[WikiEN-l] One line summaries of WP Guidelines and Policies

Thu Dec 22 00:57:06 UTC 2005

Hi all,
  I have begun a project to add a one-line summary of every guideline
and policy to some central place (probably [[WP:RULES]]), as well as
appearing on each policy/guideline page itself.  As I've now run into
some (inevitable?) opposition, I'm asking for opinions, ideas etc here.

I've created a template [[template:Guideline one liner]] which displays
a fairly ugly purple band - improvements welcomed. I then put it on the
following pages with the following summaries.

    * wikipedia:Editing policy: Improve any page without hesitation,
regardless of the state you leave it in. Avoid removing information
wherever possible.
    * wikipedia:Build the web: Link articles sideways to neighbours, and
upwards to categories and contexts to create a useful web of
information.
    * wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages: Sign all your posts on
Wikipedia talk pages by typing ~~~~ to be accountable and to help others
understand the conversation.
    * wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources: Don't copy
lengthy poems, speeches or other source text into Wikipedia. Put them in
Wikisource if you need to.
    * wikipedia:Subpages: Don't use slashes (/) in the names of articles
to create subpages.
    * wikipedia:Edit summary: Always type at least a brief summary of
the change that you made in the Edit Summary box. Avoid misleading
summaries.
    * wikipedia:Disambiguation: If an article's name is very similar to
another, make a note at the top. If many articles share a name, create a
disambiguation page.
    * wikipedia:Deletion policy: If no page appropriate for Wikipedia
could ever be written on an article's topic, nominate it for deletion.
Otherwise, try and fix it.
    * wikipedia:Semi-protection policy: Pages undergoing frequent
vandalism can be semi-protected to block edits by very new or
unregistered users.
    * wikipedia:No binding decisions: All decisions, including poll
results, can be reversed later as Wikipedia develops.
    * wikipedia:Ownership of articles: You agreed to allow others to
modify your work. So let them.
    * wikipedia:Harassment: Don't make life miserable for other users,
such as by wiki-stalking them, or you may be blocked.
    * wikipedia:Sock puppet: Do not use duplicate accounts to rig votes,
mislead others or circumvent policy. Good-faith uses are fine.
    * wikipedia:Banning policy: Users may be banned for varying times.
They may appeal, but must not circumvent the ban, so don't bait them or
help them to try.

[copied from [[template talk:Guideline one liner]] - some of the terms
are wikilinks]

Criticisms have included that the suggested summaries simplify or
distort the relevant policies, that the template is ugly (I agree :)),
that the template is redundant considering the first sentence is often
(but surprisingly rarely!) a summary of the policy, and that users may
feel they have grasped a whole policy when they've only read a
"powerpoint" bullet point version of it.

I feel that many people never read the guidelines, as there are too
many, and they're not well structured or organised together. By creating
a single page with an accurate, concise summary of each guideline, a
user can get a very good feel for not only how Wikipedia works, but also
how the relevant policies and guidelines are structured, so they know
where to go for more detail.

Certainly putting the summary on certain pages *is* currently redundant,
but that can obviously be fixed by changing the first sentence etc.
Also, one user suggested modifying [[template:policy]] (and related
templates) to make room for this one-line summary, which would certainly
alleviate aesthetic concerns.

So, I would love to hear some ideas and opinions on whether this is a
worthwhile project, how best to implement it, and so on and so forth.
There is a bit of discussion at [[template talk:Guideline one liner]]
already.

Thanks,
Steve ([[user talk:stevage]])