Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines

Location question

My apologies if this may have been asked and answered before...Is it possible to link the article Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines to the main page? I've gotten messages from editors who want to know how to start, but aside from just jumping in, they don't know how. I can't say I'm not personally sympathetic to this, as it took me over a month from my first edit to find guideline articles. The wikilinks when you start an article should be written better, it shows the basics of how to do an article, but now the policies that are behind those basics. Thank you in advance. Leobold1 (talk) 19:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The first "policy" pages I would want a newbie to read are Be bold, the five pillars, and Understanding Ignore all rules. Everything that comes after that -- including what's on this page -- you can learn as you go along.--Father Goose (talk) 04:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Anonymity and outing

I'm trying to locate the policy that explicitely states that contributors are promised as much anonymity as possible but I'm having trouble locating it. In which policy does it state that Wikipedia editors are promised anonymity? Where does it state that outing is wrong? WP:Anonymity and WP:Outing are essays, not policies or guidelines. WP:BLOCK states that blocks can be given for disclosing personal information, but doesn't state what is considered personal information as opposed to raising allegations of COI. So, which policy is used by admins when warning or blocking someone for outing another editor? Cla68 (talk) 00:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:OUTING, which is a different page from WP:Outing. I added a hatnote to WP:Outing to clear up the confusion.--Father Goose (talk) 04:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

a bit of tidying

Especially the section under guideline was becoming a cliff's notes on "consensus on wikipedia", so I shortened it. I've also done some other small things, hopefully none are controversial --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

On that same vein, I've removed the Experimental category which is not used and tried to clarify the differnce between rejected and historical. I would like to think again about changing the name rejected to failed or not-accepted, or a better name. The term rejected seems to offend contributors but using historical as a euphamism is inaccurate. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• "No current consensus"? Or "No consensus"? Or "Consensus not achieved?" Would the "Disputed" tag work? Maybe "Not-accepted" works best. Hiding T 10:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• I think that I like failed consensus. I think that there needs to be some finality, but rejected is hard on the ownership ego. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Things keep drifting towards that guidelines should be treated discuss first.

I agree that discussion is important, naturally :-)

However, from a system point of view, the current dynamics are that some people have a tendency to enforce discussion upfront. This very often ends up as a kind of indefinite filibuster that might take several months to resolve. So we want to try to stay away from giving the impression that "discuss first" is mandatory. Discussion in general is always a good idea, of course. --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC) systems point of view can at times be a tad counter-intuitive or confusing.

Ok, reedited that short text again. I don't like this one either. Basically it's just recapping the consensus system again (which uses both the project page and the talk page). Can't we just say "Guidelines are maintained through Wikipedia:Consensus"  ? (or is that too short?) --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC) scratches head

Kim, you broke my heart! That was my favorite sentence of the whole day. Oh well so much for the tender sensitivities of ownership. If editing before discussing was ruled out, we'd all be in jail. Have a great Friday or whatever it is today on the backside of the bottom of the world. Cheers and I'll toast you with my first IPA. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

^^;; I didn't mean to break your heart! Maybe we can sort something out. :-) Cheers, Have a good one! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Rejected changed to Failed

(Some discussion from above is copied here for continuity) The term rejected seems to offend contributors but using historical as a euphamism is inaccurate. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• "No current consensus"? Or "No consensus"? Or "Consensus not achieved?" Would the "Disputed" tag work? Maybe "Not-accepted" works best. Hiding T 10:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• I think that I like failed consensus. I think that there needs to be some finality, but rejected is hard on the ownership ego. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes "rejected" does mean rejected. We need some way of summarizing the consensus. DGG (talk) 04:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

But then, even rejected ideas can resurface and gain acceptance, given that consensus can change. I've been bold and edited {{rejected}}; if people agree with the changes I've made, we'll need to a few other edits in concert with them, and should probably move {{rejected}} to {{failed}}.--Father Goose (talk) 00:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I support FG and have taken further steps to incorporate the new term into the text at the project page. Suggest gaining consensus then move {{rejected}} to {{failed}}, as FG suggests. --Kevin Murray (talk) 13:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes "rejected" does mean rejected, but usually it doesn't. Usually, it means (1) More forceful editors have declared that this wil never achieve a consensus, or (2) discussion has died down with a consensus for support. In these cases, "failed" is more appropriate. In the rare cases that a consensus has agreed to reject the proposal, this is better noted explicitly on the proposal talk page. The talk page is always a good place for summarising consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Joe, do you think that we need two tags so that one covers the rare case of "rejection", or could we remain a bit euphamistic in those cases? --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

