Tardis:When do local rules prevail?

From time to time, Fandom creates products that come with their own "starter" rules. We often adopt those products early in their lifecycle, in order to help shape the future. But there can be a delay between when the product goes live, and when we here at Tardis are allowed to alter those generic rules. In such cases, we do not consider the rules provided by Fandom to be binding.

If the situation is especially confusing — usually because the product offers an experience not contemplated by current rules — the administrative staff will make an effort to give guidance as to which of our local rules are controlling, or to write new ones.

Generally, though, it should be assumed that any new products will probably fall under some existing rule found on the wiki. It's your responsibility, even if you're mainly a mobile user, to read and follow our policies.

By way of example, the rules which Doctor Who mobile app users — but not desktop ones — saw upon the introduction of the 2016 Discussions module were at variance with our discussion policy. Local policy prevailed upon introduction of this module.

This means suggestions or common practices from other communities, including Community Central, would need to be discussed on Tardis to become rules here, as well. But Fandom policy, when specifically included in the Terms of Use, will always prevail over local policies, should any disputes arise.

Though not all rules will be codified in a timely manner, and precedent still holds, even if it's not been made into a policy like T:DOCTORS, any rule which has not been written into these namespaces cannot be a blockable offence, as per Fandom's 2021 blocking policy.

That said, other rules, like T:BOUND, T:POINT and T:NO WARS, may come into play, to ensure discussion takes place when major precedents are being contested. New decisions should be in line with current policy, unless it is current policy which is under discussion (always in the forums). For more information, see Tardis:Who writes policy.