Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines

WP:PROPOSAL

{{edit protected}} Please add {{shortcut|WP:PROPOSAL}} to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Proposals, the section for WP:PROPOSAL. Thanks. 72.244.206.223 (talk) 22:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Done, that's helpful thanks. Perhaps also WP:DEMOTION for the section below?  Skomorokh  00:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've slightly weakened this part re tagging failed policy, as it also seems common to demote them to essays without the failure tag. I've changed it to "usually" shouldn't be removed. Verbal chat 09:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been stuck into a mediation with some people arguing about a 'usually' in the WP:RS policy. They say it doesn't apply in any particular article or project even if there are no other indicators. I think it's fine but just warning that some people seem ready to war over it. Do you know if something has come up before over what 'usually' means? Dmcq (talk) 13:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy with any wording which doesn't imply an absolute, which doesn't describe practice and can often go against common sense or decency. I can see things can be more heated with RS as that's a content policy, but this just describes the tagging of (failed) policy. Verbal chat 13:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this revert, this edit, this revert and this talk page post may help to explain Verbal's concerns over the wording here. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:25, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Also WP:OUTLINE and many other pages that were previously tagged as policy proposals are no longer so tagged, or tagged as failed. Policy is descriptive not prescriptive. Verbal chat 21:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Verbal should be editing this page at all right now. As described by Gandalf, he is in a dispute that directly relates to the change he has proposed, but he failed to reveal that fact. Ronnotel (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Are there any objections to reversing the edit provided by Verbal? As shown by Gandalf, the "consensus" for the edit was obtained under false pretenses - Verbal failed to mention that he was involved in a dispute directly related to his edit. Ronnotel (talk) 13:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

We can take into account the fact that Verbal is involved in a dispute... can you express why it is necessary to explicitly note that a former proposed policy or guideline (one that is now marked as an "essay") failed to become a policy or guideline? I would think that marking it as an "essay" is enough. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

That's obvious. It is a question of transparency and openness. It says "this isn't just an essay that no-one feels strongly about one way or the other; this is an essay that was once proposed as a policy". The real question is: what good reasons are there for not being open about the history of such a page ? Gandalf61 (talk) 08:53, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Is the history tab inadequate for your needs? (Not nescessarily a facetious question: I could imagine a good argument for flagging particular revisions, for instance) --Kim Bruning (talk) 10:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The previous status of a page won't be obvious from a quick glance at its history. Case in point - if you look at the history of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia, it's not immediately obvious that it was changed from a proposed policy to an essay. Similarly, it won't always be obvious from the talk page, where things get buried and archived. Yes, all the history is there somewhere, but it's not transparent. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

An editor involved in a content conflict changes a Policy Page to support his POV! That should immediately disqualify him from furter editing on that Policy section and the Policy Page shoould by default go back to previous consensus. Is Wikipedia a lawless land? MaxPont (talk) 08:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Situation: An editor involved in a content conflict changes a Policy Page to reflect what he has learned.

Principles:

1. Trust policy pages like any other wiki (encyclopedia) page. (aka. verify everything)
2. This is how the wiki is intended to operate. People document what they have learned. (wiki process determines content)
3. The contributor of an edit is irrelevant. Only the content of the edit and the supporting logic is relevant. (We do not discriminate in favor of experts or against amateurs) (anyone may edit)
4. If content improves the page, it improves the page (WP:IAR, WP:COMMON, WP:BOLD). We do not remove content on the basis of process alone (WP:NOT a bureacracy).
5. If some existing process suggests an action and we van verify that the action improves the wiki, only then do we take the action. WP:WIARM
6. In this case we do not have a documented process to remove edits to policy from people involved in content disputes, nor does the suggested action (removing the edit) improve the wiki.
7. We do have a documented process that says one may modify the pages documenting our policy/guideline/essays , if that modification improves that documentation.
8. We do have a documented process that says we are not a bureaucracy, and must act on common ssense.