We don’t “need” two tags, but I don’t see having a variety of tags as a problem. Nearly every “rejected” I’ve seen should be a softer worded “failed”. Occassionaly, proposals are resoundingly rejected, where you could say that there has been a consensus to reject. In these cases, I would support a “reject” tag, along the lines of the overly strong tradiational one, stating that the community has rejected the proposal. Examples: The talk page of Wikipedia:Full meta links seems to reflect a pretty emphatic “rejection”. Another proposal I am familiar with is User:Jimbo Wales/Credential Verification, which was in my opinion emphatically, though not unanimously, rejected, and which persists with a euphemistic use of the historical tag. I don’t think it hurts for a failed proposal to have a softly worded tag. So, I am not very strong about this either way. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"Failed" still covers "rejected", and if we have both, we'll just have fights over when something failed vs. was rejected. No need: failed is failed. Athough for the real dogs, I suppose we could add a picture of epic fail guy to the template.--Father Goose (talk) 06:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps some humor wouldn't be all bad. --Kevin Murray (talk) 06:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps “failed” vs “rejected” fights would serve as a pressure relief valve for overheated pro-/op-ponentes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Having been in a fight over "rejected" status (with Kevin, no less), I can vouch that such fights are ugly as fuck. To minimize wikidrama, the best thing is to let down the proponents as gently as possible; all that's actually important is that a proposal that is actually dead be marked as no-go.--Father Goose (talk) 08:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, closure without insult. --Kevin Murray (talk) 08:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. There is no need for "rejected". All that matters is that there is not consensus for support, that the proposal has “failed” for whatever reason. The reason should be on the talk page. Also note that not having “rejected” avoids a mechanism to game policy processes, such as has been alleged by having Wikipedia:Supermajority created, rejected, and possibly used to imply that the converse holds consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Adding guideline enforcement tags

(I hope I'm posting my question in the right place. Please feel free to redirect me to a more appropriate location.) If a Wikiproject decides by consensus amongst a small group of editors within the project that a certain presentation guideline should be followed on all pages claimed to be under the domain of the project, is the project entitled to insert and maintain hidden text placed at the top of every such article linking back to the project's guideline as an "enforcement" measure? Robert K S (talk) 15:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The short answer is: adding that hidden text does not violate the letter of any policy or guideline I can think of. The long answer is, it depends, (esp. if the hidden text could be construed as pointy, and I infer from how you worded your question that it is a real, rather than hypothetical, one. If so, could you share the real example so I and other editors may comment more enlightenedly? UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

In the case at hand, members of a WikiProject intend to exclude infoboxes from all biographical articles deemed to be under the project's domain. Once they believed they found consensus for this initiative within the WikiProject, they removed existing infoboxes from all such articles and added inline text to the tops of those articles that read, "Please do not add an infobox" and include a link to their WikiProject guideline prohibiting infoboxes. What would WP:OWN say about this sort of across-the-board enforcement? The concern here is that the "rule" was made with the consent of fewer than 10 editors (with the actual text prohibiting infoboxes being approved by only 3) but applies to potentially hundreds of articles edited by thousands of other users. Robert K S (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question, the project in question is the opera wikiproject and I would suggest that the discussion be had on that project's page as there is a lot more dialogue already on that page in regaurds to this topic. Also, Robert K S has highly distorted the reality of the situation as I have stated on the other talk page. First, hidden texts are not tags and serve a completely different function. Second, there is and has not been any attempt by the opera project to enforce or implement the removal of info boxes. The hidden text merely serves as a cautionary measure pointing out the inherant problems with info boxes that often lead to distortions of truth or inaccuracies in information. The project does not forbid infoboxes (that would be WP:OWN) but merely asks editors to talk about adding an info box on that article's talk page before adding one to the article. If such a discussion decides to add an info box than of course an info box can be placed. Third, to my knowledge the hidden text appears on very few of the opera project's articles. I would venture to say that less than fifty of the 4,500 plus articles (less than 1%) under the opera project's perview include them. For the most part, these hidden texts have only been placed on articles where info boxes have proven to be counterproductive. They have not been placed on mass and there is no policy requiring a hidden text. Fourth, there are similar positions held by other projects. (see Opera Project talk page). Finally, there are more editors that support the project's position than mentioned above. I myself am not included in the numbers above as I did not participate in any prior info box discussion. No project member has complained about the policy to my knowledge so I would assume that most project members are supportive. We are a very active group and, knowing the project members as I do, there would have been complaints if there was disagreement. You are all welcome to join the discussion.Nrswanson (talk) 14:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Third party paid entries okay?

