AVID:Site Rules

Rules, descriptions, and editions by the AVID Wiki Administration Team

RULES BEFORE GOING ON THE WIKI Below is a list of guidelines that every member on this wiki must abide by

Please make an account
An account is required to edit pages on this wiki. If you wish to edit on this site, please register for an account.

One Account Only
The number of accounts that you are limited to registering is one. This is also a simple step to reduce instances of sockpuppetry. Sockpuppetry is when someone tries to hide from a certain block under a new username. Sockpuppet accounts are not tolerated and will be blocked immediately upon discovery.
 * If you've made a username sometime ago, but forgot the password of it and then registered a new account with a similar username, ask an administrator or moderator to block the old account while retaining the new one, or submit a password reset request to Miraheze for the old account and then have the new one cancelled. Failure to do either action will result in both accounts being suspended.
 * If you want to change your username for any reason, you can request a Global Rename from Miraheze by posting on their Stewards' Noticeboard or their Discord server.
 * If you have signed up with an offensive username, then you will be required to request a global rename. Do not misuse this rule to troll on the site and break our other rules or you will be blocked and you will no longer be welcome on the site.
 * If you have been temporarily blocked and you create a new account to bypass your block, your block will become permanent.
 * This rule does not apply to users operating approved bots

No Impersonations
No impersonating another user. That includes getting around an already taken username (e.g. replacing the lowercase L in "Example" with an uppercase "I" which makes it "ExampIe" or using another character that resembles a standard letter like the omicron symbol in place of "o"). Any fake accounts created to deceive members will be blocked. If you see any accounts that appear to look the same as the real account and/or pretending to be the known person, let us know.

Personal Attacks
Do not attack, harass, insult, persecute, or otherwise provoke users. That means, among other things, no fighting. Anyone caught engaging in any of these activities, regardless of their roles, will recieve a warning, then a block should the behaviour continue. as we have a 0-tolerance policy against abusive behavior, even if on websites not affiliated with the AVID (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, DeviantArt, Discord). AVID is meant to be a friendly and fun place to be.
 * Any form of hateful conduct, including directly threatening or attacking others on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, religion, age, condition (mental or medical) or disability, is strictly prohibited.
 * Relating to the above, death hoaxes are forbidden. Any user caught deliberately making a death hoax about another user with malicious intent will be blocked.

Irrelevant Content
Anything not related to the topic of closing logos will be removed upon sight. Examples of this type of content include:
 * Dream logos: Fictitious logos of any form are not allowed in article space and will be deleted on sight. You are still free to show off reconstructions, or your own logo creations in userspace (meaning on your userpage or a subpage thereof)
 * Inauthentic images/videos/remakes: We only accept real on-screen video captures of (animated and still) logos and in-credit logos independently if it has the proper logo theme, the (opening/closing) title theme from any television series, TV movie, theatrical feature, documentary, newscaster, or video game, or it's accompanied by an announcer spiel, or it's silent. As for video game captures with hacks used, the only modifications that are permitted on this wiki are widescreen patches and screen field of view/2D interface scaling tweaks (for revealing items that are hidden off-screen like positions where something starts or stops at especially 3D objects during the logo sequence. Two examples include the Universal Interactive logo moved from the screen and the gameplay interface that appears above the Nintendo logo at the startup.) using mod loaders, hex-edited executables, configuration edits, codes designed to change them through cheating devices like Action Replay, Gecko and Gameshark (for console games) and the command lines to change the resolution/aspect. Any other modifications such as textures, music, models etc. are to be posted either in userspace or in the Spoofs channel of the AVID Discord
 * Off-topic discussion: This is a logo/identity wiki. We are not interested in any screenplays, novels, etc. Repeated behavior with a suspected intent to spam on the wiki may result in a block .
 * Relating to the above, no uploading any non-logo related pictures to the photo gallery. Only real on-screen photo captures of (animated and still) logos and in-credit logos will be accepted, and the offending pictures will automatically be rejected. The only exceptions to this rule are images used for templates and images for use on a user page. Such images should be flagged accordingly in their descriptions. For user profile images use Template:ImageForProfile
 * Parody logos can be added ONLY if they are notable and such logos should only appear on AVID:Logos in Popular Culture.

Hacked Accounts
Do not hack and/or steal passwords from other accounts. If you suspect that your account has been hacked, it is encouraged that you change your password and contact an Administrator as soon as possible.

Page Credits
Do not delete any author information. If you've created a page or put any images (known as "captures"), put either your username or real name at the top (if you are too young or don't want to give away personal information, do the former). If you put a video on the page, you must put the uploader's username on the top, not yours (unless you also uploaded the video). Also, if you copy info from an article to another, you should copy the author information too (if you can). Do not put your name at the top unless you make a significant contribution to the page. That includes putting your name in the "Logo descriptions" credits if you didn't actually write the logo descriptions yourself.

