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	In discussions and edit summaries, policy and guideline pages are often referred to using shortcuts, such as ], ], etc. However similar shortcuts are created for other types of project page, including essays. The use of a shortcut does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status.		In discussions and edit summaries, policy and guideline pages are often referred to using shortcuts, such as ], ], etc. However similar shortcuts are created for other types of project page, including essays. The use of a shortcut does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status.

			== Content ==
			Policies and guidelines should be clear, terse, and direct. Policies and guidelines should:

			* '''provide purpose and scope.''' The purpose and scope of a policy or guideline must be clearly given in its lead, and not merely as an aside.<ref>This can be done by using wording such as 'exists to', 'were made to', 'the purpose is', and so on.</ref>
			* '''maintain scope.''' To prevent redundancy and scope creep, the scope of a policy should should not overlap with other policies, and the content should fall within that scope.<ref>Suppose that some of the content from a dispute resolution page was copied into ] as a great example of consensus building. Though it may be a great example, it is not a general community standard - yet several clarifying edits later, it may seem as if it were being presented as such. Or perhaps an edit is made to ] to clarify how it should be applied within a guideline on music. Perhaps ] is 'summarized' and reworded (non-substantively, of course!) in a guideline, so that editors don't have to check the longer (official, more-rigorously maintained) version. All of this is scope creep. Keep policies to themselves.</ref>
			* '''avoid redundancy.''' Policies should not be redundant with other policies, or with themselves. The same redundant statement may change in one place and not in another, and though this is often not a problem in articles, with policy it may lead to confusion, contradiction, and verbosity.
			* '''be cautious in deferring.''' Links to other policies, guidelines, or essays should make it clear when they defer to those, and when they do not. (For example, the phrase "in such circumstances, follow ]" defers to the contents of WP:0RR, which is a guideline that advises a certain approach to editing. If the content of such a guideline were to change, then the meaning of the ''policy'' will ''also'' inadvertantly change.)<!-- this needs to be rephrased from an example to a policy statement of what is meant by 'deferring' -->
			* '''avoid overlinking.''' Links should have a purpose related to making the specific sentence of the policy clear. It is inappropriate to link (or explain) another policy, guideline or essay, simply because it is opportune, especially one you wish to promote or had a part in creating. <ref>For example, in "...are developed by the ] ] to establish...", neither link is necessary. The links imply that the target pages might be important in understanding the sentence, yet the meaning is clear. The two pages provide more in-depth explanations of Misplaced Pages and the community, but this level of explanation is not necessary.</ref>
			* '''avoid diluting policy.''' Policy statements should be clearly distinct from rhetorical elaboration, justification, examples, background, procedure, purpose, and so on. The references and notes may be used for this. Policy statements should be imperative or exhortative, if possible. Policy statements should be complete, and the rhetorical content should clarify without adding extra clauses.

	== Policy life cycle ==		== Policy life cycle ==

Revision as of 22:23, 30 July 2009

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy.It describes a widely accepted standard that editors should normally follow, though exceptions may apply. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcuts

"WP:GUIDE" redirects here. For the policy stating that "Misplaced Pages is not a guidebook", see WP:NOTGUIDE.

Policies and guidelines (list)
Principles
Five pillars Ignore all rules
Content policies
Article titles Biographies of living persons Image use Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability What Misplaced Pages is not (Not a dictionary)
Conduct policies
Civility Clean start Consensus Dispute resolution Edit warring Editing policy Harassment No legal threats No personal attacks Ownership of content Username policy Vandalism
Other policy categories
Deletion Enforcement Legal Procedural
Directories
List of policies List of guidelines Manual of Style contents Searching
v t e

Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines are developed by the community to establish best practice, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free and neutral encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Policies and guidelines express standards that the community has approved through consensus. They should always be approached with common sense. Editors who act against the spirit of them may be reprimanded, even if no rule has technically been violated. There are also a number of processes in place that facilitate application of the policies and guidelines.

Policy page types

Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered standards that, with rare exceptions, all users should follow. They are often closely linked to the five pillars of Misplaced Pages. For a listing, see the List of policies.

Guidelines are considered more advisory than policies, with exceptions more likely to occur. If a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, then the policy should in most cases take precedence over the guideline. A naming convention or Manual of Style entry is a specific kind of guideline, concerning how to name articles or how articles should be written. For a listing, see the List of guidelines.

Shortcut

WP:ESSAYS

Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or a group of editors. Unlike policies and guidelines, no formal attempt to gauge their widespread consensus has been made. Essays may evolve into guidelines or policies if they have sufficient support. Essays need not be proposed or advertised; you can simply write them, as long as you understand that you do not necessarily speak for the entire community. If you do not want other people to edit your essay, put it in your userspace. For a listing, see the essays category.

Policies and guidelines are recorded on pages in the Misplaced Pages: namespace. Essays may appear in this namespace or, if maintained primarily by a single user, in the User namespace. The Misplaced Pages (or "project") namespace also contains other kinds of page connected with the running of Misplaced Pages, such as process pages, historical pages, WikiProject pages, how-to or help pages (also found in the Help namespace), community discussion pages and noticeboards. For details, see Misplaced Pages:Project namespace.

