff or the owner/s or worker/s of the content.
3. Any staff may give an automatic warning for the vandal: Failure to respond whilst continuing vandalism may result in an immediate ban.
4. If the user hands ownership of any fanon content to anyone and would like it back, the new owner must return ownership: Failure to return ownership will result in a warning from a staff member. If the user continues to refuse they will be blocked.

Community Page

1. Any page with the "Community Page" template means that it can be contributed on by anyone: However, vandalism rules still apply to all pages.
2. Any edit warring will lead to the page's protection: This applies to everyone, wiki staff may protect the page until the conflict is resolved.

Further Info

If you need any help, refer to this list of administrators/bureaucrats. Any user on that list would be happy to help with any problem that you have, whether it be with another user or just some help on a new article.