[WikiEN-l] Erik's rewriting of policy pages unilaterally

Fri Jul 25 23:48:20 UTC 2003

>Daniel-
> > An editor /cannot/ unilaterally change policy.

Erik wrote
>An editor (everyone is an editor on Wikipedia, so you might as well say "a
>user") can change policy pages if there are no objections to them doing
>so. They should use common sense to determine whether their change would
>require prior discussions, or be reasonably minor or non-controversial not
>to. The same principle applies to edits of non-policy pages. Be bold in
>updating policy pages.

Actually people /don't/ do that without discussing ideas first on the talk 
page. If it is a proposed /major/ change it is put on the wiki-list. What 
they don't do is unilaterally make major changes without making sure people 
know the change is being made. Otherwise it looks like the page is being 
highjacked in the hope that no-one will notice that policy is being changed. 
And if no-one notices on time, then if anyone tries to use the 'old' 
/agreed/  policy finds them being told - "oh but we changed that a while 
ago". That is clearly unfair and disrespectful of everyone else.

When I've proposed changes, I've put them on the talk page, left a message 
on the talk page of everyone who had ever contributed to the talk page 
debates asking their views, and left a summary message that would appear on 
the recent changes, saying a proposed change was being made and asking 
anyone interest to comment on the talk page. /If/ there was agreement that 
the proposal should be implemented, I then put together a formal wording 
taking account people's observations, then showed it to people to make sure 
there was a consensus on it. Only /then/ was it put on the actual page. 
Where I made a minor change, or sought to clarify something whose meaning 
was unclear in the actual wording but where what it was meant to be was 
clear in the discussion, I'd contact those who took part in the debate and 
invite them to review the change, and would explain the change on the 
summary with an invitation for anyone who wished to review it.  Just 
bulldozing ahead with changes without a full and frank debate is I believe 
disrepectful to all wikipedians and highjacking a page.

I am surprised and more than a little disappointed to find that Erik, whom I 
have always respected notwithstanding our disagreements, thinks it OK just 
to unilaterally rewrite policy pages when he feels like it. It makes me 
wonder how many times have rows where Erik has criticised some member for 
'not following the rules' really been a case of people breaking 'new' rules 
Erik had created and which had never been noticed until it was too late, 
everyone presuming that if it in the rules, it must have been agreed after a 
full discussion that they simply missed, not Erik's own invention.

JT

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