Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practice, 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 before starting editing. The Five pillars is a popular summary of the most pertinent principles.

Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-known practices. Policies explain and describe standards that all users should normally follow, while guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense.

This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages.

Derivation

Wikipedia is operated by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which reserves certain legal rights (see here 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

Template:Seealso

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

Guidelines are sets of best practices that are 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 also List of guidelines.

"WP:ESSAYS" redirects here. For the guideline that states that Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought, see WP:NOTESSAY.

Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors (such as a WikiProject) for which widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval. Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace. See Category:Wikipedia essays and Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays.

Other pages that can be found in the Wikipedia: namespace include community process pages (which facilitate application of the policies and guidelines), historical pages, WikiProject pages, how-to or help pages (also found in the Help namespace), community discussion pages and noticeboards. These pages are not policies or guidelines, although they may contain valuable advice or information.

Adherence

Use common sense when interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; there will be occasional exceptions to these rules. Conversely, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded even if no rule has technically been broken.

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

On discussion pages and in edit summaries, shortcuts are often used to refer to policies and guidelines. For example, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:LIVE. Similar shortcuts are sometimes also used for other types of project page. A shortcut does not necessarily imply that the page linked to has policy or guideline status. Additionally, remember that the shortcut is not the policy; the plain-English definition of the page's title or shortcut may be importantly different from the linked page.

Enforcement

Enforcement on Wikipedia is similar to other social interactions. If an editor violates the community standards described in policies and guidelines, other editors can persuade the person to adhere to acceptable norms of conduct, over time resorting to more forceful means, such as administrator and steward actions. In the case of gross violations of community norms, they are likely to resort to more forceful means fairly rapidly. Going against the principles set out on these pages, particularly policy pages, is unlikely to prove acceptable, although it may be possible to convince fellow editors that an exception ought to be made. This means that individual editors (including you) enforce and apply policies and guidelines.

In cases where it is clear that 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 general dispute resolution procedure has been ineffective, the Arbitration Committee has the power to deal with highly disruptive or sensitive situations.

Content

Policy and guideline pages should:

• be clear. Avoid esoteric or quasi-legal terms and dumbed-down language. Be plain, direct, unambiguous, and specific. Avoid platitudes and generalities. Do not be afraid to tell editors directly that they must or should do something.
• be as concise as possible—but no more concise. Verbosity is not a reliable defense against misinterpretation. Omit needless words. Direct, concise writing may be more clear than rambling examples. Footnotes and links to other pages may be used for further 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. Clearly identify the purpose and scope early in the page. 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. Links to policies, guidelines, essays, and articles should be used only when clarification or context is needed. Links to other advice pages may inadvertently or intentionally defer authority to them. Make it clear when 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 most accurately represent the community's current position, and correct all of the pages to reflect the community's view. This discussion should be on one talk page, with invitations to that page at the talk pages of the various affected pages; otherwise the corrections may still contradict each other.

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 proper. 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 administrative pages, or to phrase Wikipedia procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Wikipedia's editorial practices. Instead, the content of these pages is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors.

These pages do, however, need to comply with Wikipedia's legal and behavioral policies. For example, editors may not violate copyrights anywhere on Wikipedia, and edit warring is prohibited everywhere, not merely in encyclopedia articles.

Life cycle

Many of the most well-established policies and guidelines have developed from principles which 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, and always require strong community support. Policies and guidelines may be established through new proposals, promotion of existing 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}}, {{infopage}}, or similar templates to the page.

Current policy and guideline proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia proposals, and rejected proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals. All editors are welcome to comment on these proposals.

Proposals

Template:Seealso New proposals require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy. Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean that the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy. Most commonly, editors use a Request for comments (RfC) to determine consensus for a newly proposed policy or guideline, via the {{rfc|policy}} tag.

Good practice for proposals

The first step is to write the best initial proposal that you can. Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects. Amendments to a proposal should be discussed on its talk page (not on a new page), but it is often appropriate and even necessary to improve a proposal in response to feedback received from outside editors.

Once you think that the initial proposal is well-written, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and including the {{rfc|policy}} tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the proposal. After that, you can provide, if you want, a detailed explanation of what the page does and why you think it should be a policy or guideline. The {{proposed}} (for newly written proposals) or {{promote}} (for promotion of essays or guidelines) templates should be placed at the top of the proposed page; these tags will get the proposal properly categorized.

The RfC should typically be announced at the policy and/or proposals village pumps, and you should notify other potentially interested groups. If your proposal affects a specific content area, then related WikiProjects can be found at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced to Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style. 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 Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Try to identify the subcategory of guideline or policy (see {{subcat guideline}}). Proposals involving contentious subjects or wide-ranging effects should normally be listed on Wikipedia:Centralized discussions for the duration of the RfC. RfCs for policy and guideline proposals are normally left open for at least one week, and sometimes as long as a couple of months.

To avoid later complaints about insufficient notice, it may be helpful to provide a complete list of the groups or pages that you used to advertise the proposal on the talk page.

Editors should respond to proposals in a way that helps identify and build consensus. Explain your thoughts, ask questions, and raise concerns; all views are welcome. Many editors begin their response with bold-font 'vote' of support or opposition to make evaluation easier. Editors should sign their responses.

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 sufficiently experienced independent editor (an impartial editor not involved in the discussion) who is familiar with all of the policies and guidelines that relate to the proposal. The following points are important in evaluating consensus:

• Consensus for guidelines and policies should be reasonably strong, though unanimity is not required.
• There must be exposure to the community beyond just the authors of the proposal.
• Consider the strength of the proposed page:
  • Have major concerns raised during the community discussion been addressed?
  • Does the proposal contradict any existing guidelines or policies?
  • Can the new proposed guideline or policy be merged into an existing one?
  • Is the proposed guideline or policy, or some part of it, redundant with an existing guideline or policy?
• 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.
• If consensus for broad community support has not developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed.

