Policy Gathering Workspace

On this page we're going to collect every policy put into effect by staff since 05command was made, and organize them into appropriate categories.

Put each policy into the appropriate category, and use the following format to add them:

* {{[YY/MM]}} **[link Policy Name]** - Short description of what the policy entails.

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This page contains all policy from O5 command before 04/02/2022

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Internal Structure Modifications

This category is for the creation of new teams, expansion of purview, and changes to how staff operates internally.

+ Purview Expansion

• [12/01] Deleted Accounts and Upvoting - The Deletions policy is changed so that votes from deleted accounts do not count towards the deletion threshold.
• [14/05] Deletion Clarifications - Any out of range articles can be summarily deleted and any supplements should be deleted with their parent page.
• [14/12] Demotions - Codifies the process by which members of staff are demoted and lose staff powers.
• [15/12] Junior Staff - Junior Staff can be appointed at will by team leaders and no longer require a voting/vetting process.
• [15/12] Deletion Threshold - Deletions no longer require a vote. A threshold of -10 is set for all pages with a 24 hour grace period.
• [17/02] Image Policy Enforcement - Expanding the authority of Operational Staff in handling image policy violations.
• [17/02] Admins as Team Leaders - Allowance of Admins to act as team leaders.
• [17/12] Image Policy Change - Changes the period of compliance for image attribution to 24 hours.
• [18/08] Abstentions During Staff Promotions - Allows staff to abstain from voting for individual candidates and modifies the rules of quorum regarding these abstentions.
• [19/02] Post Moderation: Blanking/Deleting - Expansion and definition of Blanking/Deletion powers for the Disciplinary team.
• [19/07] Summary Deletion Witnessing - Clarifies staff votes on improperly deleted pages.
• [21/04] Harrasment Team Ban Reasons Update - Updates the message provided when AHT announces a harassment ban.
• [21/05] Maturity Bans/Application Spammers - Creates a new log for recording bans of users who repeatedly fail the application process due to immaturity.
• [22/02] Fiat - Changing Promo Schedules - Changed the date of promotions from a hardcorded week to a general week position in the relevant month.
• [22/05] Deletion at Low Thresholds - Deletion will not require a 24 hour timer once the article hits -20.

+ New Teams

• [13/12] Team Based Site Restructure - Restructuring of staff into a "teams" structure. New staff levels introduced.
• [16/02] Changes to Staff Structure - Creation of the Ambassador Team.
• [20/04] Maintenance and Ancillary Staff Team - Creation of MAST.
• [20/09] Implementing Collections Team - Creation of the Collections Sub-team.

+ Modification of Internal Operation

• [13/09] "Minor Issues" Thread? - Forum split for serious vs minor user infractions
• [16/04] Discussion: Creation of a Licensing Forum - Licensing forum created in O5
• [16/08] Suggested Changes to Minimize Low-Quality Coldposts -Articles will be removed from Most Recently Created when the score reaches -15 or below. Error 404 page updated.
• [17/01] Page Locking - No pages should be locked without public discussion on O5
• [17/01] Transparency and Junior Staff in Staffchat. - Major edits or redesigns to any page tagged "guide", or other primary site content hubs, should be discussed on 05 prior being enacted.
• [17/04] Merging of Site and Chat Discipline, Specifically with Regards to Trolling - Codification of site bans occasionally meriting chat bans
• [18/04] Monthly Intra-Team Meetings - Established monthly meetings for Administrators and Team Captains.
• [18/08] Policy About Policy Proposal - Creates requirements and processes for proposing and implementing policy/policy changes.
• [19/11] Commenting on Disc Threads All staff are permitted to comment on disc threads as long as the contribution is substantive.
• [20/04] Forum Critique Policy Revision - Changing Forum Critique expectations, adding a boilerplate to unanswered concept threads after page 6 informing authors how to receive feedback, requiring a wordcount for drafts in draft critique
• [21/07] Staffchat Recap Team - Recaps now encompass an entire month, and the beginning of the following month will be used to compile and post the recaps.
• [21/08] Unarchival - Creates a process by which articles can be unarchived.
• [21/08] Redesign of 05Command's Front Page and Forums - Overhaul of the aforementioned pages to be easier to navigate.
• [21/11] 05command Topbar and Sidebar - Modification of the aforementioned elements.
• [21/11] Fiat - Wiki Domain in the Charter - Changed the links in the charter to the current official domain.
• [22/02] Culling Staffchat Casual Chats - Removes the hierarchical stratification of staff chats.
• [22/02] Charter Edit Vote Requirements - Changes Section III.D of the charter to make changes to the Charter/Rules easier to pass a vote.

