Misplaced Pages

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This page documents an English Misplaced Pages guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

Thinking of creating a Misplaced Pages policy? Or amending an existing one? The purpose of this page is help you create a policy that will work in practice.

How to propose a new policy

See also: How are policies decided?

1. First, check existing policy to see if any relevant policies already exist.
2. Create a new page with a rough draft of your proposal. Try to include:
   • A brief summary of your proposal.
   • An explanation of the reasoning behind the proposal.
3. Get feedback!
   • Add the new proposal page to Category:Wikipedia_policy_thinktank.
   • Link any existing discussions related to the proposal to your proposal page.
   • Post a link to your proposal on Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy).
4. Work towards establishing consensus.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

Guidelines for creating a policy

The following general principles were gathered together following the implementation of dozens of policies across the encyclopedia. As you will see from the guidelines themselves, these points are guidelines, not rules. You know best what will work in your case.

1. Choose policies that have sprung up organically, not imposed from the top down. Contributors "in the trenches" can tell when recurring themes and ideas appear across several articles. Look for conventions that are introduced by one user, but are then copied and adopted by other users. These "de facto" policies often prove very workable. Indeed they are already working!
2. Leave room for flexibility. Although a uniformity of style is itself a good thing, it sometimes forces contributors into a straitjacket that they won't like. For example the very flexibility of our policy on allowing all styles of English spelling rather than just the dominant one, has caused it to be a very stable, implementable policy. Although new users often ask if and what the policy is, they tend to accept it pretty quickly once they've been shown the relevant policy page. The same is not true of inflexible policies, which generate the same arguments over and over again.
3. Avoid being too prescriptive. Devolve responsibility. Although it is tempting to try to cover every possible angle that might arise, it is not always possible. Doing so can lead to long complex policies, with loopholes. Very precise rules are things that badly-intentioned users sometimes love. A policy that says "Doing X n times in a day is grounds for a banning" is often unhelpful - trollish users can and will then deliberately do X (n-1) times in a day. Better to write "Doing X is considered bad. If a user continues to do X after being warned that it is inappropriate, users may decide to {report to arb. committee/implement a temp ban/protect page}. The number of "good" users overwhelms the bad - trust the users to sort things in specific cases, the policy just provides the framework. This is similar to having a judge to implement and interpret laws.
4. Avoid kneejerk reactions. Suppose one user does something annoying once. It is then often common practice to add to the boilerplate at the top of the relevant policy page, prohibiting what that user did. This in the past has led to ever-lengthening boilerplates that often consider minutiae irrevelant to the broad thrust of the policy. Consider whether it was a one-off, and thus whether it is better to keep that detail on relevant talk pages.
5. Flexibility again. Most articles are only monitored by a few people. Debates are generally manageable, and consensus (often unanimous) can be reached. On very popular policy pages, this is not the case. Lots of people monitor these pages. If you cast a change in "either/or" terms you will often get opinion divided down the middle. Thus, if your policy change has to come to some sort of vote (ample discussion always comes first), use a form of approval voting rather than first past the post voting. Layout all the options, and for each option allow the user to say if the proposed solution is acceptable or unacceptable. If you only have two options to list, examine whether all the middle ground possibilities have been included.
6. Check existing policies. Consult Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines. Keep in mind Misplaced Pages:What wikipedia is not.
7. Consult widely - make a special effort to engage potential critics of the new policy, engage them and get them to help find the middle ground early.
8. Do not rush - you will get there faster if you give the process the time it needs. People may oppose an idea simply because they feel it has not had adequate discussion, and especially if the feel a policy is being pushed through to circumvent discussion.

• Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines