Game of Thrones Wiki:Policies, Guidelines and Parent Filter

This page outlines the policies and guidelines that should be adhered to when adding images and pages or making changes to the Wiki.

This is a wiki about the TV series
This Wiki is based on the Game of Thrones TV show and not the Song of Ice and Fire novels. The two are separate entities with their own canon and continuities. What is true for one may not be true for the other. This means that:


 * The existence of a character in the TV canon should not be assumed because they appear in the novels. Book characters who have been mentioned but have not appeared yet (most notably Stannis Baratheon and Balon Greyjoy as of Season 1) can certainly be added to the TV Wiki, but it should not be assumed that say Oberyn Martell will be in the TV series just because he's in the books.


 * The same goes for noble houses. There are over 300 noble houses listed in the books or in semi-canon resources, but it's unlikely that the TV show will ever show more than a tiny fraction of these. We can give entries to mentioned houses or to houses featured on the HBO 'Viewer's Guide' website, but most houses will not warrant a mention.


 * TV character names should be followed at all times. For example, the entry on the young lord of the Vale is at Robin Arryn, which is his name in the TV series, not 'Robert Arryn'. The same for Rakharo rather than Jhogo. Most notably, the name of the nonhuman antagonists of the series is the 'White Walkers', not 'the Others'. Noting name changes is fine in the 'In the books' section, but TV terminology and names should be used throughout.


 * There is an excellent wiki for the books here, if you wish to contribute to a novel-based wiki rather than one based on the TV show.

NO SPOILERS
A vital point. The TV series is based on a series of books and at the current rate will take many seasons to catch up to the novels. As such, essentially the entire storyline for the series for at least four and soon five seasons (and potentially more) is known to many hundreds of thousands of people. Since this is a Wiki about the TV series alone, no spoilers, events or characters from future books may be added to the Wiki until the TV series introduces them. Certainly the fate of major characters and the outcome of major storylines should not be revealed under any circumstances.

Using official and American spellings
Whilst set in a land reminiscent of Medieval Europe, Game of Thrones is an American series based on an American sequence of books by an American author which uses American spellings throughout. As such, the 'correct' spelling of words on the Wiki should be the American ('As High as Honor' for the Arryn motto, not 'Honour', for example).

What is more important is that the correct spellings of terms, names and terminology are used. So it's 'khal', not 'kahl' and definitely 'White Walkers', not 'Wight Walkers'. If in doubt, check the HBO Viewer's Guide website.

Image policy and relationship with HBO
The use of official promotional HBO images is permitted under Fair Use, though if possible smaller images should be used rather than high-resolution ones.

The use of screencaps is specifically permitted for this Wiki by HBO, as long as we don't go overboard (i.e. drowning each article in screencaps where a couple will suffice) and as long as we understand that HBO reserve the right to ask us to remove specific or all screencaps at any time. Given the number of Wikis out there based on HBO shows with tons of screencaps, I doubt this will ever be an issue.

Because this Wiki is based on the TV series and the TV series alone, the use of images unrelated to the TV series should only be considered if absolutely necessary. Using the covers of the novels to illustrate the book article under Fair Use is one thing, for example, but the use of other copyrighted material (Amoka's portraits of book characters, Ted Nasmith's castle artwork etc) must be avoided.

We enjoy a cordial relationship with HBO at present. Anything that will threaten that relationship and the long-term future of the Wiki, such as publishing spam, illegal download links and so on, will not be tolerated.