Site Rules/Genre Listing and Categories

General Category Rules

1. Do not create new categories. Do not add categories that are not listed on this page to stories. If you feel that a new category should be created, suggest it here.

2. Genre categories should only be added when they fit the theme or subject matter of a story. For example, do not add a story to Vehicles just because it mentions a car once.

3. Subcategories are generally mutually exclusive with their respective parent categories, but there are exceptions.

Admin-Only Categories

These categories are only to be added by admins.

Specific Category Rules

Beings	All Beings subcategories - Cryptids, Demon/Devil, Ghosts, Gods, and Monsters - are mutually exclusive with Beings and with each other, except when used in reference to different entities. Cryptids and Animals are not mutually exclusive but should also not be used in reference to the same entity.
Books	Mutually exclusive with Diary/Journal and Items/Objects, except when they exist independently from each other in a story.
Collab	Only to be used for official collaborative projects with admin involvement, not random stories that you and a friend worked on.
Crime	Only to be used for stories based on or concerning real-life crimes, or involving police and general law enforcement/criminal investigation. Not just stories in which a crime is committed (such as murder).
Historical Archive/PD	Cannot be added with any other categories apart from Micropastas, Longpastas, and Poetry. Do not add stories in the PD author categories to Historical Archive/PD and do not add HPL stories to Lovecraftian.
Holders	Cannot be added with any other categories apart from Micropastas and Longpastas, including Ritual and Items/Objects.
Hospitals	Mutually exclusive with Places. This category is for stories that take place primarily in or around hospitals or other similar care facilities, not just stories involving medical procedures or likewise dismemberment.
Lost Episodes	Mutually exclusive with Television. Cannot be added with any other categories except Historical Archive, Videos, and Memes. We no longer accept lost episode stories.
Longpastas	Only to be used for stories that are 50,000 bytes or above. You can view a page's byte size by looking at the latest revision in its edit history.
Mental Illness	Can be omitted when applicable to avoid spoilers, at the discretion of the author. The same rule applies for any other category liable to give away a story's twist or ending.
Micropastas	Only to be used for stories that are 2000 bytes or below. Mutually exclusive with Poetry.
Reddit Pastas	Only to be used for stories posted on Reddit that you wrote or are migrating to the site with provable permission from the original author. It is against the rules to migrate other people's stories to this wiki without their permission.
Vehicles	While not mutually exclusive with Items/Objects, they should not be used in reference to the same object in a story.
Video Games	Cannot be added to any other category except Suggested Reading (admin-only), Historical Archive, Videos, Memes, Poetry, Theory, and PotM. The same goes for PokéMon and Zelda, in addition to being mutually exclusive with Video Games.
Videos	Only to be used for articles that contain videos. Stories about videos that do not include one on the page itself should be added to other relevant categories such as Television or Computers and Internet.
Weird	Only to be used for stories that don't fit other genre categories or that are genuinely weird in some way. If a story already has five categories (excluding non-thematic ones such as Videos, Micro/Longpasta, contest categories and author categories), it probably doesn't need to be added to Weird.

Blogs and User Pages

Blogs are not articles. User pages are not articles. Do not add categories to blogs (other than the default one that is automatically published with each new blog and cannot technically be removed). Do not add categories to user pages. If you add categories to a blog or a user page, you will be warned, then blocked from editing if the incident repeats itself.

Suggesting New Categories

If you feel that a category you have in mind would be a useful addition to the site, leave a message on ClericofMadness's talk page with the name of the category, reason(s) why you feel it should be added, and a general idea/list of pages that would fit the category. Remember that we are not a search engine; categories are not keywords.

A suggested new category must be applicable to at least ten articles to be considered for creation. Genre categories should ideally be relevant to at least a few dozen.

Flagged and Marked Categories

These categories can be added by all users. Be sure to read this page before marking stories for review or deletion. Abuse of these tags may result in a temporary ban. Once added, they may only be removed by an admin.

Marked for Review: For pages that need further editing/fixing. This category is not to be used just to get others to leave feedback your work.

Delete Now: For pages that violate the rules and/or the Wikia ToU and need to be deleted ASAP.

Wiki Author Categories

Users with ten or more stories hosted on the wiki are eligible for their own author category. To have your author category created, make a request for it on an admin's talk page.

Do not create your author category yourself, as all your stories will have to be reviewed for quality before you are granted your category. However, once created, you may add the category to any self-authored stories you post on the wiki, regardless of specific category exclusions.

Penalties for Violations

The following is a list of penalties for violations of these rules. This includes unauthorized category creation and adding nonexistent categories to pages.

First time: Warning.

Second time: 1 day block from the site.

Third time: 1 week block from the site.

Fourth time: 1 month block from the site.

Fifth time: 3 month block from the site.

Sixth time: 1 year block from the site.

Seventh time: Permanent ban from editing.

