View source for The Vault:Policies and guidelines

{{Games|Wiki}}{{Navbox wiki policies and guidelines}}{{shortcut|The Vault:G|The Vault:P|The Vault:POLICY}}

The Vault's '''policies and guidelines''' aim to provide a comprehensible framework of "do's", "don'ts" and best practices for editors at this wiki. 

Policies set general rules for the wiki's [[The Vault:Administrators|administration]] and its content. Their goal is to establish basic criteria for all content and rules for using [[Help:User access levels|administrative tools]].

Guidelines describe desired etiquette and common practice in the creation, editing and organization of articles on this wiki. Their goal is to make the wiki easier to use for both editors and readers alike and to make its appearance more consistent and streamlined.

==Adding or changing policies and guidelines==
Any editor is free to edit policies and guidelines to improve clarity and readability. However, changes to the actual content or meaning should only be done with community consensus.

To this end, the normal procedure for proposing new policies and guidelines or changing existing ones is to create a topic in the [[Forum:Wiki discussion|"wiki discussion"]] forum. Once the discussion has led to a final draft, call a vote. The vote needs to run for a week at minimum and at least 10 registered editors need to participate for it to be valid; a simple majority is sufficient to pass. The [[The Vault:Administrators and moderators|administrators]] may veto a policy; this should only be done sparingly and for good reasons.

Aside from the normal procedure, the administrators may "decree" policies or guidelines. This should only be done with consensus among administrators and in cases where community consensus cannot be reached but a policy or guideline is needed. Of course, changes to decreed policies and guidelines can be suggested by anyone on the "standard" way above.

==List of policies and guidelines==
{| class="va-table va-table-top va-table-full"
! style="width: 25%;" | Policy/guideline
! style="width: 50%;" | What it concerns
! style="width: 25%;" | Sub-guidelines
|-
| [[The Vault:Administration policy|Administration policy]]
| Administrator actions in general; blocking, deletion and page protection
| 
|-
| [[The Vault:Article layout guideline|Article layout guideline]]
| What to put where in articles
| 
* [[The Vault:Article layout guideline/Character article|Character article layout]]
* [[The Vault:Article layout guideline/Creature article|Creature article layout]]
* [[The Vault:Article layout guideline/Faction article|Faction article layout]]
* [[The Vault:Article layout guideline/Item article|Item article layout]]
* [[The Vault:Article layout guideline/Location article|Location article layout]]
* [[The Vault:Article layout guideline/Quest article|Quest article layout]]
|-
| [[The Vault:Content attribution|Content attribution]]
| How to attribute content copied from our pages, what needs attribution, and what does not
|
|-
| [[The Vault:Content organization guideline|Content organization guideline]]
| How content is organized; what makes a subject qualify for an own article, how to name, how to categorize articles, when and how to disambiguate
| 
|-
| [[The Vault:Content policy|Content policy]]
| What content may be added to the wiki; what rules apply to all content
| 
|-
| [[The Vault:Editing guideline|Editing guideline]]
| How to write and properly format content
| 
|-
| [[The Vault:Image and video policy|Image and video policy]]
| Which images and videos may be uploaded and added to articles as well as quality criteria they should fulfill
|
|-
| [[The Vault:Referencing guidelines|Referencing guidelines]]
| How to reference and format sources properly 
| 
|-
|[[The Vault:Terminal content policy|Terminal content policy]]
|How to format and transfer contents of terminals in games using the Gamebryo and Creation engine
|
|-
| [[The Vault:User conduct guideline|User conduct guideline]]
| How editors should behave
| 
|-
| [[The Vault:IRC channel|IRC channel]]
| How users should behave in the IRC channel.
| 
|-
| [[The Vault:Chat|Chat]]
| How users should behave in chat.
| 
|}

[[Category:Policies and guidelines| ]]