Pika Fanon:Userspace policy

Pikafanon's userspace policy is a binding contract on this wiki. By having an account on this wiki, you are agreeing to follow this policy in your editing. It aims to promote constructive editing of our wiki, rather than needless, vain edits.

In a nutshell, it explains that you cannot edit your userpage too often, or include certain prohibited content (listed below). Users who break this rule may find they lose the ability to edit their userpage. New users must have completed a set number of mainspace edits before they can create their userpage.

The policy was instituted to place emphasis on the improvement of overall content. The current limit is as follows:
 * at most five userspace edits per person per day, AND
 * at least one more mainspace edit than userspace per person per day.

To clarify, if you wish to make one userspace edit, you must make two mainspace edits. If you wish to make two userspace edits, you must make three mainspace edits. If you wish to make three userspace edits, it is expected that you make four mainspace edits.

Multiple pages in your userspace all count toward your edits. The Editorial Board may offer exclusions from the policy to users who are using their userspace to test a new template or page intended for the mainspace. Sandboxes are an example of this.

Background
Pikafanon is primarily an fan fiction/roleplaying wiki site. In spite of that, our editors each have their own "userspace" where they may add any kind of content they please (within reason). However, past experience shows that many users use their userpages, and thus, the wiki itself as a social site like Facebook, rather than editing their articles and participating in other activities on the site.

Warnings
Warnings will be issued to users who edit their userspace excessively. While the definition of "excessive" is up to the person who sees this, a guideline would be seeing multiple edits to the same or multiple userpages within a very short timeframe. If a user has done this, they will be given their first warning, which instructs them to not edit the userspace so much and to use the preview button if they need to make constant adjustments.

Blatant disregard for the first warning leads to a second, then to a third, and if the user continues despite the repeated warnings, loss of the ability to edit userpages.

Content
This is fairly standard. Obviously, no pornographic material is allowed in any form, as this is a website frequented by children. Additionally, none of the following are tolerated on subpages in any way, shape, or form.


 * Games (such as "find the picture with the subheader under it")
 * Missions (such as "Go through the 'maze' of subpages to reach the end and find the Shiny !")
 * Riddles (self-explanatory)
 * User created awards (can be considered a form of friend listing. Pikafanon does have its own award system, however, so this is why this is advised against)
 * FAQ pages (self-explanatory)
 * Spoofing the MediaWiki interface (fake "new messages" boxes or other system-generated messages are disallowed)
 * Categories intended for mainspace pages (categories such as Category:Pokémon are a navigational aid between mainspace pages, and as such should not include userpages; this includes categories added by some templates—make sure to use a non-categorising version)
 * Anything else deemed inappropriate by the will be deleted as well. If you feel your material was taken down unreasonably or in error, contact whoever did it for their reasoning. Contact a  if you want to know if something not specified here is allowed or not: they are all here to help.

If you see that someone has something snazzy on their userpage (for example, a talk page HP bar, random Pokémon generator or customized party template), then you need to ask their permission before using it on your own userpage.

Content deletion
Users at level or above have the authority to delete any content they feel is breaching the userspace policy. Offenders will generally be given a day or two to "rescue" their content and save it somewhere that isn't on the wiki.

If you wish to have your own content deleted (one or two pages), simply tag the page with. If you wish to delete multiple pages (such as a collection of sandbox pages) then contact an active administrator, bureaucrat or Editorial Board member on their talk page. This will reduce edits and save the list of recent changes from temporarily being spammed.

Circumventing the userspace policy
A user breaches the userspace policy when he or she attempts to avoid the restrictions on userspace content by:


 * Creating a page in the mainspace;
 * Treating their talk page as an area for personal content (a two sentence blurb is fine provided you don't keep editing it excessively; posting teams or usertags on your talk page is not);
 * Asking another user to edit for them; or
 * Creating additional accounts and editing personal content with that account.

Content in breach of the policy will be deleted.

Other users' pages
Userpages are personal pages, and are not to be edited by other users unless prior permission has been given. Instances in which this is permitted include, but are not limited to, broken links that appear on the [[Special:WantedPages|wanted pages], uncategorizing a userpage categorized in a category it should clearly not be in, reverting vandalism, etc. Spelling mistakes, however, and other minor things like this that do not affect the overall running of Pikafanon are to be left untouched. If a change you wish to make to another user's page does not fall under one of the above categories, ask an administrator or that user for permission. Please also note this permission in the edit summary.

If you currently cannot edit your userpage
If you find yourself unable to edit your userpage, this may be due to one of four reasons:
 * Your account is not autoconfirmed: a special status is required before you can edit your userpage; this can be automatically earned by editing Pikafanon's mainspace.
 * You have been put into the "abuse" usergroup for overediting your page and breaching this policy.
 * Your userpage has been protected: see the protecting administrator for assistance.
 * Your account has been blocked: in which case you will have to wait out the block.

If you cannot edit your userpage and don't seem to fit one of these four categories, seek help from a.