A professional writer asks other writers if accepting payment to write Wikipedia entries is "ethical." What is Wikipedia's policy on this? I have not so far found anything. Other writers are coming down on both sides... Eperotao (talk) 15:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, I see more and more entries that are most likely the product of industry flacks. Much of the information is useful and interesting, but also very one sided. I see this problem getting worse before it gets better,since the sheer volume of it will overwhelm other less interested sources of content. Does Wikipedia have a policy on industrial generated content? Is that the future of Wikipedia?? Eperotao (talk) 16:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've seen a number of instances where such articles are created, but they tend to be either deleted as being irreparably spammy, or subjected to sufficient NPOV power-washing to render it an adequate article. That being said however, creating or editing articles is not only certainly frowned upon, but is almost inevitably fruitless because the editor's efforts are almost always frustrated by the dynamic I mentioned above. – ClockworkSoul 16:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, ClockworkSoul. So you think the phenomenon is relatively harmless to Wikipedia as a whole and that editors can keep up with it? I'd be concerned that industry's resources are such that Wiki editors could not keep up with, for example, massive pharma generated content. Also, I'm wondering if Wikipedia has developed a specific policy about this. Eperotao (talk) 16:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I've worked with a number of PR people from various places, and some of them have learned how to write decent Wikipedia articles that are informative and meet our standards. Good professionals in that business are not fools, once it's explained that this is a different medium they can write as well or better than most of us can, & they know how to be objective when they need to be. (Many never do learn, of course, and get blocked, & recognized easily if they reappear. ) The best guide to dealing with this is Durova's WP:BFAQ from which I've learned anything good in my approach. What needs to be encouraged I think is for them to simply declare their COI. Then the people in the subject can watch--we can deal with the amount of likely input. It's the undetected ones who do the damage. (Though even here I am aware of some who have never admitted it but do consistently decent work under multiple throw-away accounts.) DGG (talk) 16:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I relayed this to the interested writers. Forgot to thank you earlier. Eperotao (talk) 18:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

New MOS for TV

The television community currently has an MOS guideline under proposal, and would appreciate all comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines#MOS proposal in order to have the best possible guide for television related articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Summaries?

Do we need a further category called Summary? The failed proposal for WP:ATT has been recently tagged as a Summary of multiple policies. I object to a new category (tag) which does not yet have consensus, but poses as legitimate guidance. I don't see the need for a new category, but would be less concerned if there was a clear procedure for identifying such a category and defining the level of consensus required to achieve "Summary" status. Maybe it is just a harmless euphamism at this point, but why add to the confusion? As it stands now anyone can subjectively summarize several policies on one page, and then parade the new animal as gospel to further confuse our contributors. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

lock page?

I don't beleive there is a lot of vandalism here, but this project page is quite important, does anyone else think it should be locked? Androo123 (talk) 05:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It's typically vandalized once or twice a week. A lock might be good since this isn't a page that really needs to be altered all that often.Nrswanson (talk) 15:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Errrrrrrr. No. :-P

Because we are a wiki, and would like to keep it that way, all pages are typically left unlocked UNLESS they are subject to heavy vandalism or edit warring RIGHT NOW. Or for the case of templates, if the template is transcluded across a lot of pages, and editing would cause large scale disruption

Checklist

• Heavy vandalism last 24h? No
• Edit Warring last 24h? No
• is template? No
  • large scale transclusion? No
  • vandalism causes large scale disruption? No

Conclusion: Lock page? No.

So we leave the page unlocked. :-) (Hmm, I wonder if we could create more checklists like that for other things)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 15:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Reviving a failed proposal

Hi.

I saw this:

"A failed proposal (AKA:rejected) is one for which consensus for acceptance has not developed after a reasonable time period. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed. It is considered bad form to hide this fact, e.g. by removing the tag. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch and start in a different direction. "

What happens though if you make major changes, but not start entirely from scratch -- you still leave little bits of the original in -- but the changes are nonetheless major, not "small". Furthermore, has there ever been a case where someone has gone against this and a unclear/neutral consensus developed into a clear for/against one? If so, what is it? mike4ty4 (talk) 20:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't make proposals. ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't make generalizations. :> _{1 != 2} 15:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Noted and improved , edit conflicted with you. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec while extending) Don't make proposals. ;-) The proposal pathway is a lie. It is practically impossible to create new policy by making a proposal. However, anytime we edit out the proposal pathway, some people edit war it back in (and nobody else cares because they know better anyway (What? This makes it impossible for newbies to learn? No kidding! :-P )).

If you want to change the way things are done, work out a better way of doing things with your fellow wikipedians, and just do it. If it works well, write an essay about it. (The {{Essay}} template tends to lie about the importance of essays too.) --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, requests for rollback came about through a proposal. Though I do admit it was more a decision than a policy, the policy formed more organically later...(do we even have a policy for that yet?) _{1 != 2} 15:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

IIRC it was implemented by a dev first, which lead to much wikidrama?

