This policy covers instances in which users may be blocked by an administrator. Primarily, The Secret Life of Pets Wiki assumes good faith and will not punish users for minor mistakes or isolated infractions.
Reasons for blocking
- Failure to abide by wiki policy
- Spamming, vandalizing, trolling, or otherwise disrupting the community.
Spamming
Spam includes unwanted messages, advertisements, and links to unofficial, third-party websites (including sites related to the wiki's topic). On this wiki, it is also defined as excessive posting that limits, disrupts, or has a negative impact on community engagement.
Vandalizing
Vandalism refers to any deliberate changing of existing content to undermine its usefulness for other readers.
Editing vandalism
- Adding false or incorrect information to articles (this includes incorrect categories, unrelated or unsupported trivia, etc.).
- Adding personal opinions, which goes against the neutrality standard of the wiki.
- Inserting obvious nonsense, obscenities or crude humor into pages.
- Illegitimately blanking pages (i.e., removing content).
- Creating pages that are unrelated to the subject of the wiki, have little to no content (with no intention of expanding them later), or are based on personal opinion.
Image vandalism
- Adding false or incorrect information to image pages.
- Uploading poorly named files.
- Uploading extremely low quality or low resolution images.
- Uploading images containing explicit content.
- Uploading images with no intention of using them (unused images will be deleted by site staff).
- Uploading duplicate images that are not an improvement in quality from the previous version.
- Image warring with another user.
Other types of vandalism
- Editing another user's profile without their consent.
- Changing another user's post on talk pages or blogs.
- Impersonating another user.
Trolling
Trolling is any deliberate attempt to stir up or provoke one or more users in the community. Although similar to vandalism, trolling differs in that it specifically targets users to inflame or invite conflict.
There are many actions that could be considered trolling, such as:
- Posting offensive messages or hate speech.
- Harassing or threatening other users—this includes ignoring a user's request to not be contacted or mentioned in posts.
- Posting inflammatory comments around the wiki.
Multiple accounts
The Secret Life of Pets Wiki does not allow users to edit on more than one account at a time. If you are moving to a new username, you can change your username or have your old profile redirect to the new one.
Additional accounts should not be used for badge hunting or sockpuppetry (e.g., circumventing a block, posting vandalism, trolling, creating illusions of support, etc.).
Block durations
Only repeat or serious offenses may result in a user being blocked, although the length of time will vary case to case.
Minor offenses
A warning will first be sent to the user via their Message Wall. However, a block will be issued if the warning is ignored and the number of occurrences increases or the situation escalates.
The following is a rough estimate of block durations for average-level infractions:
- 1st offense: A warning will be posted on the user's Message Wall.
- 2nd offense: The user will be blocked for 2 days.
- 3rd offense: The user will be blocked for 1 week.
- 4th offense: The user will be blocked for 2 weeks and given a final warning.
- 5th offense: The user will be blocked indefinitely.
Regardless of the length of a block, all users are welcome to appeal their block so they can return to the wiki. Please refer to Appealing a Block for more information.
Serious or repeat offenses
With regard to more serious or repeat offenders, they may be blocked without warning depending on the situation and reported to Fandom staff for review, which may result in a global block across all of Fandom.
Age restrictions
Per Fandom policy, please note that to create an account and contribute to the platform all Fandom users must be at least: 16 years of age in California and the EEA (excluding the UK); or 13 years of age in all other parts of the world (including the UK). Any user found in violation of this policy will be reported and blocked until they reach the appropriate age.
Appealing a block
Users who feel they have been unfairly blocked are welcome to appeal by contacting the blocking administrator. Appeals should be well-written and concise with a clear explanation as to why the block should be lifted or lessened. Messages that contain profane, insulting, or otherwise inflammatory language will not be accepted and may increase the user's block duration.
Users can post their appeal by:
- Replying to the block notice on their Message Wall (which will remain open in the case of minor offenses).
- Posting on the Message Wall of the administrator who blocked them at Community Central.
Please allow administrators at least 48 hours to respond to appeals. If an administrator has been abusing their power or an appeal has gone ignored for too long, please contact Fandom staff.