In consequence:

• AFAICT you *usually* don't remove {{failed}} tags. But there are exceptions (such as when you do a total rewrite and go in a different direction, for instance, or if consensus changes, or if you would like to test if consensus has changed). "Usually" is correct, I have re-added it.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC) ps: duh. ;-)

I agree with Kim's reversion. {{failed}} tags should not usually be removed. The proponents of failed proposals often want to remove the tag, replacing it with {{essay}}, but it is better if essays are essays and proposals are proposals, and the two are not mixed. Ideally, an essay will lay out an argument, and a proposal will be a description (some mix of description of proven practice and prescription of ideal practice). The failed proposals should then be kept for the record, and not covered over by the essay that should have preceded the proposal. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Lawks, someone could have told me about this brouhaha. My edit was made in good faith and I pointed people at the other page here. I agree with Kim and SJ above (who, I hope wont be offended, I hardly know). I stand by my edit improving the policy for the reasons given, but I will accept, as always, the consensus of the wikipedia community. I genuinely feel that the edit improves the policy, for the reasons given, and reflects practice. Full disclosure: I would love to stick the "failed" tag on WP:OUTLINE, but I feel doing so would be disruptive and only increase drama. I would expect similar effects as the contested tagging others refer to above. Policy should very rarely be absolute, and common sense should be applied. If this was absolute we'd have to have a new policy about when exactly is a policy proposal actually a policy proposal, etc. Verbal chat 11:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I have retagged. I think {{failed}} is way too premature for that page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:23, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Respone to Kim Bruning: I'm afraid Verbal didn't change this policy page to "reflect what he had learned"; the truth is less noble. He weakened that line of the policy after it had been used in an argument against him, and then later in the same thread quoted back his new version to support his own actions, without disclosing that he himself had changed it - see Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_is_a_mainstream_encyclopedia#Against_policy_to_hide_fact_that_a_proposal_failed_consensus. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe that he made edits that were in his judgment at the time to be in the best interests of the project. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to accept that the edits were made in good faith. However, the ongoing involvement in a dispute directly related to the change should have been revealed. I don't think that point has been acknowledged yet. Ronnotel (talk) 12:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

In which way is that useful? --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I hope both parties in that discussion realize that when you quote a page (such as a policy page), all you're really saying is "here's a condensed version of what I think that I prepared earlier".

In that case, it's perfectly valid to alter the text before you quote it, after all, at the end of the day, you are held fully responsible for whatever you say; so it'd better say what you mean!

You are not really supposed to hit each other over the head with stone tablets (if only because then it would be revealed that they are not actually made of stone at all, but instead out of something fluffy and light ;-) ). Your engraving is not stronger than his engraving, and this is not a zero sum game . Your first, last, and only option is to negotiate, and form a consensus on how to cooperate. --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, if WP is not a bureaucracy it sure doesn’t reflect in the ever expanding rulebook of Policies and Guidelines and special rules for unusual situations. If we allow editors involved in a content conflict to amend Policies to support their POV we open a can of worms and potentially move content conflicts into the policy pages. That should be discouraged. I propose the following rule:

If parties in a content conflict use a certain WP policy or guideline to support their POV, changes of the wording of that policy after the conflict started should be ignored (that is: the valid policy at the time the conflict started should be used as the reference framework for settling that dispute). MaxPont (talk) 08:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Then they would be sure to amend the policy just before the dispute starts... But anyway this is the wrong way to approach things; all "disputes" should be resolved in terms of what's best for the encyclopedia. If it turns out that the current wording of a policy page gives the wrong answer in some situation, then it's probably worth considering changing that wording (unless the situation is so exceptional that it's best thought of as a case of IAR).--Kotniski (talk) 09:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Good point. However, I still find it very controversial if a party in a content dispute tries to amend Policies during an ongoing conflict to support his case. If we can have special provisions for 100s of unusual situations in the regulatory framework we can add something about this too. Right? MaxPont (talk) 12:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Policy description

Currently it states- "Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are standards that all users should follow." That wording flies right in the face of IAR and the idea of consensus and common sense. Policy means "policy" as in "it is good policy to do such and such", policy does not mean "you must do it, it is a law". Policies are there to show what works in general and in typical situations. IAR and commonsense guided by policy and guidelines and being implemented by consensus is what rules the day, not the literal word of policy. Policies were not written by any Wikigod, and they dont cover every possible problem. That is why we have IAR. There are those who are vehemently opposed to IAR and the use of common sense, and they will oppose rewording, but I think we need to ignore them. A rewording I propose is "Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are of great importance in helping editors come to consensus on issues and problems that my arise during editing. While the spirit of a policy should be adhered to, remember that policies are not cookie-cutter solutions to problems and conflicts that may arise. Common sense should be used in their implementation, what works in one situation does not always work in similar situations. Respect consensus where it deviates from existing policy." That of course is the farthest reaching rewrite I could accept, perhaps a middle ground rewrite that is not so extreme would be preferable to others.Camelbinky (talk) 01:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

There already is 'ignore all rules' and 'follow common sense' as reasons to not follow policy. I disagree with adding any more. If you don't follow policy you are liable to be blocked. They are the law. Dmcq (talk) 08:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

@Dmcq: your statement is incorrect. To wit, wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Policy/guideline/essay pages document known best practices, they are not law. You are actually unlikely to be blocked for not following policy, provided you remain in discussion with people, show good cooperation, and all in all stay in line with consensus.

