Mass Effect Fanon:Editing Policy

The Mass Effect Fanon editing policy is an official policy on the Mass Effect Fanon that describes the types of edits users are permitted to make to articles that they themselves did not write. Since Mass Effect Fanon is a Wikia Wiki, all users who have not been blocked are able to edit articles. However, because the Wiki is not a storehouse of information found elsewhere, but rather a place for fan fiction writers to come together and write their own Mass Effect fiction, the view of an individual's fan fiction universe should be respected. There are a series of things that users can and cannot do when editing on Mass Effect Fanon, and this policy was created to document the policies.

Edits

Permissible edits

There are a series of edits that are permitted to be made under the editing policy. First, it needs to be understood by all users that the alteration, addition or removal of story content is not in any way one of these permissible edits, unless the user has the approval of the page author. Without the permission of the page author, the edits that the users are entitled to make deal mainly with spelling, grammar, formatting and other mechanical related edits. The allowed edits are:

1. A user created another article under a similar or identical name and they wish to disambiguate the pages.
2. Spelling errors are being corrected.
3. The article is being categorized.
4. A user is correcting grammar to a more appropriate version of a sentence. It should be noted that if the author does not like the edit then they are entitled to revert it without it counting towards the three revert rule.
5. Vandalism is being reverted.
6. A user has permission from the original author to edit his or her page.
7. The article is being organized or conformed under the Manual of Style.
8. Punctuation errors are being corrected.
9. The article is being formatted to appear more professional.
10. Instances of the article, but not the story, are being rewritten to read more professionally. An example would be changing "John Doe soldier did a lot of stuff in the Alliance" to a more proper "John Doe soldier was said to have been influential in the Alliance during his life".

Impermissible edits

Although there are edits that users are entitled to make to articles belonging to other authors, there are still edits that they are not permitted to make. These mostly include story changes or vandalism. The disallowed edits are:

1. A user is adding their own ideas to an article that they did not create, and the article does not have a free-edit template or the user does not have the permission of the original author.
2. A user is taking away some of the information in the article.
3. A user is making a deliberate attempt to deface the article or user.
4. A user is placing the {{Cleanup}} template on the article and figuratively walking away from it without any intent to fix the article. It is encouraged that authors make an attempt to clean up the article before placing the template.

Fanon 'stealing'

What users refer to as “fanon stealing” is using any storyline content or names created by another author without their permission, or linking to other user’s articles without their permission. This is not permissible under the editing policy without the approval of the author of the articles in question.

Dealing with edits

Users who have found that their articles have been edited should recognize that there are proper and improper ways of handling the situation. First and foremost, if there are numerous edits to an article, the author should contact an administrator or a user with rollback rights immediately so that the edits can be reverted to the last legitimate version.

Should the author wish to contact the user who made unauthorized edits, then that is their prerogative, but they should do it calmly and politely while explaining to the user that it is not their place to make such edits. However, if it was a good faith edit, meaning a permissible edit, then authors should not hassle the user. They should check to see if they want to keep the edit, and then thank the user for trying to help make their article more professional. It should be kept in mind that if someone caught a mistake that was made, the author should be happy that the article has been improved.

If the author does not believe that the edit was helpful, or it was an impermissible edit, then the author is encouraged to keep their cool and calmly revert it, or have an administrator revert it for them. If the other user persists on making the change, contact an administrator and the user may be punished for either fanon stealing whether it be from a warning or a follow-up block from editing. Regardless of whether they persist, authors are to never insult the user, as this qualifies as a personal attack and can get the author banned, and empty threats are never to be given, even if dealing with vandalism. If a vandal is editing an article, then administrators are in place to deal with it.

It should be noted that authors are not permitted to use copyright law in an effort to forbid users from editing their articles. All articles on the Wiki are submitted under GFDL licenses, and by editing here users agree to these redistribution and editing liberties, although because of internal policies the editing and redistribution can only take place outside of Mass Effect Fanon so long as credit is given to the original author. Because Wikia servers are located in Florida, all copyright laws dealing with Mass Effect Fanon fall under the jurisdiction of the United States of America. Because of this, authors cannot submit the entirety of a copyrighted work, as it may not qualify as fair use.

Consequences

Should a user violate the editing policy, there are two different justifications for an administrator blocking them that can be used. The first is for “fanon stealing”, which is the unauthorized use of articles belonging to other users, although it can also apply to the alteration, addition or removal of story content from other user’s articles. The consequences for that infraction, along with the potential fanon stealing deletion discussion, are as follows:

• First offense - warning
• Second offense - three (3) day ban
• Third offense - one (1) week ban
• Fourth offense - two (2) week ban
• Fifth offense - permanent ban

The second justification is violation of the three revert rule should users persist in making impermissible edits to articles belonging to other users. The consequences are blocks from editing that last up to twenty-four hours, or one day, although administrators are under no obligation to block a user for violation of the three revert rule.