Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines

@FaviFake, about this change to the nutshell, one of the concepts that we try to retain is the distinction between the TrueTM Policy (what the community does) and the written policy (the editable wiki page, which may or may not match the TrueTM Policy at any given point in time). I'm not sure that it's important for the nutshell itself to address this, but I wanted to let you think about it for a bit, in the hope that you'd have an idea about how to communicate this better. It's one of the things we could IMO do better at. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 29 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

Thanks! I had thought about it, but I reached the conclusion that it said the same thing. Did I misread what it used to say?

OG: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are pages that serve to document the good practices accepted in the Wikipedia community.

new: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines document the good practices accepted in the Wikipedia community.

FaviFake (talk) 23:53, 29 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

I suspect that the "are pages" bit was meant to signal the distinction between the TrueTM Policy and the written one. But I don't think it does a good job of this, and it sounds pretty bad (and I say this with every likelihood that I'm at least partly responsible for the old wording).

I don't object to the change (if I did, I'd have reverted it). I'm leaning at least 80% towards saying that the nutshell is the wrong place to address that philosophical concept anyway. But it probably should be addressed somewhere on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 30 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

Oh, ok, I thought the "document the good practices" bit helped with the distinction (i.e., they document them, not set them).

Feel free to edit the nutshell, I only wanted to make it shorter nd don't mind it being revameped. FaviFake (talk) 08:41, 30 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

I'm happy with the cut down version. We don't need nutshells to exactly say everything and yet only occupy a couple of lines. Next step is trying to make titles include everything which some editors seem to try and do! :-) NadVolum (talk) 10:15, 30 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

I've occasionally wondered if this policy could ...just not have a nutshell at all? I know that's kind of a radical idea, but maybe?

(I prefer the cut-down version over the old version, too.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 30 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

Should WP:Humor be added to the Essays subsection? Jwilli39 (talk) ⚡ 13:22, 19 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

To the paragraph in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Role?

I don't think so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 19 September 2025 (UTC) Reply

@Ca and WhatamIdoing: I have recently been drawn to this page by another editor who provided a quotation of the following piece of guidance: Technically, the policy and guideline pages are not the policy and guidelines in and of themselves. The actual policies and guidelines are behaviors practiced by most editors. This has not been my traditional understanding of how we treat policies and guidelines on Wikipedia; therefore, I checked the edit history to confirm. Apparently, this text was added in 2024. I cannot find an obvious discussion where this addition was put to community consensus. In my understanding, this fundamentally contradicts the traditional manner in which policy and guidelines are treated on Wikipedia; traditionally WP:CONSENSUS through discussion is determined by considering editors' opinions in relation to our policy and guidelines. If editors' 'behaviour' itself were to become policy, this scheme would collapse, allowing those editors to create their own 'policies' by fiat. In any case, what does this guidance even mean? How are the policy and guideline pages 'technically' not policies or guidelines? Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 23:52, 12 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

It was added unilaterally by me as part of a copyediting effort. I wanted to emphasize that PAGs are only valid if the majority of our editorbase respect it, adding clarity to the pre-existing guidance that policy and guideline pages are seldom established without precedent. PAGs which do not reflect current practices tend to get modified to align with community sentiment, not the other way around (such as the recent proposed modification to WP:U5 and WP:SMALLCAT). Feel free to revert or discuss alternative wordings. Ca ^{talk to me!} 02:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

I have removed the text. I agree in principle that policies and guidelines should reflect actual practice, but WP:CONSENSUS for these is determined through discussion, which is WP:NOTAVOTE. Functionally, these policy and guideline pages are indeed policies and guidelines. That some group of people that may be identified as a 'majority' do not follow a given policy does not automatically invalidate that policy until a broader consensus is reached to change it. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 03:41, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

Consensus is not only determined through discussion. Consensus is also determined through everyday, ordinary actions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

That's true, but you should consider WP:CONLEVEL. The addition of this text invalidates and contradicts the idea that policies and guidelines represent broader, formal consensus, should not be readily modified unilaterally, and also the idea that smaller groups of editors who may comprise the majority in any given situation may not override a broader Wik-wide consensus as found in our policies and guidelines. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 04:03, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

@RGloucester, I've reverted. This is just another way of saying what Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy already says: The real rules are whatever the community does. The policy and guideline pages are not statutes (which create rules); instead, they are descriptions.

