Pokémon Wiki:Wiki Staff policies

Bureaucrats, Administrators, Content Moderators, Thread Moderators and Rollbacks, also called wiki staff, are able to exercise certain rights within the community. However, keeping in mind certain rules, they can exercise these rights.

Reverting

Anyone with or without rights can undo another user's edits, but it takes a lot of clicks to do so. Users who have rollback rights can revert multiple edits of another user with a single click.

Rules

Read the rules below carefully before exercising this right:

• Do not use this right unnecessarily.
  • If someone has made an edit that is inappropriate or doesn't match the topic of the wiki, you are free to revert it.
• If you feel that another user made an edit with good intentions, but the edit turned out to be incorrect, please let them know.
  • It is not mandatory to send a message to a user who vandalizes community pages.

Protecting

Administrators or Content Moderators can protect or unprotect pages, including ones that do not exist. Protecting a community page or image means that no other user, who is not an admin, can make any edits to that page or image.

The majority of pages on the wiki should remain publicly editable, and not protected. Pages may, however, be temporarily or permanently protected for legal reasons (for example, license texts should not be changed) or in cases of extreme vandalism, edit warring or abusive re-creation.

A page can be permanently protected for following reasons:

• Protecting highly vandalized pages.
• Maintaining the integrity of key copyright and license pages.
• Preventing repeatedly created vandal or spam pages from creation.

MediaWiki pages are automatically protected, leaving only Administrators with the option to edit them.

A temporary protection is used for:

• Enforcing a "'cool down'" period to stop an "edit war", upon request.
• Protecting a page or image that has been a recent target of persistent vandalism or persistent edits by a banned user.
• An Administrator or a Content Moderator can protect the page from any other user without their user rights. This includes rollback users.

Rules

These are the guidelines for protecting pages:

• Do not make the common mistake of protecting pages unnecessarily. For example, do not protect a page simply because it is the Main Page.
• Do not edit a temporarily protected page except to add a notice explaining the page is protected.
• Do not protect a page you are involved in an edit dispute over.
• Avoid favoring one version of the article over another, unless one version is vandalism.
• Temporarily protected pages should not be left protected for very long.
• Talk pages and Message Walls should not be protected except in extreme circumstances. This includes a personal attack from another user, by writing slurs or posting inappropriate content.
• The protection of a page on any particular version is not meant to express support for that version and requests should therefore not be made that the protected version be reverted to a different one.

Deleting

Administrators or Content Moderators have the ability to remove or restore any page in this community. Pages that violate community guidelines are removed.

Reasons

Below are some of the reasons under which these pages can be removed:

• Copyright violation: Pages that infringe copyright should be removed immediately.
• Does not exist, Already exists: A page that is rubbish or does not match the subject. Additionally, if any page is in the wiki and another similar page is made, then it should also be removed.
• Marked for deletion: If any page is marked as candidate for deletion, please act on it as per your common sense.
• Fanon or speculation: Pages focused on fanon/speculation are not needed.
• Spam: Spamming pages or files is strictly prohibited.
• Lack of information: Content with not enough material to identify the article's subject.

Blocking

In case a user has violated the rules, a Bureaucrat or an Administrator can block them.

Depending on the severity of the crime, a user can be blocked from either three days or longer. The Administrator or Bureaucrat must provide a reason for blocking a user.

After the block expires, if a user returns to the site and violates another rule, the Administrator or Bureaucrat can block them for a longer period of time. In case where the user has violated the rules repeatedly (four or more times), the block placed is indefinite. Blocks for adding vandalism, copyright violations or spam/advertising pages can be granted without warning; in other cases the user should be warned to stop their behavior. The lengths of each block are shown below, unless the user violates any of the underlined rules listed in the Communication policy, in which the length should be extended to the next option on the list:

First block: 1 week

Second block: 2 weeks

Third block: 1 month

Fourth block: Indefinite

Block Appeals

The appeal criteria differs depending on the number of blocks a user has accumulated followed by the block's length. Fresh partial blocks also count as sanctions. Off-topic Post bans are ineligible for this criteria as these cannot technically be listed in the Block Log, in other words these can be appealed at any time.

• First-time and Second-time blocks have no appeal restrictions, regardless of length. In the case of "Abusing multiple accounts", a link to the blocked user's other accounts must be listed before filing an appeal.
• Third blocks require a minimum waiting period of 10 days before considering an appeal, otherwise these should always be declined. If the block length is less than 10 days (e.g. 1 week) then any appeals will always be declined.
• Fourth blocks - which is the equivalent of a community ban - and subsequent blocks after that, require a minimum waiting period of 6 months before filing an appeal.

If the blocked user's appeal is declined, further appeals must not be made until after 6 months have passed, or until the block expires.

Thread Moderation

Administrators, as well as Thread Moderators may also receive notifications about reported posts. These typically come with two icons: A green check mark for approve and a red trash bin for delete. If you're unsure whether a post or comment should be deleted or approved, send a report over at the Discussions Council Post providing a link to the reported post.

• Thread-moderators are required to follow the Pokémon Center Post to keep up to date with the latest reports and questions regarding forum matters.
• They must also read the required protocols listed in the Communication Policy, as well as the Discussions Council Post for any significant policy changes or to report block requests.
• To stop notifications on reported posts, go to "My Preferences" by clicking on your user icon, select the "Notifications" tab and uncheck the box in the "Web notifications for moderators" section.

Promotion

Any user who wishes to become a community staff member must complete all of the prerequisites for their preferred roles and apply here, following the rules and criteria outlined there. Alternatively, the Administrative Council, which consists of administrators and bureaucrats, has the authority to select anyone to the positions of Content Moderator, Thread Moderator, and Rollback using a simple majority consensus.

Emergency Appointments

In the event of an emergency, Bureaucrats are granted the power to designate any qualified individual (who meets at least two requirements for the position) to any administrative level, without the need for a voting process. If the appointed individuals remain in their positions for a period of five months without any instances of misconduct, they will be considered permanent and will be entitled to the same privileges. However, within the initial five-month period, the appointing authority retains the power to remove the individual at any given time.

Quick Answers Editor

While Administrators have the privilege to edit the Quick Answers feature themselves, they can also opt to promote other users to access this feature. Promotion of these rights can be granted either by following the process at User rights requests, or by an Administrative Council vote. For the latter, the user must meet at least one of the following criteria:

• They are an administrator on another established wiki - in which case they must provide a link onto an active Administrator's Message Wall - and have a reasonably good record on their Message Wall/User talk page.
• They are regularly active on this wiki as outlined in the process listed at PW:RECALL.

If the request is accepted a discussion regarding a final decision will take place on the Administrative Council post. Quick Answers Editors may also ask questions and report issues on the Content Development Council Post.

Demotion

Due to inactivity - depending on the criteria listed at /Inactivity, or a proven abuse of authority, a wiki staff member may be demoted.

• For security reasons, an inactive staff's rights are taken away. The person receives their role back once they've returned and followed the respective re-application policy.
• In cases of abuse of authority, a proper vote is necessary, much like one for promotion, and a full inquiry must be carried out. The vote must pass with the same number of votes needed for the promotion of the individual in question to the same position. For users holding the positions of Content Moderator, Thread Moderator, and Rollback, an alternative method of demotion is to hold a proper discussion and investigation inside the Administrative Council, which is made up of administrators and bureaucrats. A majority consensus is required for the resolution to pass.

Any self-demotion, regardless of the cause, is not considered a permanent demotion, and the user is always permitted to reclaim their position after committing to serve the wiki.

Transfer of rights

A wiki staff can, at any time, transfer their rights to another account of their own.