User blog:DatAsymptote/(Important) Admin Announcements and Rule Updates 24/01/17

Hello users! You might have seen quite a bit of admin activity being done in the last few hours. This is being done as part of a Wikia cleanup that will be taking place over some time, and here are some things you would need to read over & do in preparation.

Skeleton Pages
Skeleton pages have begun to be marked up for a number of reasons. Primarily, it avoids the wikia becoming crowded with unused pages and avoids name hoarding, an action which prevents other active users who may wish to use the name from using it. We understand that this is never an ill intended action, but is annoying to want to use a name only to find someone who hasn’t been active since 2013 has the page with nothing on it. To prevent this, the admin team has written up the following rules:
 * Any page that is more empty than it is filled out or is just an infobox is marked up as a skeleton page and has been this way for longer than 2 weeks is marked up with this category.
 * Any skeleton pages that have active authors will remain in this category for two months. *Any skeleton pages with inactive authors will be flagged for deletion.
 * The wikia defines an inactive user as one who has not made any edits in 60 days.

Sorting categories
Please check out Getting Started: Categories for more information and a guide.
 * We are cleaning out duplicate categories (“orientation af”), categories that should be plural (“Royals”/”Rebels”) rather than single “Royal”/”Rebel”), since they are redundant and unnecessary. These will be replaced by standard categories.
 * In addition to this, we are giving the bare minimum categories to pages that have been sitting without them for a long period of time. (“Character”, their alignment, their story, their gender).
 * For stories written/collected by authors who have collected/written more than one story, pages should be tagged as “From [author’s] Tales”

If you’re in doubt about which category to use, look up the category and go with the one that is more popular. We have a guide on how to sort out categories for your pages and, as elaborated on later, adding categories is now a mandatory part of making a page on the wikia.

Alignment icons

 * We’ve made new versions of all the alignment icons that are transparent. Unfortunately, this means we have duplicates of them floating around and the admin team is working on getting rid of these duplicate pictures.
 * Please check that the icons on your page are titled “Icon-ALIGNMENT.png”, as these are the correct versions.

Changes to Rules

 * Base art is no longer permitted on the Wikia. More details will come in due course.
 * No content which is not safe for work / kids. If you’re going to post something and you wouldn’t feel comfortable showing a 5 year old and your mother, don’t post it.
 * Due to COPPA laws, ages should be stated on driver pages. If you are uncomfortable with stating your age, 13+ or 18+ is is fine.
 * We’re aware this seems like a sudden change, but it is the law that all users on this site be over the age of 13. This is for their own safety. It is also of note that if we need to contact higher up in the wikia community for help, we are at risk of our wikia being closed down if we have users younger than 13 on it.
 * When a new page is made, please make sure to give it categories. This can be done while making the page, or immediately after its creation.

Additional things
Vote in the OTMs!

Also, expect something for February :D