In the real world, a statute's creation causes a rule to exist (e.g., "members of the merchant class may not wear as much lace as the king"). The law creates the rules, and afterwards people (mostly) follow the law.

On wiki, for the most part, we collective adopt certain behaviors (e.g., "don't spam" or "little blue clicky numbers go after punctuation instead of before"), and when we think it might help someone, we document what these already-existing rules are. The community's behaviors create the rules; the P&G pages merely document them.

We traditionally describe this as the difference between the British constitution and the American one. The English Wikipedia operates like the British constitution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

Your explanation doesn't seem to have any relation to the text I removed. If this text is supposed explain the principle you are describing, it does not do a very good job. I do not believe there is any consensus anywhere for the idea that "technically, the policy and guideline pages are not the policy and guidelines", or that practice by a majority of editors in any given situation can override written policy and guidelines without a formal consensus, per WP:CONLEVEL. Mind you, the addition of this text is evidence of the problem; the long-standing interpretation of our policies and guidelines has been overturned by fiat, without any attempt to seek a broader community consensus. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 03:59, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

• I have tried to clarify the text in line with your explanation above. I hope we can reach some kind of compromise. Feel free to edit as you see fit. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 04:19, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

Here are the recent changes:

The relevant bit of WP:NOT says:

While Wikipedia has many elements of a bureaucracy, it is not governed by statute: it is not a quasi-judicial body, and rules are not the purpose of the community. Although some rules may be enforced, the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected.

While Wikipedia's written policies and guidelines should be taken seriously, they can be misused. Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policies without considering their principles. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures. Furthermore, policies and guidelines themselves may be changed to reflect evolving consensus.

And here is the definition of wikt:en:policy that is most relevant for this discussion:

"A principle of behaviour, conduct which an entity (government, organization, etc.) applies or seeks to follow, especially as formally expressed by an authoritative body."

and the one for wikt:en:guideline:

"A non-specific rule or principle that provides direction to action or behaviour."

It is sometimes helpful to think about this as the "lowercase-p policy". And, as you can see, for both policies and guidelines, Wikipedia:The rules are principles – regardless of whether we've written them down.

Here's are some of the concepts that I think some editors struggle with, and that should therefore be explained on this page:

1. The real policy originates from editors' collective "behaviour, conduct" and their "action or behaviour – not from words on a page.
   • Example:
     • If nobody actually puts sources on a MOS:LIST page, then the community's actual policy is to not source them. (This was true 'way back in the day.)
     • If someone creates an official page that says "Thou must always source list entries", but nobody follows that written rule in practice, then the actual policy is to not source them.
     • Similarly, if the practice is to source list entries (or certain subsets), and someone creates an official page that says "Thou must not source list entries", but nobody follows that written rule in practice, then the actual policy is to add sources.
       • Why? Because we have 125K list articles, with tens of thousands of editors, but only 14 of us are actually paying attention to MOS:LIST's talk page these days. Whenever the official page diverges that far from actual practice, there's a chance that the official document is the one with the CONLEVEL problem.
   • Some people will say this isn't 100% true, because the Wikimedia Foundation occasionally imposes a requirement on us, or the devs will tell us we can't do something because of WP:PERFORMANCE reasons. But our lowercase-p policy is to comply with these restrictions, so in a slightly indirect manner, the decision to comply with these 'externally' imposed requirements still originates from the community.
2. An official {{policy }} or {{guideline }} that is frequently flouted or ignored does not describe our lowercase-p policy – and it's the lowercase-p policy that matters.
   • Years ago, one of our dearly departed editors and I went six rounds over whether an ordinary eyewitness news article was a WP:PRIMARY source. The sort we had in mind was the TV news reporter standing in front of the burning house and asking the former occupants how they were feeling. I "won", and WP:PRIMARYNEWS is now widely supported in principle and mostly enforced, but it took years to get the written policy to describe reality.
   • Even more years ago, the same editor and I had opposite views about the future of the COI guideline. She wanted it to look more like real world COI (e.g., United States corporate law). She "won", and now I think I'm glad she did. But in that transition period, it was unclear what our actual policy was. The words on the page were clear enough, but what wasn't clear is whether the words aligned with our actual lowercase-p policy – if the words on the page were the "conduct which an entity" (the community) actually "applied or sought to follow", or if it was something that described how someone wished the community behaved instead of how they actually do. Whatever we did was the real policy; what was written down was just words.
3. The way to create change in the English Wikipedia is to "be the change you want to see". The way to create change is not to get your words into a page that says {{policy }} or {{guideline }} at the top and then assume everyone will obey you.
   • This doesn't work firstly because Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions and secondly because experienced editors will not change tried-and-true practices just because someone wrote down a "rule". But it's a very common expectation among people who don't know how things actually work.
4. The tag at the top of the page is not the important bit.
   • One of the most memorable examples of this principle for me was one of the fights over Wikipedia:Five pillars. 5P has WP:NOTAG. Is it a policy? Yes: It is an accurate and widely accepted representation of "conduct which [the community] applies or seeks to follow". But no: it doesn't have a tag (and IMO shouldn't). It's a real policy, but it's not a written, labeled policy.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

