Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-5632187-20150201004349

Good evening, everyone.

So today, Mats and I were having a discussion in chat about how we should go about generating more activity on the Forums. We decided we should create some official rules to follow on the Forums, as well as a couple guidelines about creating and participating on threads.

To begin, I will suggest that we draft official rules to be followed:

1) Derailing Topics: At no point should a discussion have its topic changed suddenly by the discussion of other topics, especially by totally off-topic comments or complaints by users. Off-topic posts will be deleted.

2) Cursing: Cursing will be generally accepted on the Forums. Cursing will not be permitted in cases where it is directed in a negative fashion at another user, or group of users, or if it detracts from the friendliness of the chat.

3) Flame Wars: There is never a point where a flame war will be permitted. A flame war is defined as an argument that draws two or more users into immature conduct over any matter, big or small, and causes negative reactions from all parties involved.

4) Bullying: There is a zero-tolerance policy in place on this Wiki for bullying. Bullying is defined as the specific targeting of another user or group of users and demeaning them in any way for their nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, interests, sociological factors (spelling, grammar, intellect, etc), psychological state (mental illnesses) or physical appearance.

5) Conduct: Users should comply to the Wiki's Code of Conduct while on the Forums. All rules from there will apply on the Forums as well.

The above set of rules is not final, nor is it necessarily a good list, this is just to get discussion rolling.

Now that rules have been laid down to be worked on, I believe we should also work on guidelines to help users who don't quite understand how the Forums work get an easy grasp learning it.

These guidelines should include: Creation of threads, adding topics to threads, where posts about certain topics belong.

Creation of Threads Before creating a thread, please take a few moments to sift through the currently active discussions to make sure what you are wanting to post about isn't already being actively discussed. If it is not, then please feel free to create your thread. If what you wish to discuss is important, you may request your thread be highlighted by a Moderator or Administrator.

Adding Topics Have an interesting lore discussion going on? Be sure to add the pages pertaining to the discussion at hand to the topics of the thread. This will cause the thread to appear at the bottom of those pages, which in turn generates more discussion.

Sorting Threads Each board of the Wiki is unique in the discussions that take place on it.
 * For the Dark Souls Board, all non-online discussions about the gameplay of Dark Souls should be discussed here.
 * For the Dark Souls II Board, all non-online discussions about the gameplay of Dark Souls II should be discussed here.
 * For the Dark Souls Fan Art Board, any art created by yourself or other fans for Dark Souls can be posted here.
 * For the Dark Souls II Fan Art Board, any art created by yourself or other fans for Dark Souls II can be posted here.
 * For the Lore Discussion Board, any discussions about the lore of Dark Souls or Dark Souls II should be take place here.
 * For the Wiki Discussion Board, any discussions about changing any aspect of the Wiki should be posted here.
 * For the Online Play Board, all online interactions for Dark Souls and Dark Souls II should be discussed here.
 * For the Off Topic Board, any discussions not pertaining to Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, or the Wiki in any way should be posted here.

The above guidelines are basic ideas, nothing is set in stone yet

Thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read all of this. Please post any responses, critiques, or concerns below. Look forward to discussing this with you guys! 