Defenders of Wesley - Group Rules
Please take a moment to read these rules. They are for the benefit of all
members, and to save your co-founders from tearing their hair out. Contact
email addresses for co-founders can be found at the end of this document.
1) Spoilers
A spoiler is information about the storyline of an episode. For example, a
spoiler for the ‘Angel’ episode ‘Five by Five’ would be ‘Wesley is tortured by
Faith, but is rescued by Angel’.
Please include spoiler space when discussing ALL episodes of ‘Angel’ season
four. This is because different parts of the world get to see the episodes at
different times, and not everyone wants to know information about episodes
before seeing them.
Please include the name of the episode which you are discussing in the title of
your post, and state this again within the body of your post.
Spoiler space should be at least 20 characters long - please press ‘return’
after each character. An example of spoiler space is below.
Spoilers for ‘Eternity’ ahead:
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Angel briefly becomes Angelus thanks to a happiness drug, and attacks Wesley and
Cordelia.


Please also mark spoilers for ALL future episodes of ‘Angel’ (episodes that have
yet to air in the US and Canada) in the same way.
Please note that posts containing unmarked spoilers will be deleted and
re-posted with appropriate spoiler space and spoiler warnings.


2) Speculation
Speculation on possible future storylines is welcome, but please make sure that
it is marked as such somewhere in your post or subject line to avoid any
potential confusion. (Examples of this would be: ‘Speculation on the future of
Wesley’, ‘Speculation on possible storylines for the rest of Angel season 3'
etc.)

3) Fanfic
Please feel free to post Wesley-centric fan fiction to the group. You can
either post your fiction as you would a normal message, or upload it to the
‘files’ section of the group. However, please make sure that you include the
following, in order to ensure that Mutant Enemy don’t sue us:
i) Your name (screen name or real name) and contact email address.
ii) A disclaimer saying that you don’t own the characters in the story and that
they belong to Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon. This is very important as
otherwise your story is in violation of copyright and Mutant Enemy and the WB
could sue us if they chose to do so. (It’s not likely that they would, but we
don’t have much money and we’d sooner not run the risk.) Stories without a
copyright disclaimer will be deleted.
iii) Spoiler warnings and space, if appropriate. Something like ‘Contains
spoilers up to [name of episode]’ is fine.
iv) Content warning and rating. Please indicate the kind of content your story
contains (i.e. if there any sexual or violent scenes, and if so, how many.)
Rate your story as if it were a film, for example G or U if the content is
suitable for all, R or 15 if there are some sexual and/or violent scenes, NC-17
or 18 if there is a lot of sex or violence. Some readers also like to be
warned if a story contains a death of any main character, or if there are
‘slash’ scenes (romance or sex between two male or two female characters.)
v) It’s not vital, but it can be helpful to state if your story deals with a
particular relationship, whether it is ‘canon’ (seen on the show) or not, for
example Wesley/Cordy, Wesley/Gunn, Wesley/Fred etc.