And our policy for all pages is Wikipedia:Consensus and etc. For the project namespace, it is assumed you are writing a kind of mini-wikipedia on best practices. Similar rules apply, although some people are recalcitrant. These rules are not enforced atm, except by natural selection. (if you document best practice, it tends to stick). --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

So then what is the whole point of the "proposal" thing anyway? mike4ty4 (talk) 03:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

People inevitably want to propose new rules. Sometimes new rules are actually needed, though most of the time, the proposals take the form of "here's how I think everybody should be behaving on Wikipedia", which is definitely doomed. The failure rate of the "proposal" process is overstated, but it definitely does have a high rate of morbidity.--Father Goose (talk) 05:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Which proposal would you like to see resurrected, anyhow?--Father Goose (talk) 00:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh, I didn't exactly have one in mind at the moment. It was more of a curiosity question than anything else. mike4ty4 (talk) 03:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody point to a definition of "Reasonable time" in this context? WP:BI got {{failed}} rather quickly, whaile some of WP:MOSNUM has dragged on for years.LeadSongDog (talk) 18:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Deleting an article by REDIRECTING

An article I wrote that recently was selected for DYK has basically been eliminated by just redirecting it to another article. There has been no discussion on this with me from this editor who recently came across a few articles I wrote on ancient Rome. This happens to be an area he writes in. If an article is to be eliminated, shouldn't it go though certain steps instead of just redirecting the title to go to another article? This article is Conscript Fathers. It is well referenced explaining each of the sections of the ancient history. He did not edit the article to make any improvemments, instead just redirected it (deleting the article). Is this correct? --Doug ^talk 15:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I know this may sound like a radical approach, but have you tried talking to the person that did the edit? _{1 != 2} 15:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) So revert the redirect. :-) Then discuss. (WP:BRD) --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC) Or like Until(1==2) wisely suggests, discuss anyway :-)

The lengthy background to this conflict can be found at Talk:Conscript Fathers.--Father Goose (talk) 21:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Both are excellent suggestions, which I have done. I suggested editing the article for improvements, giving me suggestions so that I could edit accordingly, asking for "third party" opinions and even going through the proper procedure of putting the article up for formal deletion - all of which he has chosen to ignore and just redirects the article anyway after my detailed explanation why the article should exist. He will not respond to my detailed answers as to why the article should exist, but instead has determined himself what a Wikipedia reader should see instead. He says what these readers need to see is information on the Roman Senate. He suggested that Information on the term patres conscripti ought to be included in Roman Senate, which I had included into a "hotnote" that directed the reader to "Conscript Fathers" which material has sense been deleted. He will not go through a formal deletion - however chooses to just redirect the article instead to simplify the Wikipedia procedure for himself. He is quite familiar with how to delete an article as in the past this editor has tried to delete several of my articles. I believe it is more a personal thing, rather than the article itself. My details why the article should exist is at "Conscript Fathers" discussion page. Any other ideas? --Doug ^talk 21:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Ask for a third party opinion at WP:3O, if you haven't already. Include a link to Talk:Conscript Fathers so they can familiarize themselves with both sides' views, which are well-documented there.--Father Goose (talk) 01:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, did just that. Now will wait to see what "third party" opinions are offered. --Doug ^talk 13:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Corporate vandalism

Individual vandalism is hard enough to deal with; but this is too complicated, difficult, and persistent for conventional handling. I'm persuaded that corporate vandalism can't be addressed by individual editors -- something quite different is required.

The New York Post is owned by News Corporation. Anonymous editors with IP addresses linked to News Corp have systematically added New York Post real estate sales/rental advertising to the plethora of articles which focus on the neighborhoods in New York City's five boroughs. This is a systematic effort -- with reverted vandalism being quickly replaced with links to similar advertising in more recent issues of the newspaper.

What can be done about intractable NewsCorp vandalism? See Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#NYC -- real estate advertiser? Is there another, more constructive gambit to be tried? --Tenmei (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Essays

I have noticed that essays are being linked too often as if they enjoyed the sanction of policy or a guideline. I thus suggest the following wording:

Essays may become guidelines if they can garner widespread community consensus (see WP:CONSENSUS). In practice, however, this very rarely happens. As a result, the positions, arguments, recommendations or other practices urged or advocated in an essay do not have authority. Essays, therefore, should not be linked as if representing an official policy, guideline or similar.

Comments and criticism welcome. whether this wording is acceptable, some change along these lines would be helpful. Eusebeus (talk) 21:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

My issue is with "do not have authority." Some positions in essays DO have authority, becasue those essays accurately describe WP practice, and that is what comes first: even WP policies derive from the practices of WP editors, not the other way around. An essay that describes this (which I hesitate to link to) is WP:PPP. I am also not convinced that essays are being linked to too often; are there particlar cases of overlinking you can't point us to, to make convincing your claim that this would be a helpful change? UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Surely if particular essays do have some level of authority, then there should be consensus to mark them at least as guidelines, to show this? Otherwise readers will have no idea whether a given essay is simply the ramblings of one deranged editor, or an established gem of wisdom like PPP.--Kotniski (talk) 08:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that. Gary King (talk) 08:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

• Also agree. Surely if something enjoys that level of authority, it should be more than essay? Even the current wording of the essay template states a page containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. You may follow it or not, at your discretion. My proposed wording would simply clarify that essays should not be linked to as if carrying the weight of official policy, which I am increasingly seeing in deletion discussions. This change might also help take certain useful essays (like WP:DTTR, WP:PPP and WP:DENY) and push them toward guideline status. Eusebeus (talk) 13:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The two times I've been forced to confront an "essay" or non-official-guidance, the text was used as a cudgel -- as an unwelcome gambit which was intended to thwart my hopes for any additional exchange-of-views. In each instance, the text was not presented as an aid to communication, but rather as a device to stop my insisting on further explanation. In both situations, I would have preferred something in the text which explained that the purpose of the unofficial, "non-guidance" prose was to help clarify and focus further discussion, not to block it. In lieu of an explicit caveat, I'd want language which diminished the presumption of so-called "weight."

