Simplify, Objectify and Stabilize Policies and Guidelines

Having read posts to this update for the past week, I have been struggling to identify the real problem and thus ponder a solution.

The problem

It is extraordinarily difficult for the newcomer to discover acceptable boundaries within the WP experience without first unknowingly crossing those boundaries and suffering the consequences of the community. I can compare the effects of that suffering, regardless of form to the plight of our ancestors who had to find out which plants were toxic and which were not. I suspect many suffered fatal consequences. Our boundaries deal with content, style, technique and behavior and are embodied in tomes of terms, policy, guidelines, essays and manuals of style. Collectively, they are difficult for any newcomer to fathom, let alone understand and abide by.

My recent Campus Ambassador experience made it abundantly evident that even well educated people just do not understand how WP works. I recently spent a full day with a nationally known print journalist and author, who while using WP regularly, had no clue how it works and freely admitted he wouldn’t even know where to start if he wanted to edit something.

Simplify and objectify policy

In my view, all our WP policies, guidelines and MOS should have their verbiage reduced by at least 66%. They are bloated, and collectively, I am confident, they are inconsistent. Additionally, they are way too open to conflicting interpretations of what something really means, which leads to endless and many times contentious discussions on talk pages and other venues. Our policies and guidelines need to be as objective as possible, where their interpretation by the community (and newcomers hoping to become part of that community) is consistent and stable. Nothing is more frustrating than to see a policy applied one way in one discussion and then conveniently applied differently when different editors are involved. Although clearly black and white objectivity is not possible or even desirable, we would make great strides as a community if we wrote our policies and guidelines in a manner that ensured consistent interpretation.

Stabilize policy

After ten years, you would think our core policies and guidelines would be stable and consistently understood and interpreted, but they are not. Policy and guideline pages are changed endlessly and subject to endless discussion, often contentious. We should establish routine policy review and update cycles that limit policy and guideline change to finite periods of time where the community (i.e. lots of diverse editors) can focus on needed changes. (60 days out of a year seems reasonable). When a policy/guideline is out of its review and update period, it doesn’t get changed and its interpretation should be consistent community wide.

Two of my pet peeves in WP are these ideas: Consensus can change and [en:Wikipedia:Other stuff exists]. When a small group of editors create a consensus one day and a different group can change that consensus later, community consensus has not changed. There merely never was real community consensus in the first place. Our policies and guidelines need to be subjected to rigorous, community wide review and consensus and small cabals of editors should not be changing or inconsistently interpreting policies and guidelines on a day by day basis. The other stuff exists essay is so indicative of the barriers we place in front of newcomers. Imitation is exactly how humans learn boundaries. If something works, we copy it. If it doesn’t, we don’t. Yet we explicitly tell ourselves otherwise.

As far as practical we need to simplify (66% + reduction of words), objectify (reasonably easy and consistent interpretation of boundaries) and stabilize (limit change to finite periods where maximum community participation can focus) our policies and guidelines.

This is a good idea. If we set a target of reducing the collective amount of policy, you would find that the community would rise to the challenge. That's assuming no one hijacks the process to try to eliminate good or longstanding policy. But some amount of rationalization and consistency would mean that some redundant or contradictory parts would be cut, which would only be a good thing.

I'm not sure it stability is realistic on this timeline, or if it's even desirable. But I tend to think the BRD process is pretty good at keeping the policies stable. Either way, this would be step two, after rationalizing this stuff.

I think the Stability of policy is just as critical as it Simplicity and Objective interpretation. Today, to much energy has to be spent to monitor and mitigate rogue changes or ill-conconcieved policy change. That energy would be much better spent editing articles and mentoring newcomers. Imagine WP:NPOV entering a 90 day review and update period. It could be structured and we could involve all manner of contributors in the review and update. However, at the end of the period, the new WP:NPOV would be stable for 9 months. A consistent interpretation and application would follow. Whatever we learn from 9 months of application would certainly be rolled into the next review and update period. We would be striving for stability, not static state. Day to day change is chaotic.

Monitoring and mitigating the rogue changes is where the stability comes from. It's the BRD process, and on a day to day basis the policies don't really change. It's not a terrible or even large use of time. Like so many other activities on the Wikipedia, I don't think that forcibly stopping it is going to cause other activities to flourish. People who enjoy policy-wonkery are always going to enjoy policy-wonkery. We can agree to disagree. But I see this as a much lower priority than trying to simplify/shorten/clarify policy.

I agree that very many on Wikipedia do not understand basic policies. I would say that this is mainly because:

• People do not want to follow policy, but they want to do what they want to do. They read up on policy only to bolster their position (and then cite selectively).
• Policy pages are hidden. If you start at the beginning (About Wikipedia) you are not going to find anything about Wikipedia policy, but just the sale pitch. Even digging further (at Five pillars) will find only hints at policy. Then there are all the separate 'policy' pages of Wikiprojects that override central policies, further hiding actual policies. Users will find policy pages only when these are pointed out or when they search persistently.

Some good may come of rewriting. Both NOR and NOT are really superfluous, as long as the importance of using reliable sources is emphasized, but the average Wikipedia-user will transform that in a need for citations (which in itself will not help). - Brya 05:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Here's a classic example of what I believe is bad for WP and can adversely impact the newcomer unlucky enough to run afoul any given policy. WP Titