Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines

Copyedit

@Ca, I'm not sure about all the changes you're making. Off hand, here are a few that stood out to me:

• "a summary of the most pertinent principles": We specified that that WP:5P is a "popular" summary, to be clearer that it's not an "official" or "complete" one. 5P is IMO an excellent summary, but it's also just a five-point re-write of WP:Trifecta to sound more formal and avoid some slang. There's nothing magical about it.
• "Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages describe its principles and agreed-upon best practices": We specified "pages" here because there are multiple meanings of policy. This paragraph is specifically talking about the written pages, rather than standard practices. (Consider, e.g., "our country's foreign policy": you don't expect that to be a single document with the word "Policy" in a fancy box at the top.) The written pages do this; the actual policies ("a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions") is what editors do at RecentChanges or AFD, not what we write on the page.
  • This is partially a consequence of our WP:NOTSTATUTE approach. Wikipedia uses a style closer to the British constitution than to the American one. That is, what matters is the principles that we support, rather than the exact wording. US law occasionally makes decisions based on the presence or absence of a comma. Wikipedia is more concerned with the overall effect: Does this help us improve or maintain Wikipedia? If yes, then that's what we want. If not, then Wikipedia:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.
  • Another way of looking at this: WP:5P is Wikipedia's policy, but it's not a {{policy}}.
• "Additionally, the shortcut is not the policy; the plain-English definition of the page's title or shortcut may be importantly different from the linked page.": The problem of people misinterpreting the WP:UPPERCASE shortcuts is perennial and significant. For example, there are hundreds of shortcuts that start with WP:NOT but don't point to WP:NOT. On occasion, we'll even see people arguing that WP:THIS requires us to do this, and WP:NOTTHIS requires us to never do this ...and they're pointing at the same section of the same page, only the editors didn't know this, because they were just guessing that the shortcut matched the rule, so they never bothered to actually read the rules.

This is not an exhaustive list, but I also want to say that I don't object to every change you've made. What would you like to do to resolve some of my concerns? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind and lengthy feedback. Here is a list of changes I will make later, based on your suggestions:

• Reintroduce popular as descriptor
• Reword the page–attitude distinction to be clearer
• Re-add "shortcut is not the policy" with clearer wording

Ca ^{talk to me!} 23:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Venue

I've seen a couple of claims, during the last year or two, that proposals for WP:PGCHANGES should happen at the village pump, instead of on the talk page for the affected policy/guideline/similar page. It is generally poor practice to do this deliberately, as one sometimes has Group A making a decision about Page B, and then totally surprising Group B when Group A implements the changes. There are, however, times when it makes sense (e.g., when multiple guidelines could be affected, you don't necessarily want to pick one talk page over the others) and other times when it's just what happens (e.g., a discussion takes an unexpected turn). I wonder whether we should make this more explicit. Something like "Changes to a single guideline or policy should normally be discussed on the talk page for that guideline or policy"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

I really don’t think the venue of a policy discussion matters - what DOES matter is that as many editors as possible know that the discussion is taking place, and where to go to participate in it. So, leave lots of neutral notifications (everywhere you can think of) clearly linking to the discussion. Blueboar (talk) 22:07, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

We say "Amendments to a proposal can be discussed on its talk page......start a request for comment (RfC) about your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the proposal's talk page. Include the {{rfc}}..." Should we be more blunt? Moxy🍁 22:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Yet, WP:Village Pump (policy) says that it should be “used to discuss already proposed policies and guidelines and to discuss changes to existing policies and guidelines.”

So… I can see why people are confused. Especially if you think there is only one “correct” to do things. I don’t. I don’t think the location of an RFC matters as long as max people are notified a) that it is taking place, and b) where it is taking place.

If at VPP, notify the P/G page. If at the P/G page, notify VPP. Simple. Blueboar (talk) 00:28, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

People should defer to existing policies and guidelines over administration pages. How long has this been there at the village pump? Village pump should be there to direct people to the right page not be the page itself in my view as outline in our policy page "The RfC should typically be announced at the policy and/or proposals village pumps, and you should notify other potentially interested groups". Should be fixed as per WP:POLCON. Moxy🍁 00:42, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

It's not quite as simple as that. Usually, you need to defer to the most specific information. For example, WP:V says that "Reputable newspapers" are reliable sources, but MEDRS says that they're not reliable for biomedical information. You defer to MEDRS because it's more specific, not because guidelines inherently outrank policies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#The header for this page about adjusting the wording of the sentence at the top of WP:VPP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:58, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Venue

• For small-to-medium discussions affecting a single page: Prefer the talk page for that policy, guideline, or other page.
• For small-to-medium discussions affecting multiple pages: Start the discussion at the talk page for one of the affected pages or at the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Notify the other pages about the central location.
• For long discussions: Create a separate page (e.g., Wikipedia:Requests for comment/YOUR SUMMARY HERE) or as a subpage of the policy or guideline (e.g., Wikipedia:Verifiability/First sentence).

