Garfield Wiki:Rules

The wiki follows these rules, and breaking any, whether it be a user or admin will receive sufficient notice. The severity of the reaction is dependant on which rule was broken.

1.0 - User Behaviour

1.01 - General Behaviour

• 1.01.01 - Civility is to be exercised among all users, administrator and user.
• 1.01.02 - Controversial statements concerning religion and politics should be refrained from.
• 1.01.03 - Only the use of minor swear words are allowed to be exercised. See Section 1.03.02 on obscene language.

1.02 - Harassment

• 1.02.01 - Any obscene behaviour that is dehumanising, discriminatory and defaming is seen as harassment. This applies to both users and administrators.
• 1.02.02 - *Any attempt to, or direct action of doxxing is considered harassment and will see the doxxer blocked immediately.

1.03 - Vandalism

Vandalism is dealt by means of account strikes and account blocks. Each account has a max of three strikes they can receive - after three, the user will be banned with notice.

• 1.03.01 - The general points of vandalism are listed as below. Any behaviour seen in one of these categories will be seen harmful and a penalty shall be applied to the account.
  • 1.03.01.01 - Removing approved sections of information.
  • 1.03.01.02 - Adding irrelevant information and images.
  • 1.03.01.03 - Spam: Unsolicited bulk electronic messages . - There are three forms of spam:
    • 1.03.01.03.01 - Spam Form 1 - This is a minor form of spam and will see the user receive a strike concerning their behaviour. Form 1 constitutes as the spamming of text messages and/or harmless content. Penalty for Spam Form 1: One Strike
    • 1.03.01.03.02 - Spam Form 2 - This is the immediate form that follows 1.03.01.03.01 - Spam Form 1 and will see the user immediately blocked from the Garfield wiki. Form 2 constitutes as the continued spamming of Spam Form 1 after the user has received a strike from the administration and/or has had multiple accounts spamming minor content. Penalty for Spam Form 2: One month
    • 1.03.01.03.03 - Spam Form 3 - This is a major form of spam and will see the user immediately blocked from the Garfield wiki. Form 3 constitutes as the spamming of dehumanising, discriminatory and defaming content as apart of 1.02.01 for harassment. Penalty for Spam Form 3: Three months

• 1.03.01 - Pornography is disallowed and considered vandalism.
• 1.03.02 - This excludes obscene language (these being s**t, p*ss, f**k, c**t, c**ks****r, m****rf****r, and t*ts), racist slurs, homophobic slurs and sexual slurs.
• Any type of vandalism or harassment such as dehumanization, discrimination and defamation is disagreed upon. Any user or administrator who exhibits any behaviour of the kind will be ousted.

1.04 - Administration Rules

• 1.04.01 - Administrators are not allowed to outright block users unless the latter has outright vandalised. When an administrator wants to block a non-vandal, it must go through all administrators on the website.
• 1.04.02 - Administrators cannot block users over personal annoyances or vendettas. Administrators need valid reasoning before they can apply such blocks.

• Users can request but not be overbearing, and the person being asked has the ability to reject requests. In that case, their decision should be respected. Continuing to repeat your request or intimidation toward them is considered harassment.
• Cheating people is unacceptable.
• Random questions unrelated to Garfield or the wiki should generally be avoided. It is allowed, but should only be in "small doses".
• Providing uploads to full episodes/specials/movies of Garfield is prohibited due to copyright concerns.
• You may not reproduce, distribute, publicly display or perform, or prepare derivative works based on any of the content including any such works without the express, written consent of Garfield Wiki or the appropriate owner of copyright in such works.
• False/unverified accusations towards other users are unacceptable. If you have tangible proofs for an allegation, be sure to bring them up for review.

