[Wikipedia-l] Policy

[Toby Bartels]

The Cunctator wrote:

>A lot of it comes down to a definition of "policy". What is it? Is it
>what people do? Is it what it says on the pages? Is it an admixture of
>the two? Is it what the most active contributor to Wikipedia at the time
>does? Etc. etc.

It is what people do -- that seems sufficiently vague to be correct.
The pages should reflect this accurately.

>What I'm saying is that most changes to policy don't need to be
>discussed.

True, but also most policies aren't written down.
I rather suspect that most policies that have been written down
were discussed first, and thus would merit discussion to change them.
But most policies just change as people's habits evolve.

>If that assertion is true, then the best meta-policy is to by default
>just change the policy.

Sure -- but this has nothing to do with changing the policy page.

>Does that reduction make more sense?

Yes, except that it's irrelevant to the issue under discussion
(the editing of policy pages).

>>There are lots of ways to edit the policy pages
>>without changing the policy they describe: correcting
>>typos and grammar, linking, re-writing for clarity.

>None of those change the policy much (but they do change the
>policy--it's not a black and white thing) except for "re-writing for
>clarity". One man's clarity is another man's pea soup.

None of those, of course, change the policy.
They merely change how the policy has been written.
Even rewriting for clarity doesn't change the policy,
although it may change whether the policy page is accurate.

Is my definition of "policy" (as what people do) correct?
Yes, because it has been discussed on this list,
and everybody except for you agrees.
I might or might not write that down.


-- Toby