Maybe a note like one of these? Or maybe this is overkill?

Recommended venues – Do your best to notify other relevant pages

Expected discussion	Talk page	Village pump	Separate page
Short	Y	Y
Long		N	Y
About one page	Y		Y
About multiple pages	Y	Y	Y

WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

• I still think you are overthinking it. But I don’t object. Key is to leave notifications. Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
• Since I am always clearly right, I always expect short discussions. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 04:33, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  Then we must always agree, because I too am always right! WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

• I think it is a bit of overkill. I agree with Blueboar that leaving notifications at the relevant pages is the most important guidance. The location of the discussion is flexible and can be moved to a separate subpage on an as-deemed-useful basis. isaacl (talk) 14:37, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

  Love it.....we need to keep things simple for new editors. Moxy🍁 18:46, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Universal Wikipedia Policies and guidelines, or individual English Wikipedia Policies and guidelines, or both?

The name Wikipedia: Policies and guidelines suggests that the accompanying project page informs about the universal policies and guidelines valid on all Wikipedia language editions. In other words: all rules approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees with 'power of law' on all Wikimedia Projects, including all Wikipedia language editions. The text however does not make clear what the global policies are. The text doesn't inform either about the specific policies and guidelines valid for the English language edition Wikipedia community, established by that community within the borders of the universal WMF Policies and guidelines. The project page is made available in over 100 other languages, which also gives the impression that the page offers information about the universal policies and guidelines with validity on all Wikipedia projects - which it does not.

I've made the observation that mountains of misunderstandings do exist around the broad and rather complex topic Wikimedia Movement Policies and guidelines and the project page does not excel in delivering clearity here. The friendly suggestion therefore is to expand the text with:

• a section containing a general introduction to the legal ecosystem in which all Wikimedia projects, including all Wikipedia projects, are operating, with some milestones from Nupedia/Wikipedia/Wikimedia governing history;
• a summary of the most important actual valid universal Wikimedia Foundation Policies and guidelines, with 'rule of law' on all Wikipedia projects, like the WMF Bylaws, Terms of Use, Universal Code of Conduct and UCoC Enforcement guidelines (see: summary 1, summary 2 by the WMF)
• a section explaining the actual valid policies, guidelines and best-practices on the English language Wikipedia edition.

This will have a global effect because I did notice by reading through some of the other language project pages, that other communities simply did translate this page as being the rules valid on their Wikipedia edition. Unaware of the possibility that every individual community has, to establish their own specific policies, so long as these are in conformity with the framework of global policies.

Thanks for your attention, Kevin Bouwens (talk) 12:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to the English Wikipedia, @Kevin Bouwens. When you say "This header" in your first sentence, what header are you talking about? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you @WhatamIdoing for the swift reply, welcome and question. It's about the header "Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines", pointing out to Wikipedia in general, not only the English language edition (I've changed the sentence so others will understand). The webaddress is admittedly: "en.wikipedia.org", but that doesn't mean that the content only refers to the English language version; compare it with the lemma Wikipedia on the English language version.

My suggestion is to write on a page with this name about the general situation, and on another page "English Wikipedia: Policies and guidelines" about the Policies and guidelines that only are 'in power' on the English language edition / for the English language project community. Alternative: write both sections on this page, clearly divided. In case it turns out not to be easy for experienced Wikipedians to untangle the policies and guidelines in a section with global validity and a section with validity on the English language version, I would be happy to assist in figuring that out, when whished. Keep up! Kevin Bouwens (talk) 06:43, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

If you are concerned about the page title at the top of the page, which looks like this:

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

then the "Wikipedia:" part indicates the namespace, and we can't actually change it on this page.