Vandalism
Vandalism is prohibited on this wiki. Usually a warning will be given, however depending on the severity of the case warnings may not be necessary for an administrator to block any suspected vandals. Non-admins should report any vandalism at User Reports.
 * Edits that are against the consensus of other users, or considered disruptive, may not be vandalism but rather good-faith edits (e.g. a user may not have been aware that there was consensus against the edits they were making). Intentionally mislabeling good-faith edits as vandalism is considered a personal attack and may result in a block.
 * Any users engaging in edit warring will be subject to a warning and advised to take their dispute to the article's talk page. Repeated behavior will result in a block.

Age restrictions
People of any age can view this AVID site, but under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA; read more information here), children under 13 years old may not register here. This is for your own safety and ours. Anyone found to be holding an account while underage will be blocked until they turn 13. At this time, the user is free to request an unblock on their talk page, on an administrator's message board or through the AVID discord.

No Spam
You may not use the AVID and/or Miraheze for the purpose of spamming anyone (i.e., posting nonsense, advertising, moneymaking scams, pornographic sites or other extreme inappropriate content, etc.). We have no tolerance whatsoever for spam.

Keep it Clean
If you must curse, keep cursing to a minimum (mild curse words are perfectly fine), and stay away from the stronger words altogether.

No Stealing Content
The contents of the AVID may be referenced in news articles and other media of the like. However, it is forbidden to deliberately copy any section of this site and label it as your own. Examples include creating another wiki site, copying pages from this site, claiming the pages as your own, and stealing any captures. Doing any of the above actions will automatically result in a block, and the duplicate site being deleted by Miraheze staff.

Edit Summaries
Do not use edit summaries to make irrelevant or unnecessary comments. Your edit summaries should accurately reflect your contribution to the page (e.g. do not blank or rewrite large sections of content and then put an edit summary of "typo". Additionally, do not mark significant changes to articles as "minor edits". Only mark an edit as minor if the edit did not substantially change content and is not likely to be contested, e.g. simple formatting changes or grammatical corrections..

Further to this, inappropriate or abusive edit summaries are not tolerated and will result in the edit summary being deleted via RevDel and a block for the user responsible

No Personal Commentary in Articles
Do not add personal comments to the articles. That includes personal scare factors, your own side notes, making the articles your own forum and telling people not to upload images or videos on the articles (For admins, this includes locking pages so no one can edit or put up images or videos. We're not joking: this has happened before). The pages here are for logo descriptions, pictures and videos only. If you want to share personal opinions, go to the Favorite Logos page, or use the article's talk page.

Don't edit with text extensions
Certain add-ons or toolbars can mess up text you post on a website, or change words into something else. For example, during the Wikifoundry era, admin Wyraachur got into hot water for having an add-on that automatically changed words to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic-related terms (like "everybody" to "everypony" and "America" to "Amareica"). If you have one of these, either remove it, disable it or whitelist this website on it immediately, because they can cause bugs.

Backseat Moderation
If you are a registered user, you cannot and must not pretend to be a staff member. That includes threatening to block members and making your own rules. Only members that are moderators or administrators have the authority to do so. However, it is acceptable to advise another user that they might be breaking a rule.

No Full Shows
Do not upload videos of logos that have footage of movies, TV programs or video games. That includes the beginning of movies or the end of TV series that feature content inappropriate for this website, and/or where you have to skip to a certain section to show the logo because of risk of termination of the user's account (especially for those users on YouTube!). These can also cause browsers to either slow down or crash, due to the length of the video. In addition, this is a potential copyright violation and against the Creative Commons License. If possible, download the video and edit it on any form of video editing software (e.g. Windows Movie Maker, VEGAS Pro, VideoPad) where it just has the logo.

Language Rules
This wiki is primarily an English-Language wiki. We use American English in articles (unless specified).
 * Editors are expected to be competent in the English language even if they are here to translate pages. This facilitates discussion with other editors and administrators
 * All discussions on talk pages, threads, etc. should be in English.
 * English content should not be replaced with content in another language. If you'd like to translate a page, please see the section below
 * New pages should not be created in non-English languages. Company names in foreign languages are accepted where an official translation of the name is not available, for example if a company does not operate in English speaking areas.
 * Foreign curse words remain subject to the same rules as those in English. Strong curse words and insults, if identified, will be removed on sight.

Treat all members equally
All members here (including admins) will be treated equally, regardless of their status. It does not matter if you are a celebrity, the President's child, have a cult following on the Internet (such as YouTube), have a life threatening disease, a mental condition (e.g. Autism), ADHD, depression over something (such as a deceased relative), a physical disability or just someone with a knack for closing logos and such. If you break any rule, you'll face the consequences, no matter what the circumstance. You are being nice to us, and we to you. But it is no excuse to break any rule regardless.

No Fake Logos
Making fake reports on real logos or pages will not be tolerated. If you abuse this rule then the administrative team will take proper action accordingly. If you suspect that you have been hacked, please see rule #5.

