Alright, so it's time to address what I feel is a particularly annoying issue on this wiki.
As I've already noted, a significant amount of conflicts and edit wars seem to stem over abuse of what I like to call the "antagonistic scale." You may also know it as "antagonist fussing." I refer to the practice of various edits that involve the role of a villain or an antagonist in the story in which they are presented in. The standout examples are...
- ...overly specific ruling to an antagonist's role in the story, ex. primary, secondary, tertiary. Anything below secondary is generally subject to a lot of subjective viewing (and such edit clashes often come over it). While I am generally fine with "secondary" and to a much lesser extent "tertiary," anything "quaternary" and below is really pushing it. When an edit war erupts over an antagonist's role (ex. User A. changes "secondary" to "tertiary" or such, and user B. changes it back, and this erupts into an edit war that inevitably has the page locked) that's a sign that said role should simply be changed to "major" or "minor" or something similar.
- ...misinformation campaigns/"plots." These are commonplace for several "cover-up" villains (ex. Phineas T. Ratchet to Madame Gasket) but this is often abused to a point where it's listed where it isn't even justified (ex. Amos Slade for the bear that appears in the climax) and that alone is annoying to clean up. It's a form of spam and it gets especially annoying where edit wars erupt over that. The clear role of a "main" antagonist is the main opposing force to the protagonist or central character of the story who is usually causing the main conflict in the story; "climax" villains (ex. the Rat) do not serve as main villains as they only appear at the ends of their respective stories. An extension of this is listing unnecessary notes in the trivia "clarifying" a villain/antagonist's role (ex. Villain A. was thought to be the main antagonist but Villain B. is the "true" main antagonist because they have bigger plans/appear more" and such). Such things are often subjective (one person might see a minor villain to be much more major than others do and thus not agree with that little bit on the trivia) and simply take up space as is.
All of this has lead to several edit wars and has lead to several pages being locked. It has gotten on several users' nerves and we do not need to spend such time warring over pointless edits; several users do nothing but add this spam and a good majority of edit wars are, as I've said, caused by arguments over this. It, as a whole, is anti-constructive and a waste of this wiki's time, and of the contributers who actually want to make constructive edits. So, by behest of another user who has kindly noted these kinds of edit on other wikis and created policies specifically set against it, I'll be establishing some rules to modify this and make sure it doesn't create any more conflict.
Do not clash with other users over these terms. If you find that one of your edits has been reverted, do not feel compelled to revert back. If you feel a potential edit war could erupt out of this, report it to an admin. Too many pages are locked because of this. Anyone found waging in one of these edit wars will be warned or blocked for a varying amount of time (depending on the blockee's history and the severity of the edits). This should go without saying; if you break a rule, do not break it again. This applies to the wiki and all of its rules as a whole.
Overly specific descriptions of an antagonist's role are prohibited. Under these new policies, we do not need rulings like "the main turned secondary," "false main antagonist," "hidden true main antagonist (redundant)" and especially notes in the trivia noting villains as "often thought to be/mistaken as the main antagonist."
"Misinformation campaigns" and "plots" are highly discouraged; we do not need this listed on every single page with a cover-up villain.
As said, main/primary and secondary are generally seen as alright (as these are generally subject to the least amount of interpretation; warring over such falls under the edit wars section and will not be tolerated), but the use of "tertiary" villains begins to veer into overly specific and is discouraged. "Quaternary" and below is prohibited.
That is all for now; any and all feedback is very much supported as these are bound to be modified in some form. This may come as a jarring turn for some of you (especially for those who actively mark all these villains by these terms) but it looks extremely clunky and given the amount of conflict and edit wars, locked pages, and even user blocks that have happened because of this, this is honestly the better option.
For more in-depth looks into this, please see these pages on the wikia of the user who first supporting motioning this: the initial blog (which may provide some insight into these kinds of edits), Wickedpedia's own policies, and the analysis (contains some data from this wiki).
EDIT: I've painted these rules as clearly as I can, but since some users insist on continuing these types of edits and little else aside from them even after prior warnings and blocks, I am going to become much less lenient with my bans. If you are warned, do not engage in the behavior you were warned against again.
All users are actively encouraged to remove any information violating this policy.
Thank you.