We could change the first sentence to say "The English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are developed by the community". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:08, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The individual Wikipedia editions in different languages are separate from the Engliah Wikipedia. As it says in the introduction to this policy "This policy page specifies the community standards related to the organization, life cycle, maintenance of, and adherence to policies, guidelines, and related pages of the English Wikipedia. It does not cover other editions of Wikipedia." If you click on languages near the top right you get the nearest equivalent to the page in other languages, most have not achieved the level of bureaucratification of the English version 😃 NadVolum (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Input on a search parameter in our policy template

Pls see Template talk:Wikipedia policies and guidelines#Search parameter like our MOS template?. Moxy🍁 22:43, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

PAG precedence

Currently, we have a commonly accepted precedence for determining which PAG we should defer to (Manual of Style < Guideline < Policy < Core Policy), but this isn’t formalised. I think it would be helpful to do so, as our policies should reflect practice, and it will avoid wikilawyering on the issue.

As a rough draft, I would suggest changing WP:POLCON from

If policy and/or guideline pages conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so all the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice. As a temporary measure, if a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, editors may assume the policy takes precedence.

More commonly, advice pages do not directly conflict, but provide multiple options. For example, Wikipedia:Reliable sources says newspaper articles are generally considered to be reliable sources, and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) recommends against newspaper articles for certain technical purposes. Editors must use their judgement to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the situation at hand.

To:

If policy and/or guideline pages conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so all the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice.

More commonly, advice pages do not directly conflict, but provide multiple options. For example, Wikipedia:Reliable sources says newspaper articles are generally considered to be reliable sources, and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) recommends against newspaper articles for certain technical purposes.

Editors must use their judgement to decide which advice is most appropriate and relevant to the situation at hand. When doing so, editors must defer to the advice with the highest level of consensus:

• Core policies (highest)
• Policies
• Guidelines
• Manual of Style (lowest)

BilledMammal (talk) 04:05, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The MOS banner states that those pages are a guideline. Do they really need their own level?

Whats an example of a "core policy", and how are these different than policies?

As you can probably tell from my questions, my mental model of PAG only has three levels: policy > guideline > essay / not classified. And I would hesitate to add additional levels as it would enable wikilawyering, which is undesirable. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:OR, WP:RSWP:V, and WP:NPOV are the core policies.

They are the policies most central to making Wikipedia Wikipedia, and making it the trusted resource it is - I think we should make this importance, and the level of consensus they hold, clear.

I think it would also be beneficial to reflect the generally accepted stance that style guidelines are considered less important - to have a lower level of consensus - than guidelines generally.

However, I don’t mind too much if we simplify this down to "guidelines < policies", as this will formalise most of current practice. BilledMammal (talk) 04:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

In the list of core policies, WP:RS should be replaced by WP:V. This is in line with the explanatory essay WP:COPO. Historically, WP:RS was created as a place to provide further explanation for which sources satisfy WP:V and that relationship still exists. Zero^talk 05:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

You’re right, corrected. BilledMammal (talk) 05:11, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think a blanket statement that all manual of style guidelines have less consensus than other guidelines is reasonable. There are a lot of guidelines out there, and the amount of discussion each received varies a lot. isaacl (talk) 06:34, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree with the premise that introducing formal levels of guidance will better reflect practice and avoid wiki-lawyering. Part of the reason the community has difficulty in setting rigid levels is because in practice, it's not rare for the community to reach consensus agreement to allow exceptions for various cases. Additionally, establishing a fixed hierarchy would lead to endless debates on the appropriate level for a given collection of guidance. The second issue could be mitigated by a different decision-making method than the current consensus-based method with a "consensus can change" tradition, but that would have to come first. The first issue, though, is practically inevitable with how guidance is developed on English Wikipedia, with large group conversations amongst a changing set of participants, so maintaining consistency is unrealistic. It's endless work to try to codify all guidance to avoid exceptions, as they have a fractal nature: the closer you look into different scenarios, the more variations become apparent. isaacl (talk) 06:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The long-ago wording: Where a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, the policy takes precedence. But then Kotniski weakened it to Where a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, the policy normally takes precedence. But then WhatamIdoing weakened it further to: As a temporary measure during that resolution process, if a guideline appears to conflict with a policy, editors may assume that the policy takes precedence. I'd like a return to the long-ago wording but disclose that In March I was in an argument where I quoted WP:POLCON with the weakest wording, and wish I could have quoted the long-ago wording. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:07, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

If memory serves, the idea of "precedence" started when there was some concern about WP:RS saying something that didn't quite align with WP:V, and an editor decided to boldly solve the problem by saying that the policy trumped the guideline.

The problem with declaring My Policy Always Trumps Your Mere Guideline is that I think you'll find it's more complicated than that. For example:

• The WP:V policy says that "reliable sources include:...Reputable newspapers"
• The WP:MEDRS guideline says that newspapers aren't reliable sources for biomedical content.

