Jump to content

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

Page semi-protected
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Wikipedia:POL)

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia. There is no need to read any policy or guideline pages to start editing. The five pillars are a popular summary of the most pertinent principles.

Although Wikipedia generally does not have hard-and-fast rules, policies and guidelines are standards all users should normally follow, with guidelines providing guidance in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should be applied using reason and common sense. Policy and guideline pages are living documents that attempt to describe the actual practice of experienced editors. When consensus exists, they are updated as needed to reflect changes in editor behaviour.

This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages of the English Wikipedia. It does not cover other editions of Wikipedia.

Derivation

Wikipedia is operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which reserves certain legal rights—see the Wikimedia Foundation's Policies page for a list of its policies. See also Role of Jimmy Wales. Nevertheless, normally Wikipedia is a self-governing project run by its community. Its policies and guidelines are intended to reflect the consensus of the community.

Role

Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards all users should normally follow. All policy pages are in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia policies. For summaries of key policies, see List of policies.

Guidelines are sets of best practices supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Guideline pages can be found in Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines and Category:Wikipedia guidelines. For summaries of key guidelines, see List of guidelines.

Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors. They may not be supported by a widespread consensus. They do not necessarily speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval. Essays the author does not want others to edit, or that overtly contradict consensus, belong in the user namespace.

Other administration pages in the project namespace include:

Adherence

Use common sense in interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; rules have occasional exceptions. However, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded or sanctioned even if they do not technically break the rule.

Whether a policy or guideline is an accurate description of best practice is determined through consensus.

Shortcuts

On discussion pages and in edit summaries, shortcuts are often used to refer to policies and guidelines; for example, WP:NOR (no original research), WP:NPOV (neutral point of view), and WP:BLP (biographies of living persons). Similar shortcuts are also used for other types of project pages, like essays and how-to guides. Thus a shortcut does not necessarily imply the linked page has policy or guideline status or has been widely accepted by the community.

When referencing shortcuts or policy pages, verify they support the points you're making. The names of the policy and guideline pages and shortcuts can be misleading.

Enforcement

If an editor violates the community standards described in policies and guidelines, other editors will warn the person to adhere to acceptable norms of conduct, though editors will resort to more forceful means if the behavior continues, such as administrator and steward actions. Gross violations are met with harder enforcement. Going against the principles set out on these pages, particularly policy pages, is unlikely to prove acceptable, although it may be possible to convince others an exception ought to be made. This means individual editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines.

In cases where it is clear a user is acting against policy (or against a guideline in a way that conflicts with policy), especially if they are doing so intentionally and persistently, that user may be temporarily or indefinitely blocked from editing by an administrator. In cases where the dispute resolution procedure has been ineffective, the Arbitration Committee deals with highly disruptive or sensitive situations.

Content

Policy and guideline pages should:

  • Be clear. Avoid esoteric or quasi-legal terms or dumbed-down language. Be plain, direct, unambiguous, and specific. Avoid platitudes and generalities. Avoid using wiki-jargon to mean anything other than its specific meaning. For example, maintain the distinction between an admin deleting a page and ordinary editors removing or blanking some or all of its contents. Even in guidelines, help pages, and other non-policy pages, do not be afraid to tell editors they must or should do something.
  • Be as concise as possible—but no more concise. Verbosity is not a good defense against misinterpretation. Omit needless words. Direct, concise writing is clearer than rambling examples. Footnotes and links to other pages may be used for clarification.
  • Emphasize the spirit of the rule. Expect editors to use common sense. If the spirit of the rule is clear, say no more.
  • Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Identify the purpose and scope early, as many readers will just look at the beginning. Content should be within the scope of its policy. When the scope of one advice page overlaps with the scope of another, minimize redundancy. When one policy refers to another policy, it should do so briefly, clearly, and explicitly.
  • Avoid overlinking. Policies and guidelines may contain links to any type of page, including essays and articles. Such links should only appear when clarification or context is needed. Links to other advice pages may unintentionally or intentionally defer "authority" to them. Make it clear when such links defer, and when they do not.
  • Not contradict each other. The community's view cannot simultaneously be "A" and "not A". When apparent discrepancies arise between pages, editors at all the affected pages should discuss how they can correct the contradictory pages to reflect the community's view. This discussion should be on only one talk page, with invitations to that page at the talk pages of the various affected pages.

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. They do not generally need to conform to the same content standards or style conventions as articles. It is not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify administrative pages, to phrase procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining editorial practices. Instead, the content of these pages is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness.[2]

These pages do, however, need to comply with Wikipedia's legal and behavioral policies, as well as policies applicable to non-content pages. For example, editors may neither violate copyrights nor edit-war anywhere on Wikipedia.

Life cycle

Many of the most well-established policies and guidelines have developed from principles that have been accepted as fundamental since Wikipedia's inception. Others developed as solutions to common problems and disruptive editing. Policy and guideline pages are seldom established without precedent[3] and require strong community support. Policies and guidelines may be established through new proposals, promotion of essays or guidelines, and reorganization of existing policies and guidelines through splitting and merging.

Essays and information pages may be established by writing them and adding {{essay}}, {{Information page}}, {{Wikipedia how-to}}, or a similar template to the page.

Current policy and guideline proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia proposals, and failed ones at Category:Wikipedia failed proposals. All editors are welcome to comment.

Proposals

Proposals for new guideline and policy pages require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy status. Simply adding the {{policy}} or {{guideline}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies existing policies. Most commonly, new policies or guidelines document established practices, rather than proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.

A common path for proposals follows these steps:

  1. {{brainstorming}}
  2. {{draft proposal}}
  3. {{