The Underland Cyclopedia:Policies

Policies
General policy Blocking policy Blog policy Deletion policy Editing policy Image policy Layout guide Multiple accounts Neutral point of view No personal attacks Protection policy References Signatures Talk page policy User policy Voting policy

Policies and guidelines have been developed on The Underland Cyclopedia to further the goal of creating a freely editable cyclopedia on The Underland Chronicles.

Policies apply to all editors. The Underland Cyclopedia strives to create a welcoming and fun environment for those who are civil to and assume good faith in others, seek consensus in discussions, and work towards the goal of creating an increasingly comprehensive cyclopedia about everything in the Underland universe.

Policies need to be approached with common sense; adhere to the spirit rather than the letter of the rules, and be prepared to ignore the rules on the rare occasions when they conflict with the goal of improving the wiki.

The number one, most important commandment of the cyclopedia is:

Suzanne Collins's word is law.

Content

First and foremost, the Underland Cyclopedia is exactly that - an online cyclopedia wiki centered around The Underland Chronicles. We host information, facts, images, and official theories related to the Underland on this site, as well as discussions about the material presented here. We do not entertain any fan fiction, images, or ramblings (collectively "fanonsense"), advertisements, spam, or articles not directly associated with the Underland universe. You may talk about anything which you like on your talk page, or add the same in your namespace, as long as it is legal and is in accordance with our user policy. Just remember that this wiki is not a social networking site. If you don't want to make yourself useful - scram.

All the content in this wiki (i.e. text, images, music) must be in the public domain; unless you have obtained permission to use them publicly, copyrighted files will be removed, no matter how nicely written or beautifully shot. Quotes, facts, and figures may be taken from anywhere, as long as they are sourced. All text must be original - no copying from Wikipedia or from other websites.

Any users or editors who repeatedly refuse to follow these rules may be banned at the discretion of any administrator, and their contributions deleted.

Vandalism

If you see an act of vandalism, please revert the page to its original state and report the vandal.

Any users committing acts of vandalism will be blocked and sent to the Dead Lands for a period of 24-72 hours. Repeat offenders will receive punishment for high treason and be blocked indefinitely (with the exception of anonymous IP addresses). Administrators may also choose to use their best discretion and block for a longer or shorter period of time. Difficult to block or otherwise exceptional vandals will be reported to a staffer at Wikia.

No Copy Policy

All articles must be written so that they have complete and comprehensive information, at the same time being distinct from their Wikipedian counterparts. Some users and/or anons cut and paste Wikiarticles, leaving a whole tangled mess of redlinks and loops in TUC articles.

If you see an article which seems to be a copy of a Wikipedian article, you can either be bold and rewrite the article yourself, or you can paste {{dwfy}} at the top of the article and wait for someone else to dewikipediafy (abbr. "deWPfy") the article.

Style

"In-universe" point of view

For the sake of consistency, all articles written about people, places, or things within the Underland Chronicles Universe have to be written from an "in-universe" perspective rather than from a "real world" perspective: for example, "Gregor was an Overlander in the Underland Chronicles" should be changed to "Gregor was an Overlander from New York City". This rule naturally does not apply for subjects outside the Underland Chronicles Universe, like Suzanne Collins, publishers, and the books. Subjects that exist both in the real world and in the UC Universe should be written about from an in-universe perspective (e.g. New York City, Carnegie Hall, etc.).

Should a reference be necessary, one may use the <ref> tag. For example <ref name=GTO>''[[Gregor the Overlander]]''</ref> would create a reference to Gregor the Overlander. Please check out our reference guide for more information.

Articles should be written in the past tense, as if the editor is writing from a point in the future after the events in the series have taken place. This is to maintain a consistent and uniform feel to the articles, and to eliminate ambiguity by switching tenses in the middle of an article.

Spelling

Since the Underland Chronicles is originally an American series, the U.S. editions are the final source on spelling and phrases. Small examples are such things as the usage of alternate spellings like "color" instead of "colour," or "Prophecy" instead of "Prophesy." We should strive to remain consistent with the American versions wherever applicable. Where there exist multiple spellings, redirects should be made to the page with the American variant.

Naming of articles

Article naming of a character or person will, wherever possible, abide by the following conditions:

• An article's title should contain their real name as opposed to a nickname
  • For example: Use Margaret II instead of Boots.
• Formal titles are not to be used in an article's title, with a few exceptions (e.g. Mrs. Cormaci)
  • Titles include: King, Queen (and derivatives)

Capitalization

Races

Races should not be capitalized. These include humans, gnawers, crawlers, shiners and any other races in the Underland Chronicles.

Languages

The languages of a race are generally the same as the race itself (e.g. crawlers speak Crawler). The language should always be capitalized.

Stubs

If you don't know enough information on a topic, an article is way too small, or you know there's more then add a stub to it. To do so, just add this to the bottom of the content (A clear line above the [[Category:...]] tags):

{{stub}}

And people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category.

Page moves and rewrites

As with any Wiki article, please do not make drastic changes and rewrites without the consent of other editors. Exceptions can be made if the article is in obviously bad shape.

General editing

Reference edits

Do not make edits involving adding information without also adding references using the reference tags (e.g. <ref name=></ref>). Edits that have not been referenced can and will be reverted without fail, no matter how hard you have worked on the information you gathered.

Use the edit summary

When editing pages, try to fill in the "Summary" box above the Save/Preview buttons before saving, and make sure that you fill it in with something useful describing the edit you made and, if it's not obvious, why. For example, "fixed spelling error" or "added fun fact" or "reverted edits by 127.0.0.1" are all acceptable. Saying "made some changes" or just filling in the name of the page is not helpful, because it's information that we already have. Making your Summaries accurate and useful makes it vastly easier for the rest of us to keep track of Recent Changes and keeps everybody happy.

Use the minor edit button

If you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), try to remember to check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.

Don't use conversational style

This is an online cyclopedia. It should read like an encyclopedia, not like your diary.

• Check your spelling and grammar. Don't use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you're not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you're not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor or web browser which has spell-checking (Firefox 2 and derivatives such as Lolifox, and Opera when ASpell is installed all work).
• Don't use "smileys" or "emoticons" in articles.
• Don't "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's talk page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' talk pages.

Don't sign your edits

All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you've made an edit that you're particularly proud of, the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too.

Sign talk page posts

If you make a post on a discussion page or in the forum, please sign it. This is as easy as typing ~~~~ at the end of your post. If you don't have a user account, you could also sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who's who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you're going to stick around. And getting an account gives you benefits such as being able to upload images to contribute, move pages that need moving, and the community will let you make use of your own userspace. (Anon users generally don't get that because their userspace may be shared among a number of people)