If the unofficial, "non-guidance" essay is to be conventionally used as a weapon to eliminate all reasonable burdens of proof and persuasion, then text is a priori unhelpful. This has been my experience. I would hope that this somewhat tangential comment will be seen as suggesting a broader context for the evaluating the topic at hand. The gravamen of concern should focus on how the essays are actually used -- as helpful tools for clarifying communication or as blunt cudgels for thwarting it. --Tenmei (talk) 21:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

These are issues we've been trying to address at template:essay, using wording in the template that emphasizes the non-binding nature of essays. Not that guidelines or policies are entirely binding either, given both ignore all rules and consensus can change (formerly known as "no binding decisions"). Trying to cow others through policy-bashing is wrong, and essay bashing is even wronger.--Father Goose (talk) 05:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is what essays on Wikipedia are used for: hammers. Usually to hit newcomers with. My favorite is: don't template anyone I know and like better than you er, the regulars-used mostly by admins. --Blechnic (talk) 19:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

There are a number of essays that do represent consensus (the standard required of guidelines and policies) but aren't "enforced" the way guidelines or policies are, so it's better that they're labeled as (mere) essays instead of something more enforceable. Usually this is because they are documentary in nature. WP:PPP is one such example -- it documents some of Wikipedia's principles and "best practices". Although its advice is important and everyone should follow it, there's little immediate consequence to not following it -- you can either stubbornly or naively ignore most of it, although you'll be barking up the wrong tree. (The parts of it you can get in trouble for ignoring are formally written up as policy, such as WP:BURO.) But the purpose of pages such as PPP is to educate people about Wikipedia, not to coerce them into behaving a certain way. Policies and guidelines serve a very different role: they communicate that there's a standing agreement among Wikipedians that "this specific thing" should generally be done "this specific way". But that still doesn't mean they are inviolable, given WP:IAR, and even when there's a good reason to enforce them, the reason should be given, instead of engaging in policy-bashing.--Father Goose (talk) 05:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

So maybe we need a new category, to distinguish these "consensus essays" from other personal-opinion-type essays. Or just get them marked as guidelines, to keep things simpler.--Kotniski (talk) 10:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Why do we need so many rules? There seems to be a real control-freak mentality developing at WP, where any few people can dream up a rule and claim that since no one obejcted there was consensus. --Kevin Murray (talk) 15:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It does say at the beginning of each essay "This is an essay, a page containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. You may follow it or not, at your discretion." I think that covers it. There is no such thing as a special class of essay that has so much following it is enforceable(though some authors may disagree), if that were the case it would become a guideline or policy.

If people link essays in a dispute fine, the message at the top will make it clear it is not a rule. If they claim it is a rule then talk to the user and explain their mistake. If they are doing it on purpose then existing policy regarding disruption is plenty. We don't need a special rule for this. Chillum 15:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I am uninterested in making up new rules, and I don't doubt that my proposed re-wording was less than felicitous, but my intent, rather along the lines of what Father Goose says above, was to put something of the flavour of (the essay) WP:NOTPOLICY into (the official WP description) of WP:ESSAY. Surely no-one disagrees that flinging essay links around as if they represented policy is a good idea; wanton essaylinkmongering is rarely productive. Eusebeus (talk) 19:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

If quoting {{essay}} "This is an essay, a page containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. You may follow it or not, at your discretion." doesn't work, will they listen to language here? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I slightly tweaked Euseebeus's add: the problem is not the link per se, but the implication that the target of the link represents policy or guideline. I also took the "or similar": I have no idea what that means. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added text from the essay page to the essay section here. Verbal chat 08:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this was added with good intent; but, the implication is that all essays remaining in mainspace have consensus, and that is a dangerous assumption. I don't think that this page needs to restate other policy pages, and the essay page where this came from is only an essay itself which implies it lacks consensus. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

About importance

Should it be clarified that policies are not necessarily more important than guidelines? It's a horrible misconception which quite a lot of people, including administrators, hold. My proposed wording is below, with annotations in square brackets:

Neither is more "important" than the other; some guidelines [such as BB] are core standards, and some policies [such as the deletion policy] have a limited scope.