IMO there's no true conflict here, as MEDRS doesn't say that newspapers are completely unreliable for all content, but editors occasionally claim that there's a conflict, because they want to cite "Study says cigarettes don't cause lung cancer after all" in The Daily Slop, and if they have to follow MEDRS, they won't be able to cast doubt on the scientific consensus.

The discussion you linked to wasn't really about Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays; it was about whether WP:RSCONTEXT is still a rule in practice. If RSCONTEXT is not a rule, then you can blindly (or defaultly) blank all uses of a newspaper that has been designated as WP:GUNREL. If RSCONTEXT is still a rule, then you have to slow down long enough to ask yourself whether or not The Daily Slop is reliable for a sentence that says "The movie critic at The Daily Slop gave it two bananas". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

You aren't being exact about what your memory serves or about what WP:MEDRS says, so I'm unable to address that. In the discussion I linked to the argument was whether "WP:NOTCENSORED does not override WP:RS". Context was mentioned in the thread but not for that specific argument. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I thought NOTCENSORED was irrelevant. WP:NYPOST movie reviews don't involve "content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍—‌even exceedingly so". Here is an example of the objected-to edits. He removed a sentence saying "Kyle Smith of the New York Post gave the film two out of five, stating that the animated film "greatly expands on the kids' book on which it's based in a clever and engaging first half. But the second half leaves a foul aftertaste."" The edit summary says that the source is (in his opinion) unreliable and therefore mentioning the movie review is WP:UNDUE. I don't see anything "objectionable or offensive‍" in the removed sentence, and I suspect you don't either. Invoking NOTCENSORED sounded to me like someone throwing some WP:UPPERCASE spaghetti against the wall to see if anything would stick.

But if you want to follow that line of thinking, then consider a WP:POINTY-headed wikilawyer saying "We must include this exceedingly WP:Offensive material per NOTCENSORED! No, I don't happen to have a reliable source for the offensive material, but that doesn't matter. NOTCENSORED is a policy, and all policies override mere guidelines, so having a reliable source is unnecessary". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll do my best to ignore your accusations and say what I thought that argument was. Material was being removed based on the "generally unreliable" objection (and the example you picked had those words). I was saying that regardless whether an RfC re RS misinterpreted, it could not suppress expressions of opinion without running into the policy which quoted The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas. Thus it permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to their good sense in passing judgment on these views., which is not about obscenity and had nothing to do with what's in WP:Offensive material, which is not a policy and was not mentioned in the argument or any edit summary that I noticed. A reviewer's opinion is allowed, the policy is relevant, the claim that the policy does not override the guideline was met by the reference to a weakened wp:polcon. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:17, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

A movie critic's comment is not the kind of ideas that the university president was talking about, and NOTCENSORED itself, in the first sentence, says that it's about objectionable or offensive content, which this isn't.

Besides, the edit summary gave a policy-based reason: A view presented in an unreliable source is WP:UNDUE, and therefore the inclusion was a policy violation. You were arguing that the NOTCENSORED policy ought to trump the NPOV policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

That's just another false statement about me, I'll again do my best to ignore your accusations. If anyone wants to comment about what I actually said, or even wants to address the thread topic, that might be better for the tone here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:42, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I also disagree with making the levels more formal. We don't really need put down arguments if an editor says that they feel that a lower level is more applicable. Saying a policy normally takes precedence is enough, if they still have a problem it should be discussed. Editors have discussed things at all levels. NadVolum (talk) 20:33, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the general principle, but think that further codifying the hierarchy in this way isn't helpful. Guidelines often address exceptions / edge cases or provide more detail than we would want in policies, and for these specific areas can represent a higher level of consensus than applying the higher level policy by default. Asking editors to use their judgment (through consensus building) is sufficient. Scribolt (talk) 06:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Policies and Guidelines should support each other. In the rare cases when a Policy and s Guideline appear to be in conflict, the solution is to resolve the conflict… not to argue about which “takes precedence”. The issue needs to be raised on both pages (linked to a central discussion). It may be that both pages need to be amended.

That said, it often turns out that there IS no actual conflict… but simply a disagreement over how the language of one or the other page should be interpreted in a specific situation. Blueboar (talk) 17:35, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree, which is why asking editors to use their judgement in the not so obvious cases, rather than simply referring to the pages position on the ladder is the best course for this text. Scribolt (talk) 16:15, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

New PAG discussion location

Currently, the guideline says that we should hold discussions on creating a new PAG at said PAG’s talk page.