In discussions and edit summaries, policy and guideline pages are often referred to using shortcuts, such as WP:NOR, WP:MOSNUM, etc. However similar shortcuts are created for other types of project page, including essays. The use of a shortcut does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status.

Content

Policies and guidelines should be clear, terse, and direct. Policies and guidelines should:

provide purpose and scope. The purpose and scope of a policy or guideline must be clearly given in its lead, and not merely as an aside.
maintain scope. To prevent redundancy and scope creep, the scope of a policy should should not overlap with other policies, and the content should fall within that scope.
avoid redundancy. Policies should not be redundant with other policies, or with themselves. The same redundant statement may change in one place and not in another, and though this is often not a problem in articles, with policy it may lead to confusion, contradiction, and verbosity.
be cautious in deferring. Links to other policies, guidelines, or essays should make it clear when they defer to those, and when they do not. (For example, the phrase "in such circumstances, follow WP:0RR" defers to the contents of WP:0RR, which is a guideline that advises a certain approach to editing. If the content of such a guideline were to change, then the meaning of the policy will also inadvertantly change.)
avoid overlinking. Links should have a purpose related to making the specific sentence of the policy clear. It is inappropriate to link (or explain) another policy, guideline or essay, simply because it is opportune, especially one you wish to promote or had a part in creating.
avoid diluting policy. Policy statements should be clearly distinct from rhetorical elaboration, justification, examples, background, procedure, purpose, and so on. The references and notes may be used for this. Policy statements should be imperative or exhortative, if possible. Policy statements should be complete, and the rhetorical content should clarify without adding extra clauses.

Policy life cycle

Sources of Misplaced Pages policy

Policy change comes from three sources:

Documenting actual good practices and seeking consensus that the documentation truly reflects them.
Proposing a change in practice and seeking consensus for implementation of that change.
Declarations from Jimmy Wales, the Board, or the Developers, particularly for copyright, legal issues, or server load.

Wales and the board have indicated that they prefer that the community deal with its policies, and rarely do they declare policy. Currently proposed and previously rejected policies can be found in Category:Misplaced Pages proposals and Category:Misplaced Pages rejected proposals.

Proposals

See also Misplaced Pages's Village pump for proposing changes

A proposal is any suggested guideline, policy or process for which the status of consensus is not yet clear, as long as discussion is ongoing. Amendments to a proposal should be discussed on its talk page (not on a new page) but it is generally acceptable to edit a proposal to improve it. Proposals should be advertised to solicit feedback and to reach a consensus.

A proposal's status is not determined by counting votes. Polling is not a substitute for discussion, nor is a poll's numerical outcome tantamount to consensus.
A failed proposal 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.

Making a proposal

Add the {{Proposed}} template to the top of your page or {{Promote}} if the page has already existed.
Leave a message on its talk page that explains whether you are proposing this as a guideline or as a policy and why you think it should be adopted as a guideline (instead of an essay) or a policy (instead of an essay or a guideline). Try to identify the subcategory of guideline or policy (see {{subcat guideline}}).
Inform relevant groups of editors that may be interested. It may be helpful to list in the discussion all of the groups that you informed of the proposal.
- Based on content area: If your proposal affects a specific content area, then related WikiProjects can be found at the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Directory. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Manual of Style.
- Based on parent policies and guidelines: If your proposal relates to an existing policy or guideline, leave a note on the talk page of the related policy or guideline. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style.
- Central notification: Announce your proposal at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy).
Place the {{RFCpolicy}} template at the top of the talk page's discussion to further publicize your proposal.

Please leave the discussion open for at least one week.

Essays and how-to pages may be marked as such by any editor. Guidelines and policies, however, should be presented to the community for review and feedback.

Responding to a proposal

Leave a message in the designated section of the talk page. Many editors begin their response with a statement like Support guideline status, Oppose policy status, or Comment for the convenience of the person evaluating the responses. Be sure to sign your response.
Voting is not a substitute for discussion. Please explain your thoughts, ask your questions, and raise your concerns. All views are welcome.

Evaluating the consensus

Ending a discussion requires careful evaluation of the responses to determine the consensus. This does not require the intervention of an administrator, but may be done by any independent editor (i.e., not the primary authors, the editors proposing the guideline/policy status, or the editors strongly defending the proposal during the community discussion). For practical reasons, this editor will need to be familiar with all of the policies and guidelines that relate to the proposal.

Consider the community response:
- Consensus for guidelines and policies should be reasonably strong, but unanimity is not required.
- Consider the number of respondents. If all of the responses are from the people that wrote the proposal, then please wait until more people have had the opportunity to respond. Consider publicizing the proposal in additional forums.
- Does the community generally believe that Misplaced Pages is better off with, or without, the proposed guideline or policy? What status for this page will best contribute to the main goal of writing an encyclopedia?
Consider the strength of the proposed page:
- Have important concerns raised during the community discussion been addressed? Perfection is not required, and minor points may be addressed later.
- Does the proposed page contradict any existing guidelines or policies? If so, it should not be promoted to guideline or policy status. Consider leaving a note about the proposal on the talk page of any guideline or policy it contradicts.
- Does this need to be a separate guideline or policy? Too many fragmented guideline pages are hard to maintain and make it hard for readers to find the guidance they are looking for. Consider whether the new proposed guideline or policy could be merged with an existing one.
- Is the proposed guideline or policy, or parts of it, redundant with existing guidelines and policies? If so, it is better to link to the appropriate part of existing pages, or (if a link with a very brief description is not appropriate) to transclude common text into all pages.

