Category talk:Wikipedia official policy

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Contents 1 [Earlier comments] 2 proposed distinctions 3 Add Verifiability to this category 4 Template is potentially misleading 5 Bad link on main article 6 Why are Talk:Terri Schiavo and User:Tezkah/uncensored linked? 7 Dachau massacre as a link? 8 Name 9 Seemingly neutral contributions 10 User talk:Martinphi/NPOV 11 Correction needed to page: "User:Marc Kupper"

[edit] [Earlier comments]

[moved into a subsection] Libcub (talk) 11:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I reworked the wording on this page, in particular changing the bit that said that Wikipedia doesn't have any truly official policy. "Key policies" like not infringing copyrights and NPOV are very fundamental to Wikipedia, and are well beyond the stage of "policies to consider". However, I agree that "official policy" might not be the best term to describe these policies - renaming the category to something like "Generally accepted policies" might make sense. Enchanter 22:28, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

I chose "official policy" deliberately, realizing that at once it is:

• inherently contentious
• inherently inaccurate when applied to anything at Wikipedia
• still an important distinction and, over time, increasingly factual and more true than "policies to consider."

I think your edits are fine, and I do think that it is important to have some sort of categorization of the policies that are "official," those that were failed attempts at policy, and those that have some degree of backing without being quite exactly "official."

In reality, most of the Wikipedia policies evolved out of "semi-policy" that had no consensus when originally proposed and discussed. Over time, as more people started following the "semi-policy," it became clear that it was official.

uc 22:47, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] proposed distinctions

I think this page needs reorganization. First, why is "Wikipedia:Sound" under the letter "S", but "Wikipedia:Blocking Policy" is under "W" and not "B?" If we are just providing an alphabetical index, we should ignore the "Wikipedia:"

Y Done at some point. Libcub (talk) 02:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Second, I propose divising these policies into at least two categories: "administrative" (e.g. three revert rule; policies primarily for administrators) and "editorial" (all the rest), or three categories, "admninistrative," "interpersonal" (or behavioral), and "editorial" (meaning, content-related). I think this would make it easier for people, especially newbies, to navigate. Slrubenstein

I agree. I'll look at recategorizing. Libcub (talk) 02:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add Verifiability to this category

I think that it is well past time to add Wikipedia:Verifiability to this category. The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete and accurate encyclopedia. Verifiability is an important tool to achieve accuracy, so we strongly encourage you to check your facts. This policy meets all of the criteria listed on this main article pag. It has been discussed in-depth on the Wiki-En list, and pretty much everyone agrees that this already is Wikipedia policy. (The only disagreement seems to be how best to deal with people who violate it.) RK 21:13, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

As a corollary, we should add Wikipedia:Cite sources. RK

I agree.

James F. (talk) 17:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Me too! Slrubenstein | Talk 17:35, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ISTM there should be a vote or something on the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability first. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 20:04, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have been closely watching discussion on these issues on the Wiki-En list for the last two months. As far as I can tell, no one disagrees that these are now major policies. Interestingly, not a single person disagreed with me on the Wiki-En list or here after I made this proposal. Given the contentious way that many of us can argue over issues, this is nothing less than a miracle. At this point- still shaking my head in pleasant disbelief at the utter lack of disagreement on Wiki-En - I feel safe in adding these categories to this list. (Especially so, since it fits in with Wiki-En discussions.) Of course, I recognize that there still exists significant debate on how to enforce these policies, but that is another point. RK 20:28, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm certainly not going to take it back out. I will point out though, that silence is not a proof, and wikien-l ain't what it used to be. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:04, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree; that is surely correct. Generally speaking, just because no one vocally disagrees, doesn't mean that everyone agrees! I am only invoking "silence equals tacit approval" because of the extensive recent discussion of these issues on Wiki-En by many of our contributors, including Admins and Sysops. The only reason I am making apologetics for my addition of this category is that unlike other articles, this is a policy consideration, so I want to tread here lightly. (And I suppose that I would not argue much if other Admins and Sysops decide that this is a bad decision and come here to say why! ) RK 13:35, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template is potentially misleading

I don't particularly care which category pages are in, but with the current categorization, the "policy" template will be misleading on some pages. It suggests that the current version is authoritative, and that changes without discussion should be avoided. I don't think that's quite appropriate for pages like Wikipedia:Sockpuppet or Wikipedia:Wikiquette. The basic idea behind that page is widely accepted, but I would still consider it editable. Certainly the current text as written isn't sacred. I'm definitely not in favor of making any new categories, so perhaps some pages should be migrated down to "guidelines"? Isomorphic 05:08, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