2 - Articles

2.1 - Manual of Style

• The wiki shall use American English as its standard form of writing. As Garfield is an American product, the style shall lend itself to the country of origin.
• Subjective material is discouraged.
• Articles shall be written in the third person (He, She, It, They). Use of the first (I, We) and second (Thou, You) is to be avoided.
• Contractions should be avoided (Can not as Can't, Is not as Isn't, etc.) except for titles, names and quotes.
• Before making drastic changes to an article, an administrator should be alerted to reduce likeliness it will be seen as vandalism. This especially applies to removing large tracts of information.
  • Reverting blatant vandalism is an exception to this rule and is encouraged.
• Article Creation:
  • Be sure the chosen topic is officially related to Garfield. Articles on unofficial matters such as fan fiction or unconfirmed staff members should be avoided. If you are not sure if a topic is official, try looking up official sources for confirmation. You can also ask an administrator on his/her message wall, use the forum, or bring it up in chat.
  • Make sure that the topic in mind does not already have an article on the wiki (unless the article is in bad shape, and you think you can do better by starting over).
• When adding information that may only apply to one aspect of the Garfield franchise, especially one that is not well-known in the Garfield fandom, be sure to mention where said information applies.
• While you are not restricted to making one edit for an article at a time, try to make as few edits as possible. If you keep making multiple edits for an article at one time, you may be interrupting someone else trying to edit the same article around the same time.
• Plot Length:
  • Garfield and Friends' episode plots should be four paragraphs long, and average 3-5 lines in each paragraph.
  • The Garfield Show's episode plots should be four paragraphs long, and average 4-7 lines in each paragraph.

2.2 - Trivia

• The following types of information are not allowed for trivia sections:
  • Subjective information (e.g.“he is annoying”), even if there are characters who feel likewise.
    • This also means speculative information, no matter how “obvious” it may seem is considered subjective. You may, however, write such information in the comment sections (which can be found below each article).
  • Anything that may be considered ironic (if you feel it is important, an administrator should be alerted).
  • Coincidental information, such as a story resembling that of something else (unless said story is clearly a parody), a Garfield character sounding like a character from another franchise (particularly if they share the same voice actor), or something occurring on the same day.
  • Some information may be more appropriate on one page than on another; use your best judgement for that, and if in doubt, ask an administrator.

2.3 - Categories

• Certain categories can be used for articles, while others should not be used. Non-article pages may only use default categories.

2.3.1 - Acceptable Categories

• "Comic Strip", "Garfield and Friends", and "The Garfield Show" - used to mark articles focusing on any of those parts of the Garfield universe.
• Season specific categories - e.g. "Garfield and Friends Season 7", "The Garfield Show Season 2".
• "Male Characters" or "Female Characters".
• Species - "Humans" or animal species majorly prevalent to the franchise ("Cats", "Dogs", etc.).
• "Antagonists" (where appropriate).
• "Protagonists" (where appropriate).

2.3.2 - Unacceptable Categories

• "Villains" (or anything with that word) - "Antagonists" should suffice.
• "TV-only Characters" - redundant; "Garfield and Friends" and "The Garfield Show" can be used instead.
• "Characters" - more specific categories would be preferred.
• Combined categories, such as "Male Animals" or "Female Antagonists" - redundant.
• Very specific categories - those that only apply to one article or very few articles, thus defeating the purpose of having such categories.
• "Deceased" or anything to that effect (for real life people) - this sort of information belongs in the opening sentence/infobox of pages where appropriate, thus making the category form redundant.
• Trivial categories.

See also: Categories

2.4 - Pictures

• Make sure that images you upload to articles are in acceptable condition (i.e. not blurry, grainy, overly bright, overly dark). While not disallowed, it is not preferred.
  • Also, avoid using pictures of a screen (e.g. TV, computer) taken from a camera, as these tend to be of bad quality.
• Watermarked images should be avoided.
• Only official Garfield material may be used for articles (including image galleries), not fan-made material (unless on a user profile).

2.4.1 - Comic Books

• While samples of the comic pages may be uploaded to suitable wiki pages, it is illegal to upload an entire comic issue to the Wiki.