Policy

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Note: This is a transitional page, meaning that is it not yet completed, and should thus be interpreted informally until sufficient policy is in place to make this work.

This is the authoritative and canonical location for all policies relating to all Wikimedia projects. Pages which serve a similar role on individual projects will slowly be merged into this section.

Contents

[edit] Q & A

What is a policy?

A policy is simply a standardized interpretation of common MediaWiki terminology, often including a procedure for doing things, in the hopes of maximizing the benefits for the entire Wikimedia community.

Who is the authority on MediaWiki policy?

Realistically, the members of the MediaWiki Sourceforge project, since they have the power to change the source code.

Who is the authority on Wikimedia policy?

Realistically, the authority goes something like this:

  1. The Wikimedia Foundation - They pay for all this, and have the power to 'pull the plug' on the entire project at any time.
  2. Developers - They have the power to fundamentally change policy by changing the behavior of the MediaWiki software (e.g. introduce voting features to automatically arbitrate disputes). Some also have shell access to all Wikimedia servers, and the power to make significant changes to them. One would assume they create and remove Stewards.
  3. Stewards - They have the power to create and remove Bureaucrats on any Wikimedia wiki.
  4. Bureaucrats - They have the power to create and remove Administrators on their assigned wiki.
  5. Administrators - They have the power to delete, undelete, protect, and unprotect pages, and to ban and unban user accounts and IP addresses, on their assigned wiki.
  6. Registered users - They have the power to upload images, and their edits are more likely to be 'trusted' by other registered users.
  7. Anonymous users - They have the power to rename, or change any text on, any unprotected page, including pages related to policy.
  8. Banned users - A composite of banned user accounts and banned IP addresses. Their access to the site is read-only, and thus have very little power at all, if any.
Where have these policies come from?

These have evolved on various Wikimedia projects (particularly the original Wikipedia project, now housed at en.wikipedia.org), coming into existence when common problems were solved by collectively deciding on suitable procedures to avoid them. Since many problems are common to all projects, it was decided to amalgamate them to this location.

Why not just keep policy relating to a specific project on that project's wiki?

New wikis are constantly being created. What tends to happen with a new wiki is that either...

  • Someone will fork a copy of another wiki's policies to the new wiki
  • The new wiki will build up its own policies from scratch

...or a combination thereof.

Over time, these policies have tended to diverge, and end up replicating the behavior of each other (e.g. the NPOV policy). Consequently, a lot of time is wasted when users unwittingly end up debating the same policies over-and-over on different wikis, unaware that it's all been done before.

By placing all policy in a centralized location, this effect can be minimized.

Who are the 'police'?

We all are. If we all make an effort to enforce policy, then the project will benefit. Obviously, certain procedures can only be implemented by an administrator, but even the anonymous user has sufficient power to implement most policies. Policy which can be implemented by any user should be encouraged, as the current administrative system can be somewhat impractical on less popular wikis.

What are the punishments for 'breaking the law'?

Generally, none. The policies try to find solutions where minor breaches of policy are addressed by another user simply editing the offending page to make it compliant.

Major breaches of policy are:

  • Repeated vandalism, where vandalism is defined as either:
    • Unexplained blanking of content
    • Spamming a page with inappropriate content, especially linkspamming

These actions will be grounds to ban your user accounts and/or IP addresses.

[edit] Breakdown of scope

  • MediaWiki software - The GPL software used to run the Wikimedia software. Hereafter referred to as wiki.
  • Wikimedia Foundation projects - Wiki-based projects funded by the Wikimedia Foundation
    • Wikimedia Foundation wiki - Private wiki for members of the foundation
      • Authoritative definition of projects
    • Meta-wiki - Wiki for coordinating all Wikimedia projects.
      • Current projects
      • Proposed projects
      • Lists of authorities
      • Coordination of translations between language codes
      • Current policies
      • Proposed policies
    • Wikipedia - Wiki-based encyclopedia.
      • Original, community-based articles in an encyclopedia style
    • Wikibooks - Wiki-based books
      • Original, community-based non-fiction books, how-tos and other extensive texts beyond the scope of Wikipedia
    • Wiktionary - Wiki-based dictionary
      • Original, community based texts in a dictionary definition style.
    • Wikisource - Wiki-based source texts
      • Previously published public domain and other GDFL-compliant natural language texts
      • GPL-compliant computer source code texts
    • Wikicommons
      • Public domain images
    • Wikiquote - Wiki-based book of quotes.
    • Wikispecies - Wiki-based taxonomic classification of species.
    • Wikiversity - Wiki-based learning resources for all ages.
      • Wiki-based learning community.
    • Wikijunior - Wiki-based books for children. Currently hosted at Wikibooks
      • Original, community-based educational books aimed at children aged (8-12? - check this).

[edit] Current policies

[edit] Policies which apply to the MediaWiki software

See also: MediaWiki@Sourceforge

[edit] Policies which apply to all Wikimedia projects

[edit] Policies which apply to multiple Wikimedia projects

Each document in this section should define its scope.

[edit] Policies which only apply to the Meta project

See also: Meta:Policy

[edit] Policies which only apply to the Wikipedia project

See also: w:Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.

[edit] Policies which only apply to the Wikibooks project

For now, see: b:Wikibooks:Policies and guidelines.

[edit] Historical policies

[edit] Other interesting pages

Retrieved from "http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy"
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