My concern here, by the way, is that we could lose potentially useful edits to those pages because people think that the current text is officially approved and authoritative. Policies and guidelines should be kept up to date to reflect current opinions and practices. The more pages that need a vote or a long discussion to change, the more bureaucratic and inflexible Wikipedia gets. Isomorphic 05:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

• The wording of the template has been somewhat in flux. Netoholic proposed something like "this is policy but please edit it anyway" which to me sounds like an invitation to ignore the policy. Quite possibly my version errs in the other direction. Ideally, I'd like to have some wording that persuades newbies to not edit the page and accept it as written, and for which people who know what they're doing realize they can edit it anyway.
• That said, I think WP:SOCK is still official policy, especially the paragraph 'Prohibited uses of sock puppets'. Also, people get instantly and permanently banned for abuse of socks. WikiQuette on the other hand reads more like a behavioral guideline, and while everybody agrees it's good to be nice to people it's hard to pin down as enforceable. On the other hand it has been in cat:policy since last october. Radiant_* 08:15, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

The sockpuppet page has been rewritten substantially since January. Given that, I don't think the page has reached the kind of stability where you want to say "don't edit this at all without discussion." It was never categorized as anything more than "semi-policy" before your recent tagging. Also, while the spirit of Wikiquette is important to the community, I wouldn't call it a "policy" because most of what's on the page is just advice. It's not enforceable, and unlike something like VfD procedures or WP:CSD, there's no need to lock it in. I'm going to move both to the "Guideline" category. If anyone strongly objects, undo and say why.

Here I am, already breaking my own advice about not getting overly concerned with what category things are in... shame on me. Isomorphic 05:31, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

• WP:SOCK has seen a lot of edits the past time, but so have Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Protection policy. So simply being edited is not grounds for making it policy. I agree about Wikiquette, but WP:SOCK is instantly enforceable (and many socks already attempt to misquote WP:SOCK back at us in order to get unbanned, this would get worse if it appeared to be not policy). Also I agree that it's not something that should overly concern people :) Radiant_* 09:37, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bad link on main article

There is a link on the main page to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 2/Workshop. That does not appear to be an official policy, but a particular decision by the ArbCom. Either there has been vandalism, or there was an editing error. Can some admin clean up the page? Robert McClenon 16:51, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why are Talk:Terri Schiavo and User:Tezkah/uncensored linked?

I'm guessing these two links don't belong on this page, but I'm reluctant to start zapping things on such an important page, even if they do seem to me to be obviously results of vandalism or error.

Yeah that was put on the User:Tezkah page as vandalism (Intentionally), just removing it as a tag and recreating it as code fixed it.

[edit] Dachau massacre as a link?

Uh... I think somebody made a mistake with this, but I don't know how to fix it. "Edit this page" doesn't give me list-editing powers. --MattShepherd 13:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Why is the name Wikipedia official policy and not Wikipedia official policies/Wikipedia's official policies? There are more than one policy in the category. --Kkk 13:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree; I'll look into changing the name. Libcub (talk) 02:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Seemingly neutral contributions

Hello, I'm a new Dutch contributor to Wikipedia and I have to ask your opinion on the following topic of neutrality.

Say I have twenty+ years of knowledge about a controversial field and I want to convert my knowledge in a neutral way to a range of entries on Wikipedia. I write 100+ articles about my subject, categorize them, write another 100 articles on closely related subjects in a different category and I start a portal on my theme in such a way, that you will find my subject wherever you go. I maintain that all of my articles are NPOV-proof.

Now I have put my mark everywhere in the entire field of History and Literature, all with the same objective, namely that I want to 'restore' a certain 'historic fallacy' by a 'neutral' treatment of a 'neglected' subject.

The case I'm referring to, is National-Socialist political history in the Netherlands 1930-1945 and the Dutch literature relating to it.

My opinion is that you cannot handle this kind of sensitive subjects just by pouring all your personally acquired knowledge into Wikipedia and justify it by saying that:

• all of your articles are treated with the required care and neutrality;
• the subject is widely neglected so it needs [my words] an overkill to reach neutral treatment.

In a narrow sense, this author meets the conditions of NPOV but in the context of Wikipedia as a whole he does not. Probably, he also violates the rule of not using own sources. His conduct would need an army of other Wikipedians over the next 4 years, to supply enough stuff so his perspective can be neutralized by other views.

What do I do in this case? The first thing I did of course, was to discuss the subject with the person in question.

Art Unbound 00:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User talk:Martinphi/NPOV

I assume User talk:Martinphi/NPOV isn't WP official policy? --Milo H Minderbinder 14:07, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Correction needed to page: "User:Marc Kupper"

It would appear that this entry does not belong in the listing of the 48 Wikipedia Official Policy pages...yes? Tomcloyd 20:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, it has now been fixed. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)