Of course, in theory, in a perfect world, policy/guideline/essay pages would document consensus perfectly, and your statement would be exactly true by happenstance. In practice, we do not live in a perfect world, so consensus and common sense will at times be at variance with what is documented on policy pages. In that situation, consensus and common sense (and "acting along the line set by consensus", which requires a bit of intuition), will do the trick.

When (not if) you discover discrepancies, please update the policy/guideline/essay page(s) to reflect the (new) state of consensus on-wiki. --Kim Bruning (talk) 11:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no consensus, and the struggle get to the end of that rainbow provides much of energy here. Once it is declared that we *have* consensus, further edits are not welcome, then you'll know that we've entered the death phase. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's hope it never gets that far. Wait, what am I saying?

Let's work to make sure! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 11:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

So, other than Dmcq who has a very minority view on what policy is, what are the thoughts about rewording the paragraph on what a policy is to reflect that it isnt in fact what should be adhered to in all cases.Camelbinky (talk) 12:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You are mistaken in your conception of what a law is. It does not have to be handed out by a god. As the law article says at the start "Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions". In democracies those rules are decided by some approach to consensus. The policies are enforced by the wikipedia administrators aided by the community in general, and removing any force from them means an administrator would have no rule to enforce. Their power would be without basis in consensus and capricious as far as anyone could determine, especially all the people trying to game the system. Is that what you would really like for wikipedia? That they do not straightaway block you for sticking in original research if you're willing to talk to people and not keep trying to stick it in does not mean it is not a law. If you keep sticking it in you can eventually get banned. Dmcq (talk) 13:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but you'd be being banned for keep sticking it in, not for what "it" is (unless it's particularly gross). The more I see people arguing about the philosophical nature of policies and guidelines, the more convinced I am that we shouldn't have them. We should have a (relatively) concise manual that tells editors what they need to know about editing on WP, including recommended behaviours ("best practices") for eds and admins. Nothing that implies that there are rules to be obeyed and punishments for breaching them (even IAR is guilty in this regard - why say "ignore all rules" unless there are rules to be ignored?) Well maybe we should have just one page of policy, setting out (but not elaborating on) the key points of our mission and how we treat people.--Kotniski (talk) 13:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec-ish) This is a common misconception: The Admin role does not encompass the enforcing of rules, at all. Admins are not policemen. Admins are allowed to be as capricious as any other user, within the boundries of consensus and common sense.

The "powers" that Admins do have are derived from PHP code, (and have been well and thoroughly nerfed at that.)

You get people to adhere to consensus in cooperation with your peers, just like every other wiki-activity.

If you refuse to cooperate, sure, you will eventually get banned. So once again, you are partially correct. The outcome is roughly as you say, but the premises are somewhat different. The premises are different because this is an online community, rather than a real-world community; and things do work a tad differently online.

There is no force whatsoever in the policy pages themselves. Counter-intuitively (to some), this is to prevent them from being gamed*.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 15:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC) *One way to look at it: Actually, real world law also contains quite a lot of flexibility, to give the wise judge room to be just. On wikipedia, every wikipedian could be said to be judge, jury and executioner, so you can imagine we need quite some flexibility ;-)

If these are common misconceptions, though, then (a) they end up being true, to some extent; (b) we ought to be looking at how to present the information to people in such a way as not to give them such misconceptions. (Removing or rewording the policy tags seems to be an obvious step to consider.) --Kotniski (talk) 15:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree Kotniski, though that proposal probably wont ever be implemented, its alot easier to keep out "instruction creep" than it is to actually rollback existing instructions. As for Dmcq, his opinion is in the very extreme minority regarding our policies and guidelines. He seems to imply that administrators are here to "enforce rules", they are here to administer and maintain administrative functions beyond that of regular editing; they arent here to police us or render judgements, though their opinions are valued they arent considered binding above opinions of regular editors, there are no class structures on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is very clear in that it does not have laws, you cant get around that no matter how much you declare them to be "rules" or "laws"; I believe Kim is the one that put the relevant page links that make that clear so I wont go and look them up again. Consensus blocks you, not the policy itself. An individual admin who blocks you but interpreted policy in a wrongful manner can be overruled by consensus using common sense that you shouldnt be blocked. Consensus using common sense, appropriately knowing when to apply existing policies and guidelines and when to use IAR to ignore them is what makes Wikipedia work. What Dcmq describes has never been our the way Wikipedia works and the declaration by Jimbo makes that clear, in fact I do believe IAR is the OLDEST policy we have, and it is indeed given priority and prominence above all others, by Jimbo, the Foundation, the community-at-large, and on all policy pages. So, again- is there a consensus (disregarding the minority view of Dmcq) that I (or someone who wishes to reword it for us) add to the policy description paragraph on this page to clarify policy's role and to mention IAR regarding its implementation. An admin recently said this on ANI- "policy is descriptive, not prescriptive", which is a good succinct way of putting what I am thinking. Perhaps if we dont want a wordy addition as I originally proposed we can just add that five word sentence.Camelbinky (talk) 14:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Well since admins have no more power, what exactly is the thing I do to block a user? Saying something ain't so doesn't make it not so whatever about verifiability rather than truth. If it has the effect of law and works exactly like law it is law however you feel about calling it that. Dmcq (talk) 16:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

