Template talk:Wikipedia policies and guidelines

RfC: Add Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Not added: consensus is that just listing Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is sufficient. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 20:33, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

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I propose adding Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary to Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines because it is a policy. –dlthewave ☎ 22:33, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Support'—It is not a dictionary, we say so, and we have one; and sometimes it takes work. —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Oppose—per argument by Levivich—¿philoserf? (talk) 15:57, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Oppose, already covered on this template under Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Oppose because WP:NOT is already listed and I don't see the reason to be listing separate individual sections of NOT. And if we did that, I'm not sure NOTDICT is the most important section, or even important enough to be listed separately. NOTFORUM is probably violated much more often, for example. Levivich 15:29, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Although it's summarized at WP:NOT, Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary is a standalone policy page. –dlthewave ☎ 15:48, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Heh, didn't even notice that. Why is that one a separate policy page? This to me is an example of how we have way too many PAGs. That shouldn't be a stand-alone policy, it should be at most an information page to NOT. (Wow and it has 16 pages of talk page archives. Jesus Christ, Wikipedia.) Levivich 15:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. Technically it's its own policy and to be consistent we might bracket it after WP:NOT. But we don't list every single PAG in this template because it would clutter up the template. WP:NOTDICT is an unimportant policy. I cannot remember the last time someone invoked it in a discussion besides now. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:46, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Neutral I would rather propose to put the WP:NOT, rather than this one. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 22:36, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Trimming this template

Looking at this template, it seems to me that it has way too many links, and they're the wrong links. The template isn't for the purpose of listing all WP:PAGs, it's for key PAGs, and I question whether all of the PAGs listed are "key". Examples of what I think should go:

• WP:AUTOBIO - not relevant to 99% of editors; this is more relevant to non-editors who try to edit their own pages
• WP:PLAGIARISM - WP:COPY and WP:COPYVIO are key and already listed; I don't think WP:Plagiarism is a commonly-used PAG; generally-speaking, plagiarism problems are usually dealt with as either copyvio and/or unsourced content. It's rare that something would comply with WP:V and WP:COPY but is nevertheless plagiarism.
• WP:HOAX - When we think of the policies and guidelines that new editors need to know, or that editors will want to refer to often, such that it should be in this template, is "don't make up complete BS" one of those? WP:V and WP:NOR are the "key" policies about accuracy, and they're already listed
• WP:NONSENSE - same as HOAX above
• WP:FRINGE - I submit 99% of editors never edit anything having to do with fringe theories. An important policy, but extremely narrow in its applicability.
• WP:EL - Minutiae
• WP:IAR is listed twice, it should be listed once
• WP:POINT - we already list WP:DISRUPT
• WP:ETIQUETTE - we already list WP:CIV and WP:NPA, do we really need a third on this topic? Also, does anyone ever refer to this guideline?
• WP:GAMING - not a "key" PAG by any stretch, like POINT, it's just another variation of DISRUPT
• WP:ATTACK - like AUTOBIO, HOAX, NONSENSE, and FRINGE... not really applicable to 99% of editors, who will not be making attack pages
• WP:HATNOTES - minutiae, like WP:EL
• WP:BROAD - not applicable to 99% of editors, as broad-concept articles are tiny, tiny minority of all articles
• WP:TECHNICAL - minutiae
• MOS:NUM, MOS:LIST, MOS:LINK - we list the MOS, which has a zillion subpages. These three MOS pages aren't the most important MOS pages, and aren't important enough to be listed separately on the "key PAGs" template
• WP:CLN - minutiae. We already list WP:CAT and WP:TMP
• WP:SHORT and WP:SUB - technical minutiae
• "List of policies" appears twice; we should specify "List of WMF policies" and "List of English Wikipedia policies"

Now, I don't know if others agree that any of these should be removed from the template, but I thought it was worth raising. I think the template would be way more useful if it had about half as many links on it. Levivich 16:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Levivich, I would generally support tightening this template up a bit. Back when I created this template, there were 36 links (see original version). Now there is over 90! This template has definitely fallen prey to scope creep over the last 14 years. I think the biggest challenge will be determining consensus on what to remove and what to keep, as many people have personal preferences. Maybe as a first step, you can implement all your changes above in the template's sandbox, so people can see the intended outcome, then we can start working on consensus for the change? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:14, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Good idea, Gonzo. Template:Wikipedia policies and guidelines/sandbox has the links listed above removed, as well as WP:NPS, WP:UBX, and WP:PRINCIPLES. Levivich 19:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

I think the most obvious outcome is a cleaner, more concise template. Looking through your list and then at the sandbox, I don't see any that I have issue with and would support this proposed change Levivich. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

A pretty good layout. Would keep IAR as a subsection in 'above' though. Randy Kryn (talk) 06:05, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Right now, I'll go out and support the changes currently proposed at the sandbox. I agree that listing IAR twice is necessary; the five pillars appear at first glance to be less concrete policies and more foundational principles of Wikipedia. Generally, in other contexts founding principles and vague statements of purpose don't have the full weight of "policy". Even though this is a Wikipedia context and the 5P do have the weight of policy, given this is a template targeted as new users I think it's a good idea to make it clear that IAR is both a policy and a pillar. Sure, we're really overemphasizing IAR compared to other policies, but that's kind of the point. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:37, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to go a bit further, because I think this template was so much more useful in its original form than what it's become. Another thing I think should go is the division of links into "policies" and "guideline". This is a distinction that is useless to the template reader. Nobody is thinking, "I'm looking for the guideline on civility, not the policy", because we don't have duplication like that (we don't have a policy on X and a guideline on X; rather we have a policy on X and a guideline on Y). If people are looking on the template for N, CIV, or RS, it won't matter to them if those pages are policies or guidelines. I doubt anyone thinks, "N is a guideline, I'll look it up under guideline". So I don't see the utility in separating out policies and guidelines on the template and will happily sandbox something that combines them if anyone reading this thinks that's worth doing. Levivich 14:41, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

The distinction more or less emphasizes "policies" as being more important (& therefore relevant) than "guidelines". I don't think that's the right message to be sending here; in all honesty the listed guideline pages are in some cases more important to be read than some of the policies. I'd rather a new user read WP:AGF and WP:BOLD than WP:CSD or WP:Page Protection Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 July 2022

Please change * [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)|Reliable sources (medicine)]] to ** [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)|Medicine]] for consistency with the rest of the template (matching ** [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people|Biographies]] and ** [[Wikipedia:Signatures|Signatures]]) HouseBlaster^talk 00:49, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 03:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Addition of Essays

Moxy, I undid your addition of the "essay" links here. Based on the history of this template, I think this should be more of a consensus-driven change. I also would note that your edit summary of "ce" wasn't extraordinarily accurate, assuming "ce" stood for "copyedit". « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:03, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

• I oppose the addition of the "essays" to this template as outside the specific scope of this template. They are nice, but so were the other links that used to be on this template before it was decluttered. I think the "short and sweet" nature of the template serves the best purpose for covering Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  Sounds good..... just though adding another essay (a few essays already here) about the difference between essays policies and guidelines would be beneficial but oh well.....it's linked in the 5 main policy pages. data Moxy- 15:25, 28 July 2022 (UTC)