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WP:PG
This page documents a procedural policy of Wikipedia. WP:101
WP:RULES
WP:POLICY
WP:GUIDELINE
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are pages that
serve to document the good practices that are accepted in the Wikipedia
community. This policy describes how WP policies and guidelines should
normally be developed and maintained.
Principles
Five pillars
Content policies
Article titles
Image use
No original research
Verifiability
Conduct policies
Civility
Clean start
Consensus
Dispute resolution
Edit warring
Editing policy
Harassment
No legal threats
No personal attacks
Non-discrimination policy
Ownership of content
Username policy
Vandalism
Deletion
Enforcement
Legal
Procedural
Directories
List of policies
List of guidelines
Wikipedia 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 is a popular summary of the most pertinent principles.
Although Wikipedia generally does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline
pages describe its principles and best-agreed practices. Policies are standards that all users should
normally follow, and guidelines are generally meant to be 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.
Contents
[hide]
1Derivation
2Role
3Adherence
4Enforcement
5Content
6Not part of the encyclopedia
7Life cycle
o 7.1Proposals
7.1.1Good practice for proposals
o 7.2Demotion
o 7.3Content changes
7.3.1Substantive changes
o 7.4Conflicts between advice pages
8Naming
9See also
10Notes
11Further reading
Derivation
Further information: Wikipedia:Administration Human and legal administration
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
Further information: Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays
Shortcuts:
WP:POLICIES
WP:GUIDES
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 policies. 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.
Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors 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. (For more information,
see Wikipedia:Essays.)
Other administration pages in the Wikipedia: namespace include:
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
Further information: Wikipedia:Enforcement policies, Wikipedia:Active sanctions,
and Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement
Shortcuts:
WP:Enforcement
WP: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 administratorand 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:
WP:NOTPART
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 to the same 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.[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 not violate copyrights anywhere
on Wikipedia, and edit warring is prohibited everywhere, not merely in encyclopedia articles.
Life cycle
Shortcut:
WP:PGLIFE
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,[3] 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}},
{{Information page}}, {{Wikipedia how-to}},or similar template to the page.
Current policy and guideline proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia proposals, and failed
proposals can be found in Category:Wikipedia failed proposals. All editors are welcome to comment
on these proposals.
Proposals
Shortcut:
WP:PROPOSAL
Further information: Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance
See also: WP:POLL Policy and guidelines, and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY
Proposals for new guidelines and policies 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, a new policy or guideline documents existing practices, rather than
proposing a change to what experienced editors already choose to do.
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 can be discussed on its talk page. It is crucial to improve a proposal in
response to feedback received from outside editors. Consensus is built through a process of
listening to and discussing the proposal with many other editors.
Once you think that the initial proposal is well-written, and the issues involved have been sufficiently
discussed among early participants to create a proposal that has a solid chance of success with the
broader community, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk
page, and include 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}} template should be placed at the top of the
proposed page; this tag 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 WikiProject directory. For example, proposed style guidelines
should be announced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style, which is the WikiProject most
closely related to style issues. If your proposal relates to an existing policy or guideline, then leave a
note on the talk page of the related policy or guideline. 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 discussion for the duration of the RfC. Rarely, a
particularly important proposal may be advertised via a watchlist notice; sitenotices (which are
displayed to all readers, not just to active editors) are not used for proposals. 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:
Shortcut:
WP:HISTORICAL
See also: WP:HISPAGES
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 {{Under discussion|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 {{Disputed tag}} template is typically used instead of {{Under discussion}} 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. These discussions typically
happen on the page's talk page, sometimes with an RfC, but they have at times also been
conducted at Miscellany for deletion (despite the MFD guidelines explicitly discouraging this
practice). Other pages are retained for historical reference and are marked as such.
Content changes
Shortcut:
WP:PGCHANGE
See also: Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard
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 recommend a rejected 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
Shortcuts:
WP:PGBOLD
WP:TALKFIRST
Talk page discussions are usually held before substantive changes are made to policies.
Talk first. 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 {{Under discussion|section|talk=Discussion Title}} . (If the proposal relates to a single statement,
use {{Under discussion-inline|Discussion Title}} immediately after it.)
Or be bold. 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 was no formal discussion indicating consensus for the
change before it was made. Instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it and, if
one hasn't already been started, open a discussion to identify the community's current
views.[under discussion as of May 2017]
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
Shortcut:
WP:POLCON
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 Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) recommends against
newspaper articles for certain technical purposes. Editors must use their best judgement 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/Wikipedia policies and guidelines,
a listing of policy and guideline 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
Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines, an introduction to the
major policies and guidelines for very new users.
Wikipedia:Principles, an index of essays about the community's
principles and values
Notes
1. Jump up^ 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
Wikipedia, although the "Wikipedia" project space has since taken
over most of that role.
2. Jump up^ There is no prohibition against including appropriate
external references to support and explain our policies or guidelines,
but such sources are not authoritative with respect to Wikipedia, and
should only be used to reinforce consensus.
3. Jump up^ Office declarations may establish unprecedented policies
to avoid copyright, legal, or technical problems, though such
declarations are rare.
Further reading
Book: Key Wikipedia
Policies & Guidelines
Verifiability
No original research
Autobiography
Image use
Article titles
Notability
Citing sources
Identifying reliable sources
medicine
Plagiarism
Fringe theories
Patent nonsense
External links
Civility
Consensus
Editing policy
Harassment
Vandalism
No personal attacks
Ownership of content
Edit warring
Dispute resolution
Sock puppetry
No legal threats
Child protection
Paid-contribution disclosure
Conflict of interest
Disruptive editing
Etiquette
Courtesy vanishing
Deletion policy
Proposed deletion
Attack page
Oversight
Revision deletion
Administrators
Banning
Blocking
Page protection
Article size
Be bold
Disambiguation
Hatnotes
Subpages
User pages
Signatures
Broad-concept article
Project namespace
WikiProjects
Manual of Style
Contents
Accessibility
Understandability
Style
Dates and numbers
Images
Layout
Lead section
Linking
Lists
Classification Categorization
Template namespace
cies
ace policy
and copyright
licy
List of all policies and guidelines
List of policies
List of guidelines
Principles
Five pillars
rnanc
Categories:
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This page was last edited on 21 May 2017, at 00:09.
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