General Use Story Categories

Animals: Far from your cute, cuddle-worthy pets, these pastas involve animals. (597 P)
Beings: Pastas that involve some unknown being, often with malicious intents. (3,170 P)
- Cryptids: A collection of unsettling cryptozoological-related stories. (157 P)
- Demon/Devil: Vile entities from the abyssal depths of Hell. (720 P)
- Ghosts: How can you have a creepypasta site without ghost stories? (1,035 P)
- Gods: Stories involving gods and deities. (247 P)
- Monsters: Things that go bump in the night. (1,201 P)
Christmas: For when the world is silent, the fire crackles, and the snow is splattered in red. (69 P)
Computers and Internet: Pastas with elements of computer weirdness, like cursed files or websites. (557 P)
Crime: Pastas involving or from the perspective of the police. (178 P)
Diary/Journal: Pastas with a personal twist, meaning they involve someone's diary or journal. (755 P)
Disappearances: People vanish every day... (931 P)
Dismemberment: Sometimes, in stories, people just go to pieces. (1,244 P)
Dreams/Sleep: For stories that involve getting a little shut-eye, then maybe never waking up. (1,246 P)
Food: Food, glorious food! The origins of which may be slightly suspicious... (64 P)
Halloween: For the most horrifying time of the year: Halloween. (117 P)
History: Stories about historic events or settings. (401 P)
Hospitals: Stories about or set in hospitals. (109 P)
Items/Objects: Stories about dark or mysterious items, or which are centered on a specific object. (989 P)
- Books: Pastas that involve some manner of book that isn't a diary or a journal. (115 P)
Longpasta: Stories of 50,000 bytes or above. (277 P)
Lost Episodes: Stories about missing, lost, or otherwise unheard of episodes, movies, or other digital media. Note: we no longer accept Lost Episode pastas. (44 P)
Lovecraftian: IA! IA! This kind of pasta fhtagn for you to read them. (243 P)
Memes: Pastas that are well cemented in 4chanian lore or are a certified meme. (111 P)
Mental Illness: Stories involving mental dysfunction or insanity. (2,680 P)
Micropasta: Stories of 2000 bytes or below. (1,059 P)
Military: Like the ramblings of an insane vet, these stories are interesting, scary, and about the military in some way. (260 P)
Mirrors: Stories that involve mirrors and their strange abilities. (217 P)
Music: ♪~ For stories about music. (202 P)
Nature: Stories involving the natural world, tapping in to your primal fears. (504 P)
NSFW: Pastas that might get you in trouble with your boss at work. Proceed with caution. (310 P)
Photography: Pastas pertaining particularly to peculiar photos. (135 P)
Places: Stories centered on a specific location. (1,712 P)
Poetry: These stories are the bowtie pasta to the atypical spaghetti of prose pastas. (314 P)
Reality: Stories made to destroy a pretense about reality you might have had. (1,261 P)
Ritual: All these stories involve rituals; don't blame us should anything go wrong. (546 P)
- Holders: They must never come together, for these are the original Holders series stories. (282 P)
Science: Everything from insane experiments to scientifically based mind-control are here. (547 P)
Space: Stories taking place in or dealing with the final frontier: outer space. (180 P)
Television: If you're looking for TV weirdness, this is your category. (189 P)
Theory: Stories that look at something from a different perspective. (278 P)
Troll Pasta: These are less horrible versions of Horrible Troll Pastas. Note: we no longer accept Trollpastas. (20 P)
Vehicles: These stories are either based around vehicles or take place primarily inside them. (184 P)
Video Games: Generally, these are stories about strange goings-on in video games. (172 P)
- PokéMon: Pastas involving the many multitudes of the all 646 'mons. May Arceus have mercy on your soul. Note: we no longer accept Pokemon pastas. (98 P)
- Zelda: Open this chest and you might find an actual piece of a heart. Scary stories involving the Legend of Zelda franchise. Note: we no longer accept Zelda pastas. (17 P)
Weird: Stories that can't quite be categorized any other way, or that are just genuinely weird. (1,078 P)

Special Categories

General

Historical Archive: For pastas posted on /x/ and other sources before the creation of this wiki. (723 P)
- Historical Archive/PD: For classic works of literature which have fallen into the public domain. (149 P)
Reddit Pastas: Pastas originating from /r/nosleep. Note: only the original authors may post their works here. (295 P)
Suggested Reading: A good start for those who are new to Creepypasta. (102 P)
Spotlighted Pastas: Stories picked by admins to be featured on the front page. (49 P)
Videos: Pastas with accompanying videos. Even scarier than just reading them! If there is not a video on the page, it does not need this category. See Television for things about videos but not containing them. (3,352 P)

Contests

Contests: For individual contest categories. (30 P)
Contest Blog: For contest blogs. (40 P)
Contest Winner: For contest winners. (34 P)
PotM: All Pasta of the Month winners go here. (118 P)

Authors

AGB: Stories by Ambrose Bierce. Nothing matters. (68 P)
EAP: Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Stories by Edgar Allan Poe go here. (115 P)
HPL: Lovecraft's actual writings. Not to be confused with Lovecraftian, which is for stories that draw inspiration from his works. (143 P)
Kafka: A category for the works of the late Franz Kafka. (15 P)
REH: Stories by Robert E. Howard. (35 P)
User Stories: A category for wiki authors. See each subcategory for stories by that author. (70 P)