As to the proposed change to this particular policy might I quote "maintain scope, avoid redundancy" from this policy itself. Not that you need take any note of such precedent, you can always quote "ignore all rules" ;-) Dmcq (talk) 16:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry Dmcq I'm having trouble understanding your first post so I'm not quite sure I understand your point. The fact of the matter is that Wikipedia specifically states that it is not law, it is not applied strictly by the letter, and is the complete opposite of what you are stating. Please see the relevant links Kim provided above. Perhaps after reading them you will understand why your beliefs on WP are in the minority. I'm sorry if I have to totally disregard your views on this matter, but your views are extreme and fringe regarding the scope and use of policy, so I will ignore your views. Anyone have any comments on the changing of the words of the policy section? If no serious objections backed by already established views of what a policy is I will be bold and change the policy section to reflect that they arent concrete rules to apply strictly in every case, that in the words of an admin- are descriptive, not prescriptive. They do just that, they describe previous consensuses they do not prescribe that you MUST do the same in all similar cases forever. In a similar case the facts may be a little different just enough to require a different consensus using common sense and thereby ignoring the policy (through use of IAR). This is the standard operating procedure in Wikipedia. Dmcq most importantly seems to be ignoring Jimbo regarding what our policies are and the role of IAR.Camelbinky (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It is as much as I expect. One of the things big groups like this do when they organise is have some contrafactual thing the members must believe in. It is quite amusing I think. fairly typical too that because I have disagreed with a basic in-group identity badge my statement regarding avoiding redundancy is totally ignored even though it is supposedly a reflection of general consensus. Dmcq (talk) 20:55, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Once again

I've run into another editor who seems to think that Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, and processes must comply with policies, guidelines and processes. This time it's about whether saying "This is important" complies with WP:NPOV. In the past, I've had editors complain that the these pages needed to cite WP:Reliable sources to prove that Wikipedia's advice to its editors really was its advice to editors. (I never did figure out how we were going to do that -- perhaps by finding a friendly journalist to write stories about the Wikidrama on policy talk pages?)

Can we add a short section to this page to directly address this point? Perhaps it would say something like this:

==Not part of the encyclopedia==
Wikipedia has many policies and guidelines about encyclopedic content. These standards require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people, and more.
The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform with the content standards. It is therefore not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's rules, or to phrase rules in a neutral manner. Instead, the content of these pages is controlled by consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors.

(I'd be happy to see improvements to this suggestion.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed that this would help, but we'd have to get specific. I can't offhand think of any conduct, enforcement or deletion policy that we'd need to single out as not applying to project space. Even for the content policies, the BLP policy is clear on which parts apply where, we don't want non-free content in policies, NAME isn't a problem, and some of NOT is very applicable to project space. So regarding policies, we're mainly talking about the core content policies, V, NOR and NPOV. - Dank (push to talk) 13:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal as well. Seems strange that one would even come to the conclusion that our policies would need to be written with citations. As you mention, where would we cite from?!Camelbinky (talk) 21:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps what people are saying is that they want us to quote and link to the relevant policy section ... not "cite" it. Just a thought. Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

No, Blueboar, you're assuming too much good faith. The "reliable sources" dispute was a professional journalist (and otherwise good editor) trying to get information critical of his industry removed from WP:MEDRS. The failings of the popular press when reporting, e.g., "new cures for cancer" are very well documented, and his effort to invoke the content policies was, I think, a bit of grasping at any straws that might advance his position against the firm opposition of other editors.

Another example: WP:TALK was invoked recently to justify refactoring a WQA complaint.

I think it's more commonly an honest mistake, but the breadth of the incidents suggest that a general statement might be appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)