Sceptre ^(talk) 15:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Meh. How "important" something is, or even what the word "important" means is highly subjective. All guidelines and policies have limited scope, since WP:IAR is policy. WP:POLICY just ain't broke with regard to this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The audience of P and G is editors, not users

The text should change to reflect this. The vast majority of users are not editors but readers.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

A fair point. I wouldn't object to changing all instances of "user" to "editor" where policy is concerned.--Father Goose (talk) 23:16, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't go changing all instances of "user" to "editor" throughout policy necessarily. Consider wp:civil - An editor may make a wildly uncivil comment on a talk page. Any wikipedian who has not yet edited that page, is a user, sure, and may very well feel discouraged from editing that page at all. It is appropriate that our policies are to protect the best interests of the project and all users. The semantic distinction between editor and user may be a fine one, in the case of particular policies, such as wp:civil. I think user is fine in most places, or best not to change to editor. Second, how come polices are now instructional? /NewbyG (talk) 01:43, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with NG: I think it is important for the policies to be welcoming, and I think the use of "user" makes them more so. Perhaps a policy by policy discussion is appropriate, but don't we have bigger fish to fry than this semantic difference? UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:47, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposing guidelines

It would be nice if this page had a short section on the recommended procedure for proposing a guideline. There seem to be a number of "guidelines" whose entire review process was one editor writing the page and slapping the {{guideline}} template on it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

No kidding. This has been exceptionally problematic for us shepherds of WP:MOS and its many subpages. WikiProjects and sometimes lone individuals keep coming up with "style guidelines" that do not even agree with the basics of MOS at times, and rarely have more buy-in from, or even awareness than that of, a handful of topically-focused editors, who are often pushing a POV on a personal preference because they could not achieve consensus for it at the actual guideline page covering whatever their issue is about. Similar issues have arisen with regard to WP:NC. By contrast, please see WP:FLAG and the process it went through, including full proposal at WP:VPP, and wide-ranging input from the WP-wide editorship at large. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The lack of broader notice is slightly remedied by VeblenBot's announcements on the policy village pump about new guidelines. VeblenBot will soon start announcing new MoS pages as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I've drafted something as a start; would you all please review it? We need to strike a reasonable balance between providing a robust process and not wasting people's time with jumping through hoops. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Please feel free to make changes directly to that proposal. I assume that it would be placed fairly far down on this page, perhaps above #How are policies enforced?. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

See the WT:BRD and WT:CONSENSUS talk pages and archives; you'll see a lot of hubbub that generally settles down to the proposition that it doesn't work to tell people "you must do X before you can make edit Y", that all you can do is watch and take action if people make the edit. This is the kind of argument that can chew up a lot of time, but don't let me stop you if you want to talk about it and you think you can get significant improvement in how the wiki works. Also, it's not possible to set up a new process that produces the right result when there's no one right result. There is dynamic tension ... much more dynamic tension than is healthy IMO ... around what it means to be a guideline, and especially a style guideline. There are large numbers of people who get good work done every day working on the assumption that 2 or 3 people are enough to get something added to a guideline, and there are larger numbers of people who insist that you need huge participation in the process to arrive at anything that anyone should be expected to follow. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Hm, and there's another practical side to this. 3 guys get together and try to resolve edit wars within their wikiproject. They do all the right things: they poll everyone, they reduce tensions, they compare with WP style guidelines and with popular style guides. They know that most people don't take the "style guideline" tag too seriously, including lots of people who review at GAN, so they don't see any big harm in slapping a style guideline tag on the page. Then people descend from the heavens and say Thou Shalt Not. This can produce exactly the wrong result ... these guys are our allies, exactly the kind of WPians we want to be supporting. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Needs more. When MedMOS was added as a guideline, it had to post to MOS, Village Pump, and about 20 other Projects, and build consensus before it could be added. As far as I know, we were the only guideline page to have done that; others are just groups of editors putting forward their views and slapping a guideline page on it, and many of the existing guidelines have never been reviewed by anyone but a small group of editors who congregate there. There needs to be a means by which it is shown that new proposed guideline pages aren't redundant or contradictory with other guideline or policy pages before they can be added, and there needs to be some categorization scheme (often redundancies are already covered elsehwere) and a central Project for dealing with contradictions, as well as broad notification across many relevant pages, including MoS, Village Pump, and many WikiProjects. Yesterday, a contradiction at the relatively unknown Wikipedia:Sister projects page was cited as the reason for changing a long-standing (mid-2006) guideline at the oft-cited WP:LAYOUT page, without consensus.[1] LAYOUT has stood since mid-2006 and is frequently cited and quoted at FAC; there has to be a means whereby these obscure contradictions are identified and one group doesn't edit war to change a long-standing page to the little-known version of another page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:13, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, I understand your concerns. I'm mostly writing this for the sake of people that aren't heavyweights in the policies and guidelines work. They have no clue what might be considered appropriate. Do they just slap a {{guideline}} tag on their small project's list of suggestions? Will someone yell at them if they do that? How could they avoid that? Our allies already have that problem, because we provide no advice on the matter. (I added a link to {[tl|proposed}} in the docs for Template:Guideline last month, but we're really providing no practical information for a person that's trying to do the right thing.) So they go forward as best they can see -- and an editor promptly reverts them because they didn't follow that editor's pet process (which they were supposed to magically know about). I see this as providing information about one acceptable process, and my feeling about it is basically that it's better than nothing (i.e., what we have now). If it's not followed and we get a good outcome anyway, then I'm a happy camper. Process is subservient to product.