Staff Policy

This category is for policy which primarily affects staff in ways that do not fit into the former category, such as charter modifications.

• [12/08] Promotions - Staff may be promoted without the requirement for another member to back-fill the position. Staff promotions will be assessed on a routine schedule.
• [16/09] Staff Activity Levels - Creation of the Reserve activity tier. Additional info here.
• [16/09] Censure - Creation of staff censure.
• [16/12] Staff Purview - Codifying Staff Purview.
• [17/06] Junior Staff Guide - Creation of a guide to explain the role of Junior staff, their permissions and limitations, and cultural expectations of Junior Staff.
• [18/07] Disc Thread Consolidation - Disc threads are limited to three pages of length. Once that mark is passed, a new thread is created instead.
• [19/12] Basic Staff Activity Level - Provides clear requirements for staff actitivy, process for marking staff as inactive and for returning staff to active.
• [20/05] Charter Regarding Adult Activity - Staff may not leverage their position to extort sexual favors or leverage involvement in the SCP wiki on Adult platforms. You'd think this is obvious.
• [20/09] Active/Inactive/Returning Staff - Modification of the clauses which automatically make a staffer inactive, and addition of a clause for retired staffers to return to operation.

Posting Changes

This category is for changes and additions to what is and isn't allowed to be on the mainsite.

+ Changes to Posting

• [18/08] Author Page Requirements Change - Art pages now count towards the requirements for creating an author page.
• [20/02] A Query For Clarification On Our Donations Policy - advertising of paid critique is disallowed. paid co-authorship of articles is disallowed.
• [20/11] Policy Regarding Posting - Any posted materials must be made by SCP Wiki members, and attributed as such.
• [21/01] Banned Users and New Content - Banned site members cannot contribute to the site's content in any way, and edits to their articles may be denied.
• [21/01] Technical Content Policy - Creation of a policy outlining posting of technical elements and their contents.
• [21/03] First-Class Themes - Themes may be posted as standalone pages, without an existing article to use them.

+ Changes to Page Elements

• [16/09] Proposal: establishing strict rules for fragment pages - creation of "fragment" category and rules for fragment pages.
• [17/11] Donation Links - Allowing users to link donation sites onsite.
• [17/12] Donation Links: Part Two / Three / Four - Elaboration on the specifics of the former vote.
• [19/02] CSS Policy - Creation of the CSS Policy.
• [19/04] Amendment to CSS Policy - Changes to the CSS Policy.
• [19/11] CSS Themes Eligible for Deletions - CSS Themes can be deleted on the same metric as any other pages.
• [19/12] Amendment to CSS Policy Again - Changes to the CSS Policy.

+ Other

• [12/09] Create/Change Rewriting Rules - Created formal rules for when and how rewrites can be performed.
• [13/06] New Rule For Editing - All edits performed by someone other than the author must be documented in change comments or via the page's comments. Editing pages without permission is codified as a punishable offense.
• [17/04] Group of Interest Standard - Creation of GoI guidelines and rules.
• [18/07] Site Rules Page Update - Wholesale replacement of the previous Site Rules.
• [18/01] Canon Requirements Relaxation - Allowing Canons to include non-tale articles.
• [19/09] Changes to "Staff Control" Over Articles - Codifies when the Rewrite Team may begin the process of rewriting an article.
• [19/08] Locking File Uploads - Disallowed the ability for non staff to upload images and files to another user's page.
• [20/10] Policy on Art Plagiarism - Art must be CC compliant, and so any sources that the art has traced/recreated/heavily-referenced from.
• [21/04] Defining Vandalism - Defining what counts as "vandalism" for disc purposes.
• [21/10] Ditching Slot Reservations - Article slots can not be reserved.

Page Modifications

This category is for votes which directly resulted in the change or creation of one or multiple pages on the mainsite.

+ New Pages and Modules

• [10/08] Classified and You - Creation of the Classified and You guide.
• [14/04] Object Classes Guide - Created the Object Classes Guide
• [14/09] Rewrite Guide - Created the Rewrite Guide
• [15/05] Social Media Attention - Added social media links to the side bar.
• [16/12] Team Policies and Guides - standardizing guides across all teams, creation of team hubs.
• [17/01] New tag proposal - "art-exchange" - Creation of an art-exchange hub
• [17/05] Back/Next Buttons III - Creation of the Wikiwalk module.
• [18/01] Master Staff List - Created the Master Staff Roster
• [18/07] Young and Under 30 - Creation of the Young and Under 30 page, and placing it on the sidebar.
• [18/08] Recolor of Visited Links - Visited links are now a different color from nonvisited links.
• [18/12] Reviewers' Spotlight - Created the Reviewers' Spotlight and placed it on the front page.
• [18/12] Info Panes - Creation of the Info Module.
• [19/07] Re-Add "How to Write an SCP" to the sidebar Re-added the "How to Write an SCP" to the sidebar after it had been left out of the Site Navigation proposal.
• [20/06] Licensing Box in Wiki Footer - Creation of the Licensing Box Module.
• [20/12] Adult Content Warnings - Creation of the Adult Content Warning.
• [21/03] Adult Page Guide - Creation of a guide on how to post adult pages.
• [21/03] New Category For Pages Listing Works By an Author - Creates a new page type, "more-by", where all works by an author can be listed and allows for it be easily inserted into an Author Page.
• [22/01] HTTPS Conversion Guide - Created a guide on how to update links and pages to HTTPS.
• [22/02] SCP-1000 Contest Hub - Retroactively created a contest hub for the SCP-1000 Hub.

+ Rewrites and Updates

• [10/04] Guide to Newbies - Updated the Guide to Newbies to add coherent sections and a table of contents.
• [13/07] Updating The Required Reading - Removed a lot of required reading and slimmed down the Join This Site page.
• [14/08] Lowest Rated Pages creation time? - Added date created to Lowest Rated Pages.
• [14/08] Most Recently Created page details - Added more information to pages listed on Most Recently Created.
• [18/01] Object Class Guide Rewrite - Rewrote the Object Class Guide to reflect modern site standards, removed the top-25 lists, and removed a significant amount of fluff.
• [18/08] Guide for Newbies Rewrite - Removing fluff and updating sections of the Newbie Guide to fit community standards.
• [18/09] Criticism Policy Rewrite - Making the Criticism Policy less intimidating and more precise.
• [19/04] Licensing Guide Rewrite - Removed irrelevant or outdated information and improved the quality of the guide.
• [20/06] MAST Guide Update - The REDACTED of the █ - Replaced "Zen and the Art of DATA EXPUNGED" with a new guide, "What Hides Beneath: the Black and White of Blackboxing".
• [20/07] Image Use Policy Rewrite - Corrected, clarified, and added relevant licensing information to the Image Use Policy.
• [20/11] Guide Hub Updates - Minor formatting changes and reorganization of the Guide Hub.
• [20/11] Abridged Guide Hub - Condensing of Guide Hub elements.
• [20/12] Front Page Facelift - Modification of the Front Page's INT section.
• [21/01] Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Update - Rewrites the FAQ to address current attitudes and policies of the SCP Wiki and its staff.
• [21/09] Archiving the Logins Fix Guide - Archives the Fixing Logins Guide.
• [21/10] Refreshing the Comprehensive Guide Hub - Reorganized the Comprehensive Guide Hub.
• [21/10] Reworking the Guide Hub into a Required Reading Hub - The Guide Hub becomes the Required Reading Hub and the Comprehensive Guide Hub becomes the Guide Hub.
• [21/10] Archiving the Swamp Critter Roster - Archives the Swamp Critter Roster.
• [21/11] Splitting an Essay Hub Off From The Guide Hub - Creates a new Essay Hub which will be open for editing and collaborative.
• [22/01] Frequently Asked Questions Update - Updates the FAQ page for clarity and readability. Also removes now-unneeded questions.
• [22/02] Contest Archive Update - The Contest Archive was updated to add descriptions and include unofficial contests.
• [22/02] 404 Page Rewrite - The 404 Page was rewritten to reduce the amount of information and number of links.

+ Existing Page Modifications

• [13/08] Applications - Application password within Guide to Newbies moved, "Join the Site" split into two tabs
• [19/02] Replacing Heritage Collection - Archival of the Heritage Collection system.
• [19/02] Categorizing Recently Created - Separation of Recently Created from one big module to four modules for different post types.
• [19/08] Top Rated Change - Top Rated This Month turned into a rolling 30 day block rather than focusing on calendar months.
• [20/07] Merge Lowest Rated SCPs and Lowest Rated Articles - Merged those two lists.
• [21/01] Changing Guides to Essays - Re-designating three guides to be essays.
• [21/01] Modification to Adult Content Warning - Allows non-users to pass the Adult Content Warning on pages.
• [21/06] Author's Pages Update - The Author's Pages list no longer lists staff roles, removed roleplaying elements, and cleaned up some features.
• [22/02] Removing SCP-173's Image, Untitled 2004 - The image for SCP-173 was removed on the grounds that it was not CC compliant.

+ Other

• [13/02] Archived Page Headers and Archived Page Deletion - All Archived pages have a specified header applied to them.
• [14/01] Site Template Overhaul - Changed the site to the sigma-9 template.
• [16/05] Forum Reforum Proposal - Makes various structural and organizational changes to the forums.
• [16/11] Mainsite Introductions Forum Revamp - Introductions will now be done in collective threads. Also Introductions Forum is thread locked.
• [17/02] New Forum? - Creates a new forum, "Help: Research and Resources", to allow for discussion of IRL knowledge.
• [18/06] NEW CATEGORY: "Protected Pages" - Creates a new category of pages called "Protected". Such articles will be locked to editing and have rating disabled.
• [20/07] Mandatory Wikiwalk Footer - The Wikiwalk Footer will be applied to all pages.
• [21/07] HTML Meta Tags - Creates and adds new meta tags to all pages on the wiki.
• [21/09] Ending the Archival Process - Fiction pages will no longer be archived.
• [21/12] Forum Rearrangement - Renames Announcements forum to Sitewide Announcements, creates Page Announcements forum, and creates Staff Recruitment forum.
• [22/02] Update to Greenlighting Policy - Changes the criteria to bypass the greenlighting process.

Other Mainsite Policy

This category is for other changes to site policy which does not fall under the former two clauses.

• [14/03] Sockpuppetry - Creating alternate accounts to impersonate another person, sometimes called sockpuppeting, becomes a codified violation worthy of a ban.
• [15/01] Rules Update - Clarifies malicious voting.
• [16/09] Self-upvoting - Rule change to allow self-upvoting.
• [18/02] Disciplinary Escalation Reordering and Reorganization - Changes to the disciplinary escalation, and organization of the o5 threads thereof.
• [18/05] Chat On-Site Disciplinary Separation - Separation of chat and mainsite Disciplinary escalation.
• [18/05] Amnestics/Amnesiacs - Correction of Amnesiacs to Amnestics is considered a SPaG correction.
• [20/02] Additional Clarification of Donations Policy - Explicitly disallowing paid critique.
• [20/05] Change to our Age Policy - The wiki's age limit will be raised to 18.
• [21/05] Clarifying Appeals - Codifying the appeal process for banned users.
• [21/07] Mainsite Policy Discussion - Policy discussion threads will be posted on both O5 and the mainsite.
• [22/01] Web Archiving Images - Creates a process by which images can be archived on web.archive.org for backup.