Fake until Proven Real
All logos that are myths are considered fake unless proven real. If you don't have any evidence to back up your claim, then your entry will be removed until proven otherwise. Furthermore, if you "create" a logo find, then you will be blocked and you will no longer be welcome on this site.

Don't delete threads without warning
No thread or reply shall be deleted without prior warning nor reason for deletion (unless its spam or off-topic). This rule does not apply if the thread or reply is: Deleted threads should be restored immediately if the deletion was unjustified.
 * Spam
 * highly inappropriate content or personal attacks
 * an accidental double post.

No blank pages
If you create a page concerning a closing logo, do not leave it blank. The person who created the page will be given two weeks to place content on the respective page. If no content is added within that time frame, then the page will be marked as a stub. Stubs may be flagged for deletion at any time if content has not been added.

Promotions and Demotions
Bureaucrats may promote users to administrator only after they have been through the application process detailed at AVID:Requests for adminship.

Admin Actions
Administrative actions without any given reason will not be tolerated. All Administrative actions, whether it be a block, a promotion or a page protection should have a reason attached to them. We had numerous issues with not knowing who performed a block and why on the old wiki due to the lack of detailed administrative logs. There's no excuse on MediaWiki. Administrative actions should be performed in a manner that is transparent and open to scrutiny.

No Drama
While visiting this website, please keep in mind that this is the Closing Logo Group. This is supposed to be a drama-free group that focuses solely on closing logos and the production companies behind them and so on. This isn't the place for drama queens and kings, petulance, popularity contests, dramatic award winning performances and so on.

No Espionage
No spying for those who had been blocked, either. Anyone found to be practicing espionage for anyone who has been blocked from AVID will meet the same fate, i.e. blocked.

No Off-Topic Threads
In the general discussion, please stick to the subject of closing logos or anything related to the history of the production company. No off-topic stuff allowed. If you must discuss such matters, please do so on your message board or talk page, through the AVID discord or through private messaging.

Don't Feed the Trolls
Don't respond to any trolls that cause trouble on the site. The people who add fuel to the fire are just as bad as the people who started it. block them and be done with it, or if you're not an admin, let one know via their talk page, their messageboard, AVID:User Reports or the AVID discord and not on the thread itself.

Don't spam the forums
Please refrain from posting multiple threads in a short period of time.
 * Related to the above, please do not create any threads on logo plastering. If the plastering is notable enough (for example, not just another case of the SPT logo plastering a CPT one), please add it into the proper page.

Damaged Tapes are not Variants
Logos that are found on damaged media (such as damage caused by film or tape deterioration) do not count as variants, as the damage which causes them to look different than normal were unintentional. However, if the damaged look is intended by the creators of the logo (such as logos made in the style of old films), then it does count.

Logo Variations
Any custom variants of logos (i.e. TriStar "Locals Only" Variant on Lords of Dogtown) or any appearance of logos beyond their original lifespan (i.e. WB Big W logo on Argo) are to be mentioned on the Logo Variations section and NOT on the main descriptions themselves.

Talk Pages/Threads
Do not edit other people's comments on talk pages and forum threads, including to fix grammar/typos. This is considered disruptive, especially when the edits change the meaning of the original comments. Even slight changes could alter the perceived intention of the original comment and removes the context of any replies prior to your edit.

The only exceptions to the above are:
 * Removal of obvious spam/disruptive comments,
 * Redaction of personal attacks or sensitive personal information- When redacting comments with personal information or more serious personal attacks, the revisions containing the unedited comment should be revdelled (revision-deleted) ASAP. Comments revealing sensitive personal information pertaining to another editor should also be reported to Miraheze stewards for suppression
 * Formatting changes to make a discussion easier to follow (e.g. indenting a user's comment to make it clearer who they're replying to or placing a user's reply on a forum thread into the proper post template if they neglected to do so)
 * Clerical editing, such as archiving of discussions, adding Template:Unsigned to attribute a post when someone has neglected to add their signature and fixing formatting/markup issues.

Don't Harass the Source
Do not harass anybody in the entertainment industry just to find logos (i.e. calling SPE or contacting Norman Lear just to find the TAT logo- yes this has happened). Anyone who does this will be blocked.

Relating to this, do not harass YouTubers or uploaders on other platforms asking them to upload rare logos- regardless of whether or not they have stated they have such logos in their possession.

Such actions reflect poorly on us as a community and will not be tolerated.

Sourcing Captures
If you add images of new logos or logo variations, be sure to document what they are and where they can be found either by adding a description to the file or captioning them on the page you add them to. The point of the wiki is to document everything as thoroughly as possible so as to fully and accurately inform our readers. If you add an image without supplying a description mentioning the logo or where it came from, it can be marked for deletion until such a description is provided.

Obey All Rules
Above all, please obey all rules. That is all. 'Have fun! The AVID Wiki Team'