Sandy, I don't think we're going to solve all the problems at this time. I think this moves us one small step in the right direction -- but only one step. Perhaps, though, if people get used to the idea that something more than slapping a guidelines template on a page is considered normal, then there will (over time) be more scrutiny and fewer problems. I hope that the process will be refined over time, and I'd love to see MOSCO and related projects taking off. Perhaps making proposals more visible will help with that.

I've made a few changes today, specifically to address the redundancy-and-contradiction issue. Changes by another editor also addressed those concerns and made RFCpolicy non-optional. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Since style guidelines have become factionalized to some extent, whatever process is chosen here for new style guidelines should also be applied to current guidelines, otherwise it has the flavor of "this guideline is good because we say so; you have to work for yours". I'd recommend starting by asking privately among people who hang out at GAN and various wikiprojects if they feel that some style guidelines are more important than others. My main concern is the last thing I mentioned; if over time, it becomes hard for any reason to elevate a new page to "style guideline", then all that means is there has to be some other cat that is performing the function that "style guideline" is performing now. BeBestBe added a subcat to the style guidelines called "wikiproject style guidelines" or something, and it already has 82 pages in it. (Subcats of guidelines are in general not guidelines, so it's got the wrong name.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

See also the parallel thread at WT:WPMOS. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, I don't intend for this process to be specific to style guidelines. And in theory I'd be happy to see most policies and guidelines "re-confirmed", but I think that the overhead is too high. We don't need to have 200+ RFCs running; it will just irritate people. Perhaps I'll add a section on disputing a policy or guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's adult content

Wikipedia should take off all sexually charged content and articles from the site. I am eleven years old and stumbled across obscene pictures completely unsuitable for anyone under age 18. It's really revolting how a good website like this has to put up pornography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonne Nuit Bijou (talk • contribs) 23:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you were distressed. As a matter of policy, Wikipedia is not censored. There is no feasible system for determining which readers are adults and which are not, and it is not reasonable to bowdlerize information that seems important to many readers to avoid offending other readers. Additionally, every page links to a clear, simple explanation that Wikipedia contains spoilers and information that you find objectionable. It is reasonable to believe that warning. Finally, any open wiki, including Wikipedia, may be vandalized. If you're the first person to see the page after a vandal deliberately destroyed it, then you may find particularly inappropriate material.

If you find this to be too significant a risk, then your best option is to quit reading Wikipedia until you and your parents decide that you are mature enough to not be distressed by encyclopedic information about sex (assuming, of course, that you're actually an eleven year old; like I said, we have no way of proving or disproving your assertion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Bonne Nuit Bijou that too much of our content is unnecessarily repugnant and revolting, and that some policy adjustments are needed. In its current state, I recommend that schools should keep Wikipedia behind their firewalls, as they do all other porn sites. It may be tilting at windmills to hope this will ever change on Wikipedia, but tilt we should, IMO. I wouldn't allow twelve-yos to access Wikipedia, and yet the number of 12-yo editors we have is only growing. We can't control who accesses Wiki (except to the extent that communities demand that their schools place Wiki behind a firewall), but we can try to change our policies so that less revolting content is included. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Repugnant and revolting to whom? Do you suppose we should remove the images of Muhammad as well? Those are revolting to about 1.5 billion people, but who cares about them anyway, right? 189.104.95.84 (talk) 12:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, Wikipedia may have disclaimers and such but in many communities it is illegal for a minor to view pornography or to provide porographic materials to a minor, which is certainly what wikipedia is doing. Wikipedia really isn't as great as I first thought. Bonne Nuit Bijou (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

There should not be any pornographic materials anywhere on Wikipedia. Pornography is not the same thing as "sexually charged content", which is what your original complaint addressed. If there is something specific that you want to have reviewed, you can leave a note on my talk page.

You might also like to read Wikipedia:Options to not see an image. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Addition

I've added a section about disputed tags and their proper use, since I can't find that anywhere else in policy. Improvements welcome.--Kotniski (talk) 08:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I see it's just been reverted, so explanations welcome as to what might be wrong with it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why it was deleted, beyond the fact that it wasn't discussed in advance. It doesn't exactly seem controversial. However, I've used it to expand a proposal for promoting and demoting guidelines; would you take a look and let me know what you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I've already contributed to that page and I think it's a good idea. It could perhaps also include something about making changes to existing policies and guidelines. Bouts of edit warring seem to break out quite frequently on these pages (and disputed tags appear at the whim of single editors, which is what my addition here was about), so it would be good to lay down a certain amount of guidance about that.--Kotniski (talk) 20:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

NG added a similar footnote today, but I don't see this having broad enough support or enough discussion to warrant a change to a policy page. If this is an issue important enough to add to a policy page, then we need to attract broad participation -- pump RFC etc. Sorry! --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

