Halo Fanon:Rules

Welcome to the Halo Fanon! This is the place to publish your very own fiction or artwork on the Halo universe! All users are invited to proudly show the rest of the community of their own work - after all, you spent all the time and paid the dedication...so payment comes through the Halo Fanon. However, like all organizations, there are a few guidelines.

Rules and regulations

Simplified ruleset

1. BE BOLD! in updating pages. Go ahead, it's a wiki!
   Encourage others, including those who disagree with you, likewise to BE BOLD!
2. Be civil to other users at all times.
3. Ignore all rules. If the rules discourage you from improving or maintaining the wiki's quality, ignore them.
4. When in doubt, take it to the talk page. We have all the time in the world. Mutual respect is the guiding behavioural principle of Wikia and, although everyone knows that their writing may be edited mercilessly, it is easier to accept changes if the reasons for them are understood. If you discuss changes on the article's talk (or discussion) page before you make them, you should reach consensus faster and happier.
5. Respect copyright.
6. Decent edit summaries and clear and transparent explanations are universally appreciated. Other editors need to understand your process, and it also helps you yourself to understand what you did after a long leave of absence from an article. Please state what you changed and why. If the explanation is too long, add more on the discussion page.
7. Assume good faith; in other words, try to consider that the person on the other end of the discussion is a thinking, rational being who is trying to positively contribute to the project — unless, and only unless, you have firm, solid, and objective proof to the contrary. Merely disagreeing with you is no such proof.
8. Particularly, don't revert good faith edits. Reverting is too powerful sometimes. Don't succumb to the temptation, unless you're reverting very obvious vandalism (like "LALALALAL*&*@#@THIS_SUX0RZ", or someone changing "1+2=3" to "1+2=17"). If you really can't stand something, revert once, with an edit summary something like "(rv) I disagree strongly, I'll explain why in talk." and immediately take it to talk.
9. No personal attacks. Don't write that user such and so is an idiot, or insult him/her (even if (s)he is an idiot). Instead, explain what they did wrong, why it is wrong, and how to fix it. If possible, fix it yourself (but see above).
10. Be graceful: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Try to accommodate other people's quirks the best you can, but try to be as polite, solid, and straightforward as possible yourself.
11. Sign your posts on talk pages using ~~~~, which gets replaced by your username and timestamp when you hit Save. But don't sign on mainspace articles.
12. Use the preview button; it helps prevents edit conflicts and mistakes.

One: Have Fun

The first rule is to have fun. The Administration Team of Halo Fanon, might, on a mercurial whim, ban people that do not have fun.

Two: Be courteous and civil

This is in accordance with standard society etiquette rules. Need clarification?

2.1:No extensive use of epithets ― Mild usage may be permitted, as the Halo games are rated "M" for Mature (17+) (ESRB), but users may request to not have profanity used around them. These requests will be honored by administrators and will be enforced if required.

2.2: No arguments ― Do not let things get out of hand. Any problems should be reported as soon as possible to the Administrator Team. The administrators can take more immediate and concise action.

2.3: Keep it clean ― We ask that you please keep all amorous events at a strictly PG-13 level. If you wish to explore the Halo universe beyond PG-13 level, you may do so as long as it is not in breach of Rule 2.1. Please refrain from writing a story that is purely sex for sexuality's sake (i.e. pornofic, lemon, etc) and remember that this site contains a wide range of users from different age groups, who may not be comfortable and/or mature enough to handle such a subject. If you have any questions about this particular rule, please direct them to the senior administrator on duty.

2.4: No personal attacks ― This means directly insulting someone with abusive language, whether on their talk page or on the talk page of an article that happens to be under discussion at the time. The users on this site are requested to act in a mature fashion, and resorting to childish and hurtful terms is out of line, warranting a Civility Warning.

Three: Editing permission

3.1: No editing other people's work without their explicit permission ― Self-explanatory; you are not allowed to edit user's work without their explicit permission. You do, however, have the right to fix minor grammatical/spelling mistakes/canon errors in an article. However, if the author complains, the situation will be looked into.

3.2: You cannot use other people's work without their explicit permission ― This means no using articles along with content used in those articles without permission from the author/creator. See Rule 5 for clarification.

Four: Relationship to the Halo Universe

4.1: Fanon should be Halo-related ― This is Halo Fanon, after all: while history for Humanity, the Covenant, the Forerunners, the Flood and even your own races are allowed, fictions taking place in the distant future are generally frowned upon. Just try to connect your articles with Halo in a more-than-minuscule way.

4.2: Crossovers from other fictional universes are frowned upon ― This means that we do not want to see your Mario Chief combating SOLDIERS controlled by Sovereign alongside Vince Valentine and Han Solo. If you absolutely have to, have to, must make a crossover, please do so on your user name space, where it will not be deemed a rule-breaker. The same goes for any directly-imported technology, species, ships, and characters from other games. Using a picture of one of these items to illustrate an original Halo-related concept is acceptable, but directly copying said item from the game is grounds for an NCF and/or Rule Breaker template.

Five: Canon friendliness

This site takes pride of following the canon Halo universe to an extent; for more information, see the Canon Policy.

5.1: No direct contradictions of definitively established canon ― Self explanatory; content in Halo Fanon should follow the established canon. The community of this wiki expects you to be fully aware of the canon Halo universe to a significant degree and attempt to keep articles canon-friendly as far as possible. Canonical violations will not be allowed, including "god-modding" and overpowering characters or technology. In the event that this rule is broken, articles are to be marked with the NCF template. If no changes are made after a two week waiting period, articles may be marked with the Rule Breaker template and a vote to move the article to namespace will commence. This rule will not apply to rule 5.4.

