Wikipedia:Policy dispute

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This Wikipedia page is currently inactive and is retained as a historical archive. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus has become unclear. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump.

A policy dispute occurs when an agreement cannot be reached regarding a policy or guideline.

An accepted or operational policy or guideline can not be declared "in dispute" unilaterally, compare: Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point:

• If you wish to change an existing procedure or guideline...
  • do set up a discussion page and try to establish consensus
  • don't push the existing rule to its limits in an attempt to prove it wrong, or nominate the existing rule for deletion

Which means declaring a policy or guideline to be in dispute can only be effectuated

1. if it can be demonstrated that there has been a reasonable effort to establish consensus;
2. if it can be established that there is a consensus that the best option forward is to declare the policy in dispute. This means broad consensus, for policy even very broad consensus.

All other attempts to declare a policy or guideline in dispute after it became accepted or operational will be considered vandalism or "highly disruptive egregious disruption".