Supernatural Wiki:Supernatural Wiki is not...

The Supernatural Wiki is an online community of editors looking to build freely editable database of articles related to Supernatural. Members of the community are expected to treat each other with respect, and as such, there are certain things that the Supernatural Wiki generally is not.

Content
Article content should be neutral, relevant to readers, and within the project's scope. If an article or part of one does not meet these criteria, it may have to be cleaned up, or in the case of full articles, on the article's talk page. This section is a guide to what content is generally disallowed by the community.

... for vandalism
Spam, hate messages, hoaxes, and pornography are prohibited on all pages, including user space. Addition of this type of content to articles or other pages will be treated as vandalism, and will result in a warning(s) or a block. This content contributes nothing to the wiki and hurts it in many cases, and so is not allowed. Included in this rule is promotion of said content, which will be treated in an equivalent manner. Please, do us all a favour and post it somewhere else.

... a soapbox
All articles must be written from a neutral point of view. This means that content must be unbiased, and most opinions cannot be expressed outright. Instead, they should be restated so that the author does not appear to hold them, for example, the following sentence would need to be rewritten:

"This episode was horribly inconsistent with previously established lore, and required much ad-hoc retconning to salvage it."

It could perhaps be restated as:

"This episode was inconsistent with previously established lore in episodes such as _____ and _____, and can be seen as a case of retconning."

As well as the addition of a little text, the latter quote is written from a neutral perspective. The vast majority of the content in articles must be written to a similar standard, however most other namespaces, particularly user pages and discussions, are exempt.

Community
Wikis are designed to work by building consensus. Through consensus, the community as a whole decides what pages should be created, who should be given administrative tools, and in general how the wiki should be run. Every editor is able to participate equally in discussion, regardless of their edit count, time on the wiki, or other factors.

... governed
Wikis were not designed to be run by a cabal of administrators, or for that matter, experienced editors. Policies and guidelines should achieve a consensus before they come into effect, and should be written down in project space for all to see. They should be designed to improve the wiki, but can be ignored in cases when they are not accomplishing this task. All users should be able to participate in the development of policies, and in other discussions.

There is no power structure of any sort. Administrators are not "higher" than regular users in any way, other than having access to administrator tools. Likewise, bureaucrats are not higher than administrators, except again that they have access to bureaucrat tools. Users are not given special rights or privileges on the basis of "seniority." All editors are equal.

... a democracy
Community decisions are based upon consensus, not polling. When contributing to a discussion, an argument should be given for your point of view, instead of simply voting. In a vote, all that counts is which side you are giving your vote to. In a wiki consensus, what truly counts is the argument behind your vote. Others will then respond to your argument, and eventually a consensus should be reached one way or another. Once all arguments have been made and responded to, the discussion may be closed by an administrator or bureaucrat, regardless of the time elapsed since the nomination. Closing administrators (for requests for deletion) or bureaucrats (requests for adminship) are given limited discretion in determining whether a consensus has been reached in a discussion. If you feel that the decision made was poor or did not reflect consensus, you can appeal the decision on the closer's talk page, or at another community process. Decisions should never be made simply on the basis of majority vote.

... your web host
Every user has access to a user page on which they can write about themselves. However, this should not be used indiscriminately, as user pages are intended primarily to allow editors to get to know one another better. Users are allowed to add content that is not directly related to the project, but please try to keep this to a minimum so as to prevent such content from using excessive server resources.

The wiki is not Photobucket or Imageshack, either. All uploaded images and videos must serve a purpose that is useful to the project. This means that fake images are disallowed, and images or videos in general that are not used in article space may be deleted at any time. If you upload an image or video to one of the aforementioned sites, however, you may display it in your user space by simply adding the URL to the wikitext.

... based off-site
At times, MediaWiki may not seem like the best way to communicate online. This is why we have the Live! Chat for our editors' usage. However, wiki business should stay on the wiki. Not everyone goes onto the Live! Chat and it is nearly impossible to hold a discussion with all involved parties present, thanks to varied time zones. Likewise, though some of your fellow editors may be Facebook friends or instant messenger contacts, binding decisions must be made solely using discussion on the wiki itself. References to outside discussion that may be relevant in an on-site discussion are acceptable, but they may not be used as the basis for a consensus or decision by themselves.

... Wikipedia
Supernatural Wiki is not Wikipedia, and Wikipedia's rules do not, by default, apply here. While many Supernatural Wiki policies are based on those on Wikipedia, such as neutral point of view, this does not mean that all Wikipedia policies should be followed. As the goals of the two projects are quite different, one to produce a general-purpose encyclopaedia and the other to compile Supernatural information, some policies cannot be shared. However, it is appropriate to suggest that one or more of this wiki's policies should be similar to those on Wikipedia, as long as these policies are not enforced without consensus.