4) Discussions
Discussion of anything to do with Wesley, Alexis or ‘Angel’ is what we’re here
for! Discussion of ‘Buffy’ is fine too, but since it is off-topic for this
club, please mark ‘Buffy’-related posts with ‘OT’ in the subject line. Other
off-topic posts (about other actors or TV shows, about events in members’ real
lives) are fine too - please also mark with OT. This is to ensure that members
who only want to read on-topic posts (those about Wesley, Alexis and ‘Angel’)
don’t have to wade through off-topic stuff.
A few rules:
i) Obviously, no bashing of Wesley or Alexis is allowed.
ii) Criticism of other characters is fine (eg ‘I wish [character] would be more
assertive’), bashing (eg ‘[Character] is really stupid and I wish they would
die!’) is not. This club was initially set up as a haven from
character-bashing; therefore, any posts containing that kind of nastiness will
be deleted. There are plenty of other message boards where that kind of
behaviour is tolerated: I will not allow it at this club. Please ask your
co-founders if you have any further questions on this.
iii) Doyle
The ‘Kill off Wesley, bring back Doyle’ flame wars of ‘Angel’ season one were
nasty. Both pro- and anti-Wesley people got somewhat extreme, horrible stuff
was said, and this club was set up as a respite from the flame wars. We don’t
want these flame wars to start all over again, therefore no bashing of Doyle or
Glenn Quinn is allowed. The Wesley vs. Doyle thing is largely a dead issue
now, but if any Doyle fans were to visit the group and find negative remarks
about their favourite character, it could start the whole thing up again. It
doesn’t matter if you like Doyle or not (or if you’re neutral about the whole
situation) - the only prerequisite for being a member of this club is that you
like Wesley.
iv) Behaviour towards other members of the club
Sometimes, debates get heated. This is NOT an excuse to act in an abusive or
rude way towards your fellow club members. Everyone has a right to express
their opinion; please respect that right. If, however, you feel that a member
has broken any of the club rules, please let your co-founders know and we will
deal with it as quickly as possible.
v) Trolls
From time to time, most email lists and posting boards encounter trolls: the
kind of people who are silly enough to come to a Wesley club and post stuff like
‘Wesley sux! You’re all really sad!” etc. The thing they most want is
attention, so don’t give it to them. Do NOT reply to their posts, and report
them to one of the co-founders. We will delete their posts (and their
membership if necessary) and report them to Yahoo! for violation of their Terms
of Service.
vi) Discussion of actor's personal lives
Obviously this is a topic which will arise from time to time. Discussion of
anything which is already in the public domain (for example, any comments that
Alyson might make in the media about her relationship with Alexis) is fine. But
please, no speculation and nothing potentially libellous, since I don't want to
get sued. Any posts containing material which is potentially libellous will be
deleted.

5) Photos, articles and other files
i) Photos
Email attachments are NOT permitted for the group; this is so that people who
receive messages by email aren’t swamped with lots of large messages. However,
if you have a new Wesley or Alexis photo, you can add it to the photo albums.
To do this, go the main group page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/defendersofwesley/
click on ‘photos’ on the left-hand side of the page, choose an appropriate
folder (folders with 24 photos are full, so don’t choose one of those) for your
picture, and follow the instructions. If you know the source of the picture,
please add a note in the caption to say where it’s from. (The current format of
Yahoo! groups doesn’t allow much space for captions when adding pictures, but
you can go back and edit captions once you’ve added the photo.)
ii) Other files
If you have a file containing anything Wesley or Alexis-related that you wish to
share with the group, you can add it to the files section of the group. Go to
the main group page, click on ‘files’ on the left-hand side of the page, and
click either ‘add file’ or ‘create folder’, whichever you feel is appropriate.
If you’re adding a fanfic, please follow the guidelines above. If you’re adding
an interview, please state where it’s from - publication / web site, issue
number if appropriate, author if stated. If you wish, you can send a message
to the group announcing that you have added a file.
iii) Links
Members are welcome to add links to other sites, though please try to restrict
them to Wesley/Alexis-related sites if possible. Go to the main group page,
click ‘bookmarks’ on the left-hand side of the page and follow the instructions.
Please check that the link you want to add isn’t there already.

Finally, something which isn’t a rule as such, but I’d be very grateful for any
help in this area:
Promoting the group
Like I said, you don’t have to do this; only if you have time. There are two
ways you can promote the group:
i) Click on ‘invite’ on the left-hand side of the main group page. This allows
you to invite people to the club - all you have to do is enter their email
addresses. Please do NOT abuse this feature by inviting lots of people who
aren’t interested (i.e. people who don’t like Alexis or Wesley.)
Ii) If you own a site which has content relating to Wesley, Alexis, ‘Buffy’ or
‘Angel’, click on ‘promote’ on the left-hand side of the main group page. This
gives you the HTML code for a button which allows visitors to your site to sign
up for the group simply by entering their email address.

Please note that anyone who persistently violates the rules above will have
their membership deleted. [This won’t happen without a warning: we’ll warn you
to modify your behaviour and if you don’t, you’ll be banned.] We haven’t had to
delete anyone yet in the two years the group has been in existence; don’t be the
first!

Email addresses of your co-moderators:
Kath - vze25s65@...
Adrian - shadrach30@...