5.2: Make sure that your articles are within reason ― Since the Halo universe is essentially a science fiction universe, realism, such as obeying the laws of physics, gravity or just plain common sense is required.

5.3: Humor articles must be in good form and tagged with a special template ― They are allowed to stay on the mainspace only if they are for humorous purposes only. This can be done by using the Humor template. This means that they cannot be used with any other "serious" universes, and if they are, they will be considered NCF. If it is found that the article is meant to be serious, but is using the humor tag to dodge an NCF tag, it will be immediately moved to namespace or deleted.

5.4: Alternate Universe content is a special case ― Whereas Expanded Universe expands on an established canon, Alternate Universe tend to defy the established canon and follow a "What if" approach. Users are allowed to create an Alternate Universe by using the Alternate template as long as it is in accordance with rule 5.3 and the limitations of the Alternate template.

Six: Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a bad user conduct ― If it can be proved that your article is a direct copy of the work of another author, internet artist, or even a contributor to this site, it will be tagged with the appropriate template, {{Plagiarism}}. The tagging person must have evidence that the article is plagiarised, or the tag will be summarily removed. If evidence is provided and changes have not been made after one week of the article being tagged, the user in violation of this rule will be given a warning as to their conduct. After that week has passed, if the article has still not been modified, the user will be given a second warning and a 24-hour ban. Their article will be deleted. Upon a third violation of this rule, a one month ban will be issued. A fourth warning will result in a year, while a fifth will be grounds for a permanent block/ban from the site.

Seven: Administration

7.1: Administrators are not above the rules and policies ― Administrators are simply users with a few extra buttons. They are also susceptible to the rules and policies as established in this page.

7.2: Official wiki titles are reserved for Administration use only ― Please do not use Halo Fanon: or Project: in the title of your page. That marking is reserved for official wiki pages only and will be removed on the spot, with your article being either renamed or deleted. As you might assume, using "Halo:" at the beginning of the title is perfectly fine! All the books start that way, so why shouldn't your fanon?

7.3: The decision of the administrators is final ― Although the Halo Fanon Wikia is a fun place to be to send your fanon to each other, be aware that violations will result in a block from editing.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is canon? This is the question that we deal with the most on this site! To answer your question comprehensively, we have given it its own page, which explains in great detail what you can and cannot do! It is very important that you do this as soon as you can, since it will help you avoid conflict in your first few weeks here as a new user, and help us catch and correct rule breakers as fast as we can. Would you like to know more?

• "I need help getting started!" Our users are here for you! In fact, a couple of them got together and wrote you a guide on how to write really good fanon! We will offer links to both guides, though the one we recommend to you and endorse as the Administration is Specops306's, which is quite in-depth and relates more to writing your first articles than it does to site conduct. If you are ever confused, do read it. Would you like to know more?

The other guide on this site was written as more of a sarcastic guide on how to handle yourself socially on the site. It gives relatively good information about what Admins are, what the different templates around the site are, and yells at you. Quite a lot. If you are sensitive, we recommend that you do not look at this page, as it was written for those stubborn and disliked users who refuse to follow the rules. Would you like to know more?

• What about humo(u)r articles? So, do you want to make a parody of Halo? Or do you want to write a funny story in the Halo universe? Well, we have an allowance for humo(u)r articles! However, you must mark them with a special template, {{Humour}}, before you can start writing. Remember though, some rules do still apply to humo(u)r article. Please make sure that you know them and obey them. Would you like to know more?

• What should I know about blogs? They are basically personal opinion pieces for you to write and for others to comment on! If you've got an opinion about something and want to rant about it or share it with others, feel free to start up one of these blogs so that everyone can see it. But be advised, we do have a few rules about what you can and cannot do with your blogs, and these are listed below. Please check them out as soon as you can.

Blog Guidelines

Blogs are not meant as a replacement for Halo Fanon's forums. While forums are meant for discussion, blogs are meant to present the viewpoint of a single author. If your intent is to gather opinions or input of other members in the community, it belongs as a forum thread. If the blog is more suited for the forums, an Administrator will indicate that it belongs on the forums and he or she will move it to that namespace.

1. Must be related to Halo or the Halo Fanon Wiki.
2. Must have a minimum length of two paragraphs or more, complete with good grammar and spelling.
3. Have a thesis or purpose.
4. Be understandable to the average user.
5. Not include any advertisements whatsoever.
6. Blog comments will have a minimum of five words in length and not contain spam material.

Voting Rules

In order to participate in a vote, a user must meet the following qualifications:

1. Created an account at least one month (for general votes) or two months (for special votes) before the voting process takes place. This means that if a vote takes place in September, any user who joined in August cannot vote yet.
2. Have at least 100 mainspace edits (for general votes) or 500 mainspace edits (for special votes). This is ridiculously simple. If you just post on people's talk pages or troll the blogs and forums, you don't get to vote because you don't actually contribute to the site. Just make articles and update them. Not that hard, so no whining.
3. Not be currently banned. Again, ridiculously simple. If we find the account is a sock puppet, it will be summarily banned and your vote is, needless to say, invalidated.

Report Rule Breakers

Use this template to report rule breakers:
{{Rule Breaker|Rule#}}

The Council decided to have you hung by your entrails and your corpse paraded through the city. But, ultimately, the terms of your execution are up to me. This article breaks rule number {{{1}}}, as is explained in the Discussions Page. Please fix immediately. If this warning goes unheeded, this article will be moved to the owner's user namespace.