This should be common sense. A number of editors keep proving that wrong, and get in trouble. So, it is friendly to warn them of advance. Current practice? I would advise against such behaviour, and most experienced editors would. /NewbyG (talk) 00:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

If it is common sense, then why do we need to clutter this policy with it? If we need a policy on when and how to use tags then that should be a separate issue -- it has nothing to do with this page. --Kevin Murray (talk) 06:23, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

It should be common sense, but for some it apparently isn't. It certainly isn't a separate issue - this is the policy page about policy pages, and the issue relates to policy pages, so this is the right page for the issue to be dealt with on.--Kotniski (talk) 11:01, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what the point of the footnote was. That you should first make sure that any policy you're enforcing isn't disputed? That you should promptly dispute any policy you don't want to comply with? NG, if you're having actual problems somewhere, please provide links to the discussion. Otherwise, I think this was premature and can wait for developments on the larger proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Unless I read it wrongly, the point was rather that you shouldn't do either of the things you suggest. The reason I inserted the text originally was a number of recent discussions at MOSNUM (and possibly elsewhere, I don't remember) where people simply stuck a "disputed" tag on top of a section they personally disagreed with and planned to raise at talk. It seems to me this tag should only be on an established policy if there is real evidence that consensus may be about to change. Otherwise pretty well every policy section could end up with a disputed tag on it. But it's not a huge problem, so I'm happy to wait to see what happens on the larger proposal.--Kotniski (talk) 20:17, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

The proposal

Hoping that WhatamIdoing will approve, I've copied her proposal (referred to above) to a more convenient location for discussion. It is now at WP:Policy/Procedure. Please comment on this proposal to add to this page a section on how to propose new and amended policy and guidelines.--Kotniski (talk) 10:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection to the move. It will be nice to have my sandbox available for other uses again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 17 September 2008 (UTC) (who is female, by the way)

Considering we're still discussing this at MOSCO, is this move premature? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Quite the reverse, as explained over there.--Kotniski (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:CIV re-write September 2008

Bold Revert DISCUSS Further Discussion --NewbyG (talk) 23:04, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

change to policy

"This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should try to follow."

This should be changed to:

"This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors must follow."

We have policies and guidelines. Guidelines we encourage. Policies are things that we must require. These should not be optional. The existing policies are logical. If there is an exception, then the IAR policy could be followed. However, we mustn't say "copyright violations are a policy but we can cheat if we want to because we must 'try' to follow policy but aren't required to do so".

This proposed change is already what every reasonable person follows, i.e. policies are to be followed, guidelines are advice. Chergles (talk) 23:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: This was discussed in 2005 but only 1-2 people commented. It was discussed in April 2008 with many replies but suddenly comments ended. Will examine the April 2008 discussion and report here. Chergles (talk) 23:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I have changed it to "should normally be followed by all editors". This strengthens the language while still being consistent with WP:IAR, and could not reasonably be construed to ever permit a copyright violation, for example. PSWG1920 (talk) 00:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

An improvement but can be improved a bit more. "should" and "normally" are two words that weaken policy and take "teeth" out of it. Let's just use one permissive word so it would be "must normally be followed..." The "normally" gives room for judgment and exception. Chergles (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

"Must normally" seems like a contradiction. The "teeth" can be and are in the wording of policies themselves. PSWG1920 (talk) 17:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, there's still no clear difference between a policy and a guideline. See WP:POINT: a guideline which can get you blocked or banned outright, vs for instance Wikipedia:Naming conventions, a policy which (while leading to huge edit wars) never actually gets anyone directly banned (though you might get de-adminned for wheel-warring over it, for instance :-P )

People first saw the tags, and then started imagining there might be a reason for them, it's quite silly, really. User:Radiant has some things to answer for :-P.

You are not required to follow any policy, guideline, or essay; though you are advised to take heed of what they say. Like any wiki-page, they may be outdated and/or their quality may vary. Read them critically, and if you spot errors, correct them.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 02:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

In my mind, the difference is or should be that a clear-cut breach of policy will rarely be a real improvement to an article, whereas that will be somewhat more common with a guideline, and an essay is of undetermined value in that regard. PSWG1920 (talk) 07:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

For me the distinction always seems quite unnecessary and gives rise to pointless arguments like this one. What's set in stone is what's laid down by our Founder, the Foundation and the law. Other than that we have rules which are more or less adhered to. Any given "policy" or "guideline" page is likely to contain a mixture of rules that are respected and enforced to different degrees. To divide such pages into these two apparently distinct categories creates a false dichotomy.--Kotniski (talk) 09:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

read only pages

According to which wikipedia policies pages can only be viewed and not allowed any one to edit. I have seen many pages on http://mr.wikipedia.org are locked for other editors. Is it as per policy? or it is a mistake that marathi wikipedia "owner" are making? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Layzyak (talk • contribs) 17:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)