Heinous Standards: The first and most important factor to a Villainous Benchmark character is that they must fail the heinous standards to other villains within their work, meaning they cannot be Inconsistently Heinous, Near Pure Evil, or Pure Evil. This point of this wiki is to exemplify villains that would have the potential to stand out in other works, but fail their in-universe standards. Some of the best examples of villains who would stand out in other works but fail the in-universe standards include Mojo Jojo, Jesse Pinkman, Vecna, and Jafar.
No Bog-Standard/Generic Villains: Villainous Benchmarks cannot be Bog-Standard or generic "kill the heroes" in their villainy. The reason for this is that every villain who is not IH, NPE, or PE would therefore automatically be a Villainous Benchmark by default, which results in tens of thousands of unnecessary pages.
Villains can still be Villainous Benchmarks even if they don't meet the baseline, so long as the reason for not meeting the baseline is a result of other villains raising the standards to so high they can't qualify. An example of this would be Johann from the How To Train Your Dragon franchise, who would be NPE if not for the baseline being so high due to the series other villains.
While villains that pass the baseline but fail the heinous standards to Pure Evil villains can be Near Pure Evil in some cases, this is only when they only slightly fail the heinous standards and have no other mitigating factors, hence many Villainous Benchmarks being tragic, played for laughs, relying on Fridge Horror, etc. With the case of Johann, he fails massively due to other villains with less resources doing much worse than him and none of his crimes being unique, resulting in him being a Villainous Benchmark rather than Near Pure Evil.
Relying on Fridge Horror, suffering from off-screen villainy, and being played for laughs are all things that can apply to a Villainous Benchmark so long as they still pass the baseline.
Villains that fail the heinous standards due to being Unintentionally Heinous can still be Villainous Benchmarks so long as they have intentional crimes which are not bog-standard.
No Shock Value: Purely shock value villains which are disqualified from being IH, NPE, or PE cannot be Villainous Benchmarks. In a pure shock value work, there's no heinous standards as a result of there being no heroic characters to oppose the villains, making it impossible for a Villainous Benchmark to exist, as they must still pass the baseline while failing the in-universe standards. A villain that can't be scaled on any other wiki due to being from a work with "no moral or message" does not belong as a Villainous Benchmark as the wiki is meant to exemplify villains that could stand out in works other than their own.
Current Villainous Benchmarks, as well as characters who are redeemed, can be Heroes, Heroic Benchmarks, or Inconsistently Admirable. Some redeemed villainous benchmarks can be Near Pure Good, or even Pure Good in some cases, so long as they still pass the baseline but fail the heinous standards to other characters.
Villainous organizations, teams, and hostile species do not qualify as Villainous Benchmarks. Partners in crime can be given pages, so long as each member fulfils the criteria.
Timeframe: Villains from actively releasing works cannot have a Villainous Benchmark page made until the work is finished, for example a TV series that has episodes releasing weekly could not have Villainous Benchmark pages until at least the season is finished.
This doesn't apply to series with large breaks in between releases such as the Hellaverse or Berserk.
A Villainous Benchmark page can only be made two weeks after the release of the work the character comes from so as to give time for other Moral Scaling Wikis to discuss the character as well.
