--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Yes there has been a problem with this in the past
(albeit relatively minor -
but that was back when we had 1/3 the edit volume).
Off the top of my head;
an anonymous IP tried to add a new naming convention
unilaterally without
discussion;
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Naming_conventions&am…
This addition about variants of names is a convention
that we mostly follow; it just isn't written down.
Still, it should have been at least mentioned on the
Talk page first.
24's additions to rules to consider (admittedly not
a policy page but very
similar);
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Rules_to_consider&…
That was the intented function of Rules to Consider.
It's been around since the beginning of the project so
that people could suggest rules and discuss them. It
is not a policy listing. Whatever the consenus about
polcy pages, this page should be unlocked.
And there are probably others that could be found by
digging a bit more.
Then there is
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_…
which for legal reasons can't be edited by anybody
and also
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights
Yes, I agree with those two.
As Karen said anybody who has been around for a
while can be a sysop and we
can't have just any anonymous IP changing policy
pages.
We can do what we do with every silly change: change
it back.
It has been stated before that we can't trust any
anonymous yahoo with meta
functions (and changing policy is one of these
functions).
I don't recall that ever being agreed upon. What was
generally agreed is that total deletion and banning
was not something that any random passerby should be
able to do. Also moving pages was not open to everyone
because it didn't move article histories; now that it
is not dangerous, everyone can do it.
I don't mean to come across as contentious, although I
probably am. :) Let me state my position here.
There are only two iron-clad, unbreakable Wikipedia
laws: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and it should be
written following the principle of the neutral point
of view. Any policies that we develop are in the
service of these two laws. Such policies are not
unbreakable; they are suggestions and conventions,
although as KQ pointed out, many of them are very
*strong* suggestions.
The issue I'm concerned about is not whether or not
people should be allowed to make random changes on the
policy pages; we are in agreement that policy should
be reached through group discussion and agreement. My
two concerns are:
1. Freezing the policy pages is a policy I don't
recall discussing. If there was a discussion and I
just missed it, then I apologize, and this concern is
moot. I'd appreciate a link to it.
2. Frozen policy pages do more harm than good. For the
minor convienence of not having to do the occassional
reversion, we have the implication that policies are
unchangable except by the "old timers"; newbies need
not apply. This is not the case, as all of our
policies have evolved naturally through all
Wikipedians participation. Also, changing the policy
is not the only reason for changing a policy page.
I've already mentioned copyediting and linking, but
there is also rewording to make the policy clearer
without changing the actual message. A person
shouldn't have to seek out a sysop to make these minor
changes on a wiki.
That being said, we both agree that policy should be
discussed on an appropriate talk page and possibily
the mailing list (although I'd rather people just
dropped a link to an appropriate talk page instead of
conducting the entire discussion on the list). I like
your idea of a policy page boiler plate. I would like
to unprotect those pages and add such a notice, asking
people not to change policies without discussing the
changes first. That would allow people to make
non-policy changes, and eliminate the sense of being
able to change the way things are done.
Stephen Gilbert
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