Other

For any other pages which do not fit any of the former categories

• [16/12] Sandbox Editing Permissions - Permissions on the Sandbox are changed so that only page creators or mods/admins can edit a page.
• [17/11] Legacy Image Enforcement - Retroactive enforcement of the Image Policy.
• [20/07] Trial Run of Recruitment Drives - Self-explanatory.
• [20/07] Domain Transition - Changing the primary wiki domain from scp-wiki.net to scpwiki.com.
• [21/01] Restructuring of the SCP Wiki's Social Media - Dissolves the official Tumblr and Devianart accounts.
• [21/04] Town Halls - Creation of the Town Hall initiative.

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Not Implemented

These policies have passed, but have not been implemented for one reason or another.

• [18/06] Archiving Inactive Discussion - The creation of a separate forum category for finalized discussions and votes.
• [18/05] Budgetary Committee - Formalization of a Budget Committee for Project Foundation.

Out of Effect

This is a list of policies which have been put out of effect since their implementation, either by another vote or staff forgetfulness.

+ Intentionally Changed Since

• [09/05] Unified Policy for Banning and Blocking Users - Clarification of what is and what is not worth of a ban or temp ban.
• [09/06] Joining The Site - Created a pop-quiz style application process.
• [09/06] Open Discussion of Policy - This policy was posted in a "Duty Statement Letter" that is no longer available, so the exact scope is unclear. Context shows that this included a policy requiring a reason for bans and deletions.
• [09/10] Addition to Forum - Added new forum categories: Foundation Discussion, Policy, and Ideas.
• [10/02] Sandboxes - Creation of the first sandbox website to allow users to create drafts off of the main site.
• [10/03] Admins/Mods/Senior Staff - Clarification of roles between Admins, Mods, and Senior Staff.
• [11/02] Custom Domain - Creation and adoption of the custom domain, http://www.scp-wiki.net/.
• [12/02] Blatant Trollery Deletion Protocols - Addition to the Deletions Policy and Guide to allow for the deletion of intentionally inflammatory content without a grace period.
• [12/06] Early Vote for Deletion Wording Change - The language used when referring to early votes for deletion was altered.
• [12/07] Deletion Policy - The deletion process was changed to require one mod/admin as well as a witnessing member of staff.
• [12/07] Mackenzie's Proposal for Article Protection - Created a process to protect certain articles from the deletion process via a majority staff vote.
• [12/08] Rules of Voting - Early version of the Staff Charter.
• [12/08] Submission List - Vote regarding the rules governing the rules of the submission list, which has since been phased out.
• [12/08] [http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-542934/rewrite-of-the-bannable-offenseGuide Hub.
• [19/04] **SCP Dropdown Consolidation - Consolidation of multiple SCP Series links on the topbar.
• [19/06] Site Navigation - Topbar/Sidebar redesign.

+ By Proxy of Another Change/Removal

• [08/12] Membership and Submissions - Site members will be accepted as "members" and "contributors," with only contributors' votes counting towards deletions. Site members should be able to view "the slush pile."
• [11/04] Guide to deletions for regular users - Created a guide about the deletion process. This guide no longer exists.

+ Technically in Effect; Not Followed

• [13/10] Signatures - Signatures disabled
• [17/02] Site Charter - Addition of yearly charter review.
• [18/02] Structure Change - Tech Team - Created the Member role within the Tech Team.
• [18/08] Policy about Policy - Modification of Charter and creation of the Guide Directory.
• [18/12] The Good Noodles Spotlight - At the first of each month, team captains would list particularly helpful Junior Staffers.
• [19/06] Contest Category on Recently Created - Created a seperate category in Recently Created to list random articles from the current contest. Articles in the current contest would not be listed in the standard Newly Created category.
• [21/07] Introductions Overhaul - Implements a new "Getting Started Questions" thread to be created periodically in the Introductions forum.
• [21/09] Vote of No Confidence - Permits staff members to create a Vote of No Confidence for specific staff users.
• [21/11] Creation of a New Tagging Workbench - Approved the creation of a new Tagging Workbench and removal of "Untagged Pages" from Lowest Rated Pages.