This seems odd to me; for such creations we should have broad community consensus, meaning it would be better to hold the discussion at WP:VPP. This would also align with practice where we hold discussions to modify PAGs at VPP.

Is there a reason we don’t do it this way, and if there isn’t should we change it? BilledMammal (talk) 07:04, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

BilledMammal, just wondering, what is a "PAG"? My best guess is "policy or guideline." But that is just a guess. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:07, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: Your guess is correct BilledMammal (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

My previous comments on this topic apply. Personally, I feel as long as appropriate notifications are provided at the expected locations, the location of the discussion can be flexible. isaacl (talk) 07:25, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Notification, not location, is the important part. Also discussions on modifying PAGs doesn't have to happen at VPP, it's just a place where they can happen. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:04, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, if you feel something isn't getting enough attention additional and more prominent notification is the solution. If you list it at CENT, notified all the common noticeboards and post to the village pump, then editors will see it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:12, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that the underlying question is: is it preferable to nudge editors (through notification) to engage policy talk pages that are new to them, or is it better to encourage editors (also through notification) to shift their attention to centralized discussions like VPP.

I believe that the former is clearly better for the project, because it encourages more diversity and less entrenchent of perspectives on policy pages. The latter encourages waves of participation in centralized discussion in a way at much higher risk of BATTLEGROUND effects, and abandons the gains to be had from editors learning how diverse domains of the project actually understand guidelines and get work done. The quality of consensus is therefore likely to be lower if we force everything to centralized discussions (which we could probably measure using the rate of "per X", brigade-like voting at centralized venues). Newimpartial (talk) 11:45, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think they are more battlegroundy?

It does tend to draw in a more diverse range of editors, which can make it more likely that there will be two groups who strongly disagree with each other, but isn’t a diverse range a good thing? BilledMammal (talk) 14:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

To answer your question, there are different kinds of diversity among editors, and I don't think they all have equal value.

One form of diversity is knowing less vs. knowing more about a policy/guideline topic and its history. I am not convinced that this form of diversity is especially valuable in decision-making in P&Gs (though it is sometimes helpful in RFCBEFORE). So, for example, the relatively large number of editors to be found at Village Pump, etc., who think the WP:GNG applies to everything because they are unfamiliar with the history of SNGs (including their post-2017 history) - I don't think the !votes of these editors on notability topics are especially valuable, especially when thei4 contributions take the form of a vote "per X".

On the other hand, another form of diversity is knowing about diverse aspects, e.g., of article creation and development within enwiki. So for example, bringing together editors interested in BLPs concerning, say, athletes and academics and political figures and literary figures and entertainment figures, is likely to bring additional perspective to discussions of biographical notability more than if only those interested in a single biographical genre arw involved. And I think this is the case even if the specific proposal only concerns one type of biography.

So I guess my shorthand would be that soliciting the opinions of editors who know less (and aren't motivated to learn) is generally unhelpful to P&G development, but soliciting the opinions of editors who know about diverse aspects related to P&G development is helpful. Which I believe supports the practical suggestion I made above that it is better to entice editors into well-informed discussions on Talk pages, and encourage diversity that way, than it is to create a "public arena" that could facilitate knee-jerk reactions, agonistic displays, and waves of canvassed input. TL;DR: increasing thr input of editors who are uninterested in learning the background and status quo within which a question is posed, and the most likely impacts of the options presented, is unlikely to encourage outcomes that are better for the enwiki project and comminity. Newimpartial (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

My issue with this is it reads like you are seeking to minimise the input of editors with a different view on SNGs and GNG than your view. I don’t think this is aligned with our policies on WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. BilledMammal (talk) 15:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

No, I'm really not promoting a particular view. I have my own specific understanding of notability on enwiki, just as North8K has theirs and WAID has theirs. History demonstrates that none of these editors holds the same view or reaches identical conclusions on the varied issues that arise with notability.

