Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 15:51, 4 February 2023

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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This is the template sandbox page for Template:Guideline (diff).

Template usage notes This template should only be used on pages that are formal Misplaced Pages guidelines. For advice that is not a Misplaced Pages guideline, use the {{Essay}} or one of its variants, instead. Please do not apply this template to any page without first advertising your proposal to other editors via a request for comments, as described below.

This template is for formal Misplaced Pages guidelines that can be classified more specifically by topic. For the rare case of a guideline that does not suit any of these categorizations, you can use {{Guideline}}.

Usage

{{Guideline/sandbox|section=|guideline category|category sort key|shortcut|...|shortcut5}}

Template parameters

• For guideline category, use one of the following:
  • behavioral guideline
  • content guideline
  • deletion guideline
  • editing guideline
  • naming convention
  • notability guideline
  • style guideline  – use {{MoS guideline}} instead
• For category sort key such as notability or naming conventions guidelines, use what is in the parenthetical disambiguator, and capitalise it. For example:
  • Misplaced Pages:Notability (web): category sort key = Web
  • Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (people): category sort key; = People
• For the optional shortcut, use an established shortcut; it is not necessary to wrap it in ]. For example: WP:FOO
  • For the next optional shortcut, use another established shortcut. You can use up to five shortcuts in total, each as a separate parameter.
• The parameter |section=y can be used to tweak the wording to refer to a section instead of the whole page. This is only used when an guideline of a particular sort (e.g. a naming convention) is a section in a larger combined guideline, as at WP:Stand-alone lists; it is not to be used for each section in guideline page that is all of the same category. The template with or without this parameter should not be used on wikiproject advice pages; they are essays not guidelines.

New or greatly modified guidelines require community approval

If you or a wikiproject have drafted a new guideline or substantially revised one, the Misplaced Pages community must have significant time to consider the proposal and arrive at a consensus about it. See the WP:PROPOSAL policy for the current best practices on neutrally soliciting input on a proposal from as wide a selection of the community as is practical.

This is usually done with a request for comment (RfC) at the proposal's talk page, and advertised at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals) (WP:VPPRO), or the RfC may be hosted at VPPRO itself. Give notice at the talk pages of other relevant parts of Misplaced Pages, such as those of closely related existing policies and guidelines, as well as wikiprojects likely to have a stake in the outcome. If the proposal is not highly topical and may affect the encyclopedia as a whole, or may be controversial, using WP:Centralized discussion may also be advised.

For more suggestions and background on how to go from a proposal to a Misplaced Pages guideline, see Category:Misplaced Pages proposals and Misplaced Pages:How to contribute to Misplaced Pages guidance.

See also

• {{MoS-guideline}} – for the style guidelines that are actually part of the Manual of Style (few if any are not)
• {{Supplement}} – for a special kind of Misplaced Pages essay that is a consensus-accepted supplement to a guideline
• {{Proposed}} – to solicit comments from the wider community before declaring a page to be a guideline; please also notify Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)
• {{Rfc | policy}} – to solicit comments from the community about a proposed guideline, major changes to an existing guideline, or removing guideline status; please also notify Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)
• {{Rfc | style}} – to solicit comments from the community about a proposed style guideline, major changes to an existing style guideline, or removing guideline status; please also notify Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)
• For other Misplaced Pages header templates (for policies, essays, wikiprojects, etc.), see Template messages/Project namespace.

• Template sandboxes