[Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

Sat Sep 28 18:45:46 UTC 2002

A few more things need to be said about this:

(1) Most, if not all, of the most important policy decisions have already
long since been (at least tentatively) settled upon and formulated.

(2) Most statements of policy, especially if they've been around for long,
have been looked at again and again by Wikipedians new and old.

(3) Unlike the case in the first few months of the project, when a lot of
the most basic policy was being decided on, there are now scores of people
who are *very* familiar with the finer points of policy, and with their
justification.

Each of these points individually implies that any significant change to a
long-standing statement of policy *probably* demands some prior
discussion.  And such prior discussion probably should happen on the
mailing list, mainly because that's where those who know and care about
policy happen to expect policy decisions to be made.  I can think of some
exceptions; for example, if some (for whatever reason) clearly and
uncontroversially defunct policy statement still hasn't been updated, it's
just a public service that the policy be changed, and a talk: page comment
is probably all that's needed.

Larry