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}}, {{Wikipedia how to}}, {{Infopage}}, or {{Failed}}.

If a proposal fails, the failed tag should not usually be removed. It is typically more productive to rewrite a failed proposal from scratch to address problems than to re-nominate a proposal.

Demotion

An accepted policy or guideline may become obsolete because of changes in editorial practice or community standards, may become redundant because of improvements to other pages, or may represent unwarranted instruction creep. In such situations editors may propose that a policy be demoted to a guideline, or that a policy or guideline be demoted to a supplement, informational page, essay or historical page. In certain cases, a policy or guideline may be superseded, in which case the old page is marked and retained for historical interest.

The process for demotion is similar to promotion. A talk page discussion is typically started, the {{underdiscussion|status|Discussion Title}} template is added to the top of the project page, and community input is solicited. After a reasonable amount of time for comments, an independent editor should close the discussion and evaluate the consensus.

The {{disputedtag}} template is typically used instead of {{underdiscussion}} for claims that a page was recently assigned guideline or policy status without proper or sufficient consensus being established.

Essays, information pages, and other informal pages that are only supported by a small minority of the community are typically moved to the primary author's userspace, rather than being demoted. These discussions typically happen on the page's talk page, sometimes with an RfC, but they may also be conducted at Miscellany for Deletion. Other pages are retained for historical reference and are marked as such.

Content changes

Policies and guidelines can be edited like any other Wikipedia page. It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance. However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.

Because Wikipedia practice exists in the community through consensus, editing a policy/guideline/essay page does not in itself imply an immediate change to accepted practice. It is, naturally, bad practice to write something other than accepted practice on a policy or guideline page. To update best practices, you may change the practice directly (you are permitted to deviate from practice for the purposes of such change) and/or set about building widespread consensus for your change or implementation through discussion. When such a change is accepted, you can then edit the page to reflect the new situation.

Substantive changes

Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy. Changes may be made if there are no objections, or if discussion shows that there is consensus for the change. Minor edits to improve formatting, grammar, and clarity may be made at any time.

If the result of discussions is unclear, 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.

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.)

The older but still valid method is to boldly edit the page. Bold editors of policy and guideline pages are strongly encouraged to follow WP:1RR or WP:0RR standards. Although most editors find advance discussion, especially at well-developed pages, very helpful, directly editing these pages is permitted by Wikipedia's policies. Consequently, you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there is no formal record indicating consensus for it: instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it, and open a discussion to identify the community's current views, if one hasn't already been started.

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.

Conflicts between advice pages

If policy and/or guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice. As a temporary measure during that resolution process, if a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, editors may assume that the policy takes precedence.

More commonly, advice pages do not directly conflict, but provide multiple options. For example, WP:Identifying reliable sources says that newspaper articles are generally considered to be reliable sources, and WP:Identifying reliable sources (medicine-related articles) recommends against newspaper articles for certain technical purposes. Editors must use their best judgment to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the specific situation at hand.

Naming

The page names of policies and guidelines usually do not include the words "policy" or "guideline," unless required to distinguish the page from another.

See also

• Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies, a listing of policy proposals advertised through Wikipedia:Requests for comment
• Wikipedia:Centralized discussion, a centralized list of ongoing policy discussions
• Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, proposals that come up very often
• Wikipedia:Product, process, policy - the place of policies in Wikipedia
• Template messages/Project namespace for the templates associated with each type of policy page.
• Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines, an introduction to the major policies and guidelines for very new users.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advice_pages about advice pages written by WikiProjects
• Wikipedia:Principles, an index of essays about the community's principles and values

Notes

Related information

{{Navbox | name = Wikipedia policies and guidelines | state = autocollapse | bodyclass = hlist | titlestyle = | title = Key Wikipedia policies and guidelines

| group1 = Overview | list1 =

• Five pillars
• Policies and guidelines
• List of policies and guidelines
  • List of policies
  • List of guidelines

| group2 = Project-wide principles | list2 =

• Consensus
• Dispute resolution
• Editing policy
• Ignore all rules
• [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not|What Wikipedia is

| list3 =

• Neutral point of view
• No original research
• Verifiability

| list4 =

• Article titles
• Biographies of living persons
• Deletion
• Image use

| group5 = Content guidelines |

• Do not create hoaxes
• Do not include copies of primary sources
• Identifying reliable sources
• Notability
• Patent nonsense

| group6 = Behavioural policies | list6 =

• Child protection
• Civility
• Edit warring
• Harassment
• No legal threats
• No personal attacks
• [[Wikipedia:Ownership of articles|

| list7 =

• Assume good faith
• Conflict of interest
• Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point
• Etiquette
• Gaming the system
• Please do not bite the newcomers

| group8 = Editing

• Be bold
• Hatnotes
• Signatures
• Subpages
• Talk page guidelines
• User pages
• Vandalism
• WikiProjects

| group9 = Style conventions | list9 =

• Manual of Style
  • Contents
• Accessibility
• Dates and numbers
• Images
• Layout
• Lead section
• Linking
• Lists

| group10 = Classification guidelines | list10 =

• Categories, lists, and navigation templates
• Categorization
• Template namespace

|group11 = Wikimedia Foundation |list11 =

• List of policies
• Licensing and copyright
• Privacy
• Values

| belowstyle = font-weight: bold; | below =

• [[Book:Key Wikipedia Policies & Guidelines

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