I am happy that we were able to reach a compromise through editing. I will take only one issue with your commentary above. You say: The way to create change in the English Wikipedia is to "be the change you want to see". In this sentence, you encourage editors to avoid engaging with the larger community and insert changes they prefer across less-visited parts encyclopaedia, creating a fait accompli that can later justify amending policies or guidelines. This practice is a subversion of WP:CONSENSUS, especially WP:CONLEVEL, and has long been rejected as disruptive. See, for instance, WP:ARBATC2, where editors who practiced what you preached were sanctioned by ARBCOM.

As CONLEVEL says, the stability and consistency of our policies and guidelines are important to Wikipedia; pockets of editors in specific topic areas do not have the ability to override broader Wiki-wide consensus, nor should they be encouraged to disrupt the encyclopaedia by making mass changes that deviate from the established practice without consensus. The correct way to enact change on Wikipedia is to engage with the broader community through the process of consensus building. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 06:12, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

No, I'm not encouraging editors to "avoid engaging with the larger community". The only way you can actually be the change you want to see is to convince others to support what you're doing and adopt it as their own practice. But the support needs to be in practice, not as empty words on a talk page. This is real consensus, not a subversion of it.

"The stability and consistency" paragraph isn't really about CONLEVEL. The point behind CONLEVEL is that WikiProject Composers doesn't get to exempt "their" articles from the ordinary rules of MOS:INFOBOXUSE. The last paragraph in that section is just stuck in there for lack of a better place to put it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 13 October 2025 (UTC) Reply

@Butwhatdoiknow: Re Diff/1340164883: I generally think more concise policies are less WP:CREEPy, and that specifying something which does not need to be specified is also CREEPy. But I'm not going to fight this extensively. To put it another way, I am asking the question do we need to say it? for the word accidental. Best, House Blaster (talk • he/they) 14:03, 24 February 2026 (UTC) Reply

My answer is "no" because the important thing - which the sentence already says - is to avoid confusion. Adding one source of confusion (accident) gilds the lily. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 14:34, 24 February 2026 (UTC) Reply

@Butwhatdoiknow: think you might be misreading the diff—I removed the word accidentally. Your revert re-added it. Best, House Blaster (talk • he/they) 14:48, 24 February 2026 (UTC) Reply

Oops. Sorry to have caused you the inconvenience of having to deal with my lack of attention to detail. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:51, 24 February 2026 (UTC) Reply

IMO section "Role" needs an expansion related to essays along the following lines.

"Various discussions often refer to essays. While opinions from essays are not as binding as policies and guidelines, they are useful in presenting reasonable arguments in a well-thought form."

Otherwise it is unclear why would anyone cite or respect essays.

Since I am not a native Eglisch speaker, I am not sure about the phrasing of the addition. If you think it is worth more than two cents, please suggest a better test. --Altenmann >talk 14:41, 14 July 2026 (UTC) Reply

Since we have, by policy, Wikipedia:No binding decisions and Wikipedia:No firm rules, even policies and guidelines are not "binding".

Do you think that editors look to this page, rather than a page such as Wikipedia:Essays, to figure out why people respect essays such as Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 14 July 2026 (UTC) Reply