Discussion may be closed as either Promote, No consensus, or Failed. Please leave a short note about the conclusion that you came to. Update the proposal to reflect the consensus. Remove the {{Proposed}} template and replace it with another appropriate template, such as {{Subcat guideline}}, {{Policy}}, {{Essay}}, {{How-to}}, or {{Failed}}.

Downgrading policies and guidelines

On occasion, Misplaced Pages's need for any given guideline or policy may change. An accepted document may become obsolete because of changes in editorial practice or common standards. It may become redundant because of improvements to other pages. It may represent unwarranted instruction creep. In such situations editors may propose a change in the status of a page, such as from policy to guideline, or from policy or guideline to essay or historical page.

The process for changing the status of a guideline or policy should normally be similar to the process for promoting a page: Start a discussion on the talk page outlining the reasons for the proposed change in status, add the tag {{underdiscussion|status|Discussion Title}} to the top of the policy or guideline page, and solicit community input. After allowing a reasonable amount of time for comments, an independent editor should close the discussion and evaluate the consensus.

If you are not merely proposing a change, but you have grounds to claim that it was recently assigned guideline or policy status in breach of the proper procedures for establishing consensus, then you may use {{disputedtag}} instead of {{underdiscussion}}. However, see the caution at the end of the following section regarding overuse of such tags.

Content changes

Policies and guidelines state what most Wikipedians agree upon, and should reflect the present consensus on a subject. Minor edits to existing pages, such as formatting changes, grammatical improvement and uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time. However, changes that would alter the substance of policy or guidelines should normally be announced on the appropriate talk page first. The change may be implemented if no objection is made to it or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. If there is no consensus for a given text, old or new, it should not be asserted as though it were consensus; possibilities include silence on the issue and acknowledgement that editors disagree on the point. If the result is not clear, then it should be evaluated by an administrator or other independent editor, as in the proposal process. Major changes should also be publicized to the community in general; announcements similar to the proposal process may be appropriate. Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits.

Updates to a policy or guideline page are typically discussed on the associated talk page, but it is acceptable to edit them directly. Disputes over wording are often resolved by discussion and compromise toward developing a consensus.

If wider input on a proposed change is desired, it may be useful to mark the section with the tag {{underdiscussion|section|talk=Discussion Title}}. (If the proposal relates to a single statement, use {{underdiscussion-inline|Discussion Title}} immediately after it.) If you have grounds to claim that a section was recently added or substantially altered in breach of the proper procedures for establishing consensus, then you may use {{disputedtag|section=yes|talk=Discussion Title}} instead.

Like all editing tools, these can be overused, and be disruptive; please be sure that these are marking a real dispute.

Bold editors of policy and guidelines pages are strongly encouraged to follow WP:1RR or WP:0RR standards. If your changes are removed, please make no further changes until the issue has been appropriately discussed on the talk page.

Enforcement

You are a Misplaced Pages editor. Since Misplaced Pages has no editor-in-chief or top-down article approval mechanism, active participants make copyedits and corrections to the format and content problems they see. So the participants are both writers and editors.

Individual users thus enforce most of the policies and guidelines by editing pages, and discussing matters with each other. Some policies, such as vandalism, are enforced by administrators by blocking users. In extreme cases the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive situations, as part of the general dispute resolution procedure.

Although all editors therefore have an equal say over the content of our articles, some features of the software that could be misused, such as deleting pages and locking pages from editing, are available only to administrators, who are experienced and trusted members of the community. See the administrators' reading list for further information.

Notes

Many historical essays can still be found within Meta's essay category. The Wikimedia Foundation's Meta-wiki was envisioned as the original place for editors to comment on and discuss Misplaced Pages, although the "Misplaced Pages" project space has since taken over most of that role.
This can be done by using wording such as 'exists to', 'were made to', 'the purpose is', and so on.
Suppose that some of the content from a dispute resolution page was copied into WP:CONSENSUS as a great example of consensus building. Though it may be a great example, it is not a general community standard - yet several clarifying edits later, it may seem as if it were being presented as such. Or perhaps an edit is made to WP:NOTABILITY to clarify how it should be applied within a guideline on music. Perhaps WP:VERIFIABILITY is 'summarized' and reworded (non-substantively, of course!) in a guideline, so that editors don't have to check the longer (official, more-rigorously maintained) version. All of this is scope creep. Keep policies to themselves.
For example, in "...are developed by the Misplaced Pages community to establish...", neither link is necessary. The links imply that the target pages might be important in understanding the sentence, yet the meaning is clear. The two pages provide more in-depth explanations of Misplaced Pages and the community, but this level of explanation is not necessary.