Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep

This essay is about creep in policies and guidelines. For creep in articles, see WP:Article creep.

Like kudzu, instructions can grow much too fast.

Instruction creep occurs when Wikipedia guideline or policy pages contain statements that expound upon unimportant details and minutiae, often in ways that exaggerate the situation or severely limit options and thus don't reflect true community consensus. To avoid errors and maximize usefulness, policies and guidelines should be as brief and simple as reasonably possible.

There are two major causes of instruction creep:

1. Editors sometimes produce too much instruction and thus over-complicate the page. Lengthy and complex advice pages are ignored as being too long to read.
2. Editors don't believe that nobody reads the directions. They believe that putting advice into a guideline or policy results in most of the English Wikipedia's thousands of active editors following the directions. In reality, Wikipedia has more than 50 full policies and more than 500 guidelines, and hardly anybody reads any of them, and nobody reads all of them.

Article creep, gradual, step-by-step, consensus-based changes that may ultimately lead to an undesired result, is a similar and natural process that needs to be periodically corrected.

How instruction creep develops

Policy and guideline pages are much like articles in that they are generally open to everybody's edits. Frequently, somebody thinks that such-and-such a point should be addressed, or that readers would benefit from more explanation, and adds more requirements, restrictions, or examples. However, project pages do not serve the same purpose as articles, and should not strive to cover every minute aspect of the issues they deal with. Nor should editors regard "promotion" of an essay to guideline or policy status as recognition of quality content in a manner akin to articles being listed as Good or Featured.

Policies aim to describe the consensus of the community on what is acceptable. Editors involved at a policy page cannot be considered a representative sample of the community at large—this is why instruction creep can persist. The lengthier and more complex instructions become, the harder it becomes to see if the community agrees with them, since fewer users will read and understand them.

Avoiding instruction creep

When considering changing a policy or guideline, bear in mind that few people will actually read or understand long or complex documents. Gratuitous requirements should therefore be removed. Any addition to a policy or guideline should have a good reason. Since things can sometimes "creep in" without much scrutiny, even longstanding instructions should be trimmed occasionally.

New instructions are unlikely to be instruction creep if:

1. There is an actual problem to solve, and not just a hypothetical problem.
2. The proposal truly solves this problem (as opposed to treating symptoms or making symbolic gestures).
3. The instructions have few or no undesirable effects (such as false positives, overcomplexity, or unnecessary prohibitions).

It is usually better for a policy or guideline to be too lax than too strict. Not everything allowable under WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:OR, and other content policies should be included in a given article—people come to consensus on disputed content. Consensus-building on article talk pages can be undermined by an over-strict policy, as an editor who wants to follow it literally can claim that the issue is already decided.

Dealing with instruction creep

If an instruction does not describe accepted practice, check the page history to see when it was added. Then check the talk page and talk archive, to find out if the instruction was discussed. If you think it does not have community consensus, either open a new discussion, or make a bold edit and delete it. If your edit is reverted follow the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle.

What is not instruction creep

Instruction creep refers to the process of gradual overcomplication of (policy or guideline) instructions, particularly through small changes made over time without discussion or on the basis of limited discussion on the relevant talk page. Changes made following discussions which are well advertised and/or in prominent locations cannot be described as creeping.

"Instruction creep", or more usually the WP:CREEP shortcut to this essay, is sometimes used in place of coherent argument for opposing a proposal. This is generally unhelpful, and where it is used as a supplementary point to an argument, it rarely adds to it, and may distract and confuse.

See also

• Wikipedia:Practical process
• Wikipedia:Requests for process
• Wikipedia:Keep it short and simple
• Wikipedia:If it ain't broke, don't fix it
• Wikipedia:Silence does not imply consent when drafting new policies
• Wikipedia:Dig (Avoid excessive instruction.)
• Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up your nose
• Bureaucracy
• Feature creep
• Scope creep
• Iron law of oligarchy
• Parkinson's Law
• Red tape

Source

This page was inspired by the meta-wiki concept: m:instruction creep.