User:Hiding/Editing policies

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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WP:BRD is for policies and guidelines. That's what it was discovered on. That's where it works best. It's not some random idea, the page documents a method that has been shown to work de facto (and what we think of that fact is irrelevant). At the top of each page it says "please make sure your changes reflect consensus" which is, as the saying goes, a page directly out of the BRD book. BRD is intended as a tool for finding consensus in difficult situations. Policy and guideline pages are more tricky than most.

More strongly, forcing people to discuss first turns out to be an impossible aim. I used to think it was merely inefficient, until some people started messing with flowcharts and logic, and showed that it is almost impossible to gain consensus in an enforced discuss-first situation. A common flaw is that there is no terminating condition, so people end up discussing forever. (In theory, that is, in practice they just make lots of wikidrama and then give up. Sound familiar?)

I'm not sure why every style-guide talk page should have a template that basically copies WP:SILENCE. Isn't that page clear enough?

All policies, guidelines and essays are subject to normal wiki-editing rules, and have the same strengths and weaknesses as any other wiki page, including occasional instability. Don't like it? Choose a different project.

Policies and guidelines document consensus on the wiki and in the community, they do not set it. Just like with any other page on the wiki, there is no guarantee that the pages are entirely correct at any point in time. It is your own responsibility to check and ensure that the pages are in fact in line with community consensus (and also to correct them when they are not).

Summary

Of course it's ok to discuss first, BUT DO NOT FORCE YOUR PREFERENCE ON OTHERS , it breaks the wiki-process! Allow people to use normal wiki-editing or BRD if they prefer.

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- Kim Bruning (talk) 15:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC) [1]