extended content on notability discussions, and a conclusion therefrom

On the specific relationship between SNG and GNG, there was a long-discussed, well-participated RfC on the topic, with a thoughtful (and uncontested) close, that gave rise to the text of WP:SNG, so in this case at least there is good documentation for what the status quo is. Each of the editors I've mentioned, and many others, recognize this status quo while having different ideas about what would make better notability policy than what we have. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I'd be surprised if any of us were trying to "minimise" the input of editors who want to change or evolve notability policy. I know I'm not. But I would point to what almost inevitably happens in discussions of notability, which is that editors who are inexperienced in P&Gs enter discussions assuming that there is one essential standard of notability, namely the GNG, and that the community shares this view. In the course of discussion, they learn that their view is one of many, and that other standards of notability exist that are understood to apply to certain domains, in various ways. After they learn this, some of these editors retain the assumption that other standards should not exist, although they do; some reconcile the GNG with SNGs for themselves using varied reasoning; and still others become convinced that it is beneficial for different standards to exist depending on the domain. But all editors who participate in these discussions come to recognize that, in the status quo within the community, there is no one universal standard of notability. Based on this example, there is benefit to the community from having new editors come to these discussions, learn about the issues, and develop perspectives of their own that interact in varied ways with the status quo (whether to tinker with it or to overhaul it). But there is no clear benefit to the community in having waves of editors participate without coming to understand the policies as they exist and as they currently work (or don't work). As I pointed out earlier, this is especially true when an editors' only participation in a policy discussion consists in brigade-like "per X" !votes unaccompanied by evidence of reading and reflecting on the policy topic.

To paraphrase something I pointed out elsewhere, there is a salient difference between seeing community consensus as an emergent property of active discussion among all who want to participate, and seeing it as a mirror of the views all members of the community happen to hold at a point in time (regardless of their familiarity with the topic and its context). My sense is that enwiki has consistently held a community view of consensus much closer to the former imaginary than the latter. Newimpartial (talk) 17:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussions on a page should be held on its talk page unless there is a very good reason not to. The main example is that deletion discussions should be held elsewhere, because if the page is deleted, so it the talk page, and we want records of deletion discussions.

For a proposal, the proposal talk page is blindingly obviously the right place for discussions. The two are watchlisted together. The talk page will follow the proposal page through any future renames. Queries about the proposal will obviously go first to the talk page. Talk pages have archives that all Wikipedians can understand. Village pumps and other dramah boards have overwhelming and confusing archiving, including the tendency for the archives to host thread copies out of chronological order. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:59, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This would cause bloat at VPP and make it more difficult to link the policy and the proposal:

• Editors would have to find the link hidden the RfC statement to read the proposal instead of clicking the "Project page" tab.
• The discussion about the proposal would then be hidden away in the VPP's vast archives, instead of conveniently in the archives of the proposed policy's talk page. A link could (and should) be provided to the archived discussion at VPP, but this is still confusion from an administrative point of view.

If notification is provided at VPP, and that is pretty standard, than I see no benefit to moving the whole discussion there.

As Newimpartial pointed out, discussion at the Village Pump tend to get more BATTLEGROUNDy. Cremastra (talk) 14:39, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The benefit is a notification is easily missed. A discussion, which will repeatedly show up on watchlists, is far less so.

As for the rest, why do we treat the creation of PAG’s differently to the modification of them? All the arguments you present apply equally to each. BilledMammal (talk) 14:43, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we do. Most changes to policy and guideline pages are minor and undiscussed/WP:PGBOLD. Most of the discussions happen on their own talk pages. Only a small minority of discussions about changing a single policy or guideline are intentionally started anywhere else. The village pumps are most likely to host general discussions ("I have identified a problem..." – these sometimes turn into, but are not necessarily intended to be, discussions about changing a single policy or guideline) or multi-page coordination ("...so either we need to make small changes to both WP:A and WP:B, or we need to make a big change to WP:C").

For reference, the WP:PROPOSAL that prompted this discussion is Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline. It is currently more than 250K long, with about 400 comments. It is three times the current length of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Adding a discussion of that length to a page with other active discussions makes it difficult for some people (especially on mobile devices) to participate in any discussions on that page, which means that we'd be frustrating editors who want to participate in unrelated discussions and thus interfering with the main purpose of the page (i.e., to let editors participate in a variety of discussions). We've been talking during the last year about intervening to split VP discussions off when we think they're going to have 100+ comments, so "at the village pump" very likely would have ended up being on a separate page anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• #Venue nice chart .Moxy🍁 16:09, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

it is very reasonable to first discuss a idea for a new policy or guideline at the ideas page. That discussion might be a bit extended if the basic idea has problems. But after that gets off the ground the talk page for it is the right place for discussions I believe so the reasoning can be found easily when people think of changing anything. Quite enough editors will find an RfC on policy and put it on their watchlist ifinterested. NadVolum (talk) 20:44, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Deletion of MoS navigation template

Can we get input from those actually familiar with this..Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 September 13#Template:Manual of Style. Moxy🍁 21:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)