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Rejected / historical
I'm not sure if I agree with Kevin's recent edit about rejected and historical pages. Generally, when a proposal gets little feedback after a month or so, either I flag it as historical, or he flags it as rejected (depending on which of us sees it first, I suppose). However, the "rejection" gets disputed by many editors whereas the pointing-out-inactivity does not, and many such proposals are reactivated at some point, which "rejection" appears to prohibit. > R a d i a n t < 08:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with Radiant that the Historic tag seems to be a euphamism which is more palatible, and that "rejected" causes sensitivities. I also agree with FG that the wording is now clumsy. Perhaps we need a better word to replace "rejected" while keeping the categories more clear. I see "historic" as being an archive of something that was once in use. --Kevin Murray 16:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Reform. Policy, guideline, essay, proposed, rejected, historical, dormant, failed, draft
In general, the policy structure is confused. I think a serious restructure should be considered.
- There are core policies, with respect to other policies, but this page makes no mention of that fact. I would create {{core policy}} as its own class.
- There is too great a variety and number of guidelines; In general that name is a misnomer, in that they do not offer “guidance” but instead define a rule, a rule that is sometimes an ideal or is applied non-uniformly. {{Guideline}} is not well defined. Some are close to {{policy}} – the borderline is not well defined, and others are in the dirty and grubby overlap area with the ill defined Essays. I would like to see {{core policy}} created, {{policy}} retained, rule-type {{guidelines}} shifted to {{policy}}, and {{guideline}} reserved for recommendations, not rules.
- {{Essay}}s are effectively undefined. There are some very good essays, carrying tradition and respect with the community. Others are sensible statements of truth, enforceable by the merit of their logic. Yet others are contested opinion. Many more are low quality stuff of little purpose. I like the idea of subclassifying Essays, with the userfication ({{userEssay}} of weak essays as the most obvious first step.
- {{Proposed}} policy/guidelines are too frequent, too easy to create. The mingling of Proposed policy and Proposed guideline reinforces the lack of distinction between a {{policy}} and a {{guideline}}, and these should be separated for this reason. Maybe, before {{proposed}} there should be {{draft}} idea, and it should not be allowed to be {{proposed}} until it is serious and stable. Proposals would then be taken more seriously.
- {{Rejected}} is worded overly strongly given how easy it is too apply. I am uneasy with Kevin Murray’s enthusiasm to tag {{rejected}}. The wording implies to me that the rejection was firm and final and supported by consensus. Such rejection should be reserved for serious rejects, and most proposals should be tagged with a new, softer {{failed}}. I prefer {{failed}} to {{dormant}}.
- {{Historical}} should be reserved for things that once were, but are no longer. Historical should not be applied to failures due to lack of interest, or because the issue was too difficult.
--SmokeyJoe 07:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
- There's a number of good ideas here. I'll write down a bunch of responses.
- I don't feel comfortable making the distinction between "policy" and "core policy"; in fact this distinction is pretty much irrelevant, not defined anywhere, and contradicted on other pages. Policy is policy, plain and simple.
- Guidelines are meant to be recommendations, not rules. I believe that most of them are. If you know of any that are not, please point them out so that we can discuss them.
- Essays are tricky, as discussed above. It would seem there are (1) opinion pieces, (2) guidelines masquerading as essays, (3) rejected proposals masquerading as essays, and (4) miscellaneous pieces that people put an essay tag on because they feel it needs some tag. I am of the opinion that (2) and (3) should simply be re-tagged, although there tends to be strong objection to that (the general codification fallacy). I am of the opinion that (1) and (4) don't really need a tag. Perhaps we don't need this tag period, especially as it is the most ill-defined of the bunch.
- Proposals are almost without exception proposed guidelines . Perhaps the template should reflect that better. People who say they propose a policy generally are confused about the difference. Note that there have been virtually no new policies since 2004. I'm not sure if I see a meaningful distinction between "proposal" and "draft".
- I don't see a distinction between "rejected" and "failed" either, although the latter sounds like a better term to use. I'd suggest renaming {{rejected}} to {{failed}}.
- Likewise I fail to see a distinction between "historical" and "dormant". The main difference between "rejected" and "historical", imho, is that in the latter case you are welcome to try again, and in the former case you would be wasting your time.
- > R a d i a n t < 09:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
- I could follow Smokey Joe almost right down the line on this, especially regarding the blurred distinction between policy and guidelines. I support "failed" replacing "rejected". --Kevin Murray 11:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
- Replies to Radiant’s points.
- (5) yes, but ongoing proposals as well as accepted guidelines are still open to refinement. I don't think this is a good distinction, it encourages people to create one final version that might then not be modified any more.
- (6) that is reasonable. > R a d i a n t < 14:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
- --Kevin Murray 14:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC) replies to above
- Ah, I think we've been here before. Proposal, at present, do not go through some kind of official procedure. Some people have expressed a preference that they do. These people are welcome to design a system that makes that possible; however, until such a system is consensually accepted, the fact remains that at present there is no procedure, just common sense. > R a d i a n t < 14:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
- I think that the discussion of what becomes a guideline is better discussed at the guideline paragraph. The essay paragraph should be clear that essays have no authority (or call it not actionable etc) -- these are personal opinions of editors or a group of like-minded editors. The recent versions seem to elevate the status in a confusing manner. --Kevin Murray 14:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, the present version is false. There are several essays that have authority, precisely because they have consensual support. > R a d i a n t < 14:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
WP:WL is a good essay. It presents a relevant argument, with just some incidental advice given. The amount of advice is not enough to justify a guideline tag.
WP:CREEP is a fair, very brief, essay, followed by some good, helpful recommendations. The essay effectively incorporates an untagged guideline. I think that instruction creep is a bigger and much more complicated issue than the amount of detail WP:CREEP would suggest. There is scope on this subject, with research, to write a more expansive essay (also a better main space article Instruction creep), and to write a proper guideline that provides advice.
WP:AADD is a focused information repository. An essay or a guideline could readily be written on the subject, but WP:AADD is neither. In a formal document, I would put WP:AADD in an appendix.
I think we should here sort out what we think an essay and a guideline should be. As for {{draft}} versus {{proposed}}, I don’t think any firm rules should be applied. Wikipedia doesn’t need rules about rules about rules. WP:POL could simply suggest that early stage guideline ideas be tagged with {{draft}}. A {{proposed}} guideline should exist to attract attention, and after a week or so be accepted, rejected/failed or relegated to {{draft}} if editors consider it to have merit but not yet ready. Unlike Radiant, I don’t have a problem with a new guideline recommending new behaviours. None of this, however, should be considered rule. An experienced wikipedian with a good idea may well skip the {{draft}} step. If the idea is already in undocumented practice, then it could be appropriate to skip {{proposed}}. --SmokeyJoe 08:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
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