All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXIV

[Bob Schroeck]

"But why is it so important even if the edits are not publicly viewable right away?" you may ask.  Simply put, our time is valuable.  And wasting our time with edits that are in violation of our very succinct and clearly posted rules and guidelines is very much not appreciated.  The moderation queue was put into place primarily to prevent drive-by vandalism and spamming by advertisement bots.  It was, by no means, ever meant to be a system to keep newer users in check at the time it was implemented.  That is merely a side effect of the moderation queue, and a desirable one as it prevents edits that could cause us problems, legal or otherwise.  This means that the moderation queue is a safety net for us, not you.  Please respect our staff by abiding by the rules and guidelines.

Please also note that our rules and guidelines are always evolving to better convey what we feel is conducive to the wiki as well as the community that is involved in it.  Edits that violate the spirit of our rules, if not the exact wording, could still have you being infracted.  Rest assured, however, that we will welcome any politely worded and sensible suggestions to amend our rules and guidelines.

(Also note: this does not mean that you should suggest changes to the rules because you feel that yours is a special case that needs exempting.  What we mean is that we will welcome suggestions that promote a better understanding of the rules.  You are thusly forewarned, once again, to respect the administrators of this wiki by not wasting our time.)

Likey?  No likey?

Hmmmmm... If we start explaining why particular rules exist, will some people expect that they're entitled to have us explain why all rules exist?

More importantly, will the disruptive influences point at the given explanation and attempt to rule-lawyer their way out of an infraction, thus wasting our time anyway?

Beige Prose is the standard for documentation because it's straightforward and direct. Add extra text and one adds more points where that straightforwardness can be lost in unintended ambiguity.

Rob makes a very good point -- we want to allow as few opportunities for rules lawyering as possible in the "How We Do Bans" page. However, it might be a good idea to keep this explanation somewhere else where it can be pointed to as needed.