Board Thread:2014 - A Year of Change/@comment-4139585-20140901130424/@comment-4050367-20140902202701

Alright guys, some explaining should be done.

Firstly: Yes, wikis are for teenagers and adult, which by that time have most likely used profanity in real life or online before. However, it is important to remember that even in real life, profanity is still at times inappropriate, and unacceptable when at school, a workplace, or even sometimes at home. It’s also worthy to mention that it is still a wiki concerning Ben 10 topics, which is a children’s show. This means that while it’s alright to go darker and more mature (using the alternatives or hell/crap/damn), we do not need sex scenes, using narcotics and alcohol, and once again, not every page needs an F bomb. We don’t need words that would be in R-rated movies on 5000 pages of the wiki. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should. Tl;dr: We’re going to act like adults and not use profanity because we can. Also we’re not TEE (which its only rules are to not be a n00b).

Secondly:  The statement that Paper was referring to was not on the main guidelines page, but rather the Chat policy, and referred only to the chat policy. Its intention was to clean-up the chatroom. Never had the statement been made for wiki pages. Paper has simply taking this concept, and applied it to the Behavior Policy, and therefore the main wiki as a whole. Below is the quote from the chat policy:

"NOTICE: It is the intention of the administrators to slowly begin removing the variants off from chat to keep chat clean. By the end of the year, the only variant that will be allowed to remain is "Ghey", but it will only be allowed to be used if not used to insult someone."

- http://ben10fanfiction.wikia.com/wiki/Ben_10_Fan_Fiction_Wiki:Chat

Thirdly: This statement was made in January 2014, and currently it is September. This means we have had 2/3 of a winter, a spring, and a summer pass by. We have newer users, and opinions may have changed. Therefore,  even in January 2014 administrators agreed to tighten on the type of language used on the wiki, its necessary to re-evaluate the rules, and determine how flexible they should be at the present time, and if they truly are necessary, or in need of revision.

Fourthly:  If nothing changes and this change to the policy remains, it would not affect any previous use of the words pre-September 1st. Users who use these words should be reminded of the update to the policy, as an attempt to get the idea in people’s minds that these words are no longer acceptable. Once a month-two months have passed, then I believe it would alright to start enforcing this policy more with warnings.

Finally: Like all topics in all governments and even wikis, these are simply one of the things up for debate. Users with no rights and users with rights should take into consideration both points of views on the subject. If there is an agreement, and the majority of the wiki agrees that we should revert, then we will revert. The community should have a voice in this matter, so I invite all users (new, old, whatever) to discuss the pros and cons of these new policy. I would like to remind everyone once again that when the rules were updated at the beginning of the year, the “removal of variants” was intended for chat, not the wiki, and I still believe that this is still good for chat, not the wiki.

Thank you for reading this.