User blog:Belle pullman/Wiki Rules Discussion!

So you may be experiencing the banner across the top of the page, telling you that a new policy is being introduced - this basically boils down to "Don't ban people unfairly, make sure your rules are clear" - which is all very fair to my mind! But it's something that we're not super well prepared for here. Basic rules like "no Vandalism / Spam" go without saying and follow the Fandom.com global policy, but specific rules for this wiki need to be laid out nice and clear so people editing in good faith can see what not to do.

To my mind, this segues into a Style Guide - for example, we have a specific format for file names. If you upload photos, you need to make sure they're named "character / actor / production / year / detail, number" - if you upload "P78565486POTATO.jpg", it will be renamed and you will be asked NOT to do it again. If you refuse to rename your files and continuously upload filenames like that, you will be banned because you're causing problems. But I know most new editors don't realise this is a rule and make a mistake from the start... we need to make it easier to get it right. A lot of the reasons to ban someone boil down to "you refuse to listen when we've told you not to do what you're doing"!

So, what are the rules specific to this Wiki? What rules need to be spelled out so that someone trolling, coming along and breaking them, is fairly warned before being banned? Do we need to have specific definitions for "Vandalism" and "Spam"? Do we need to include something like "If you're told to not do something, don't do it"? Do we need a formal "Warnings" system?

The wiki is a community project, it's for everyone, so if you've spent some time here, if you know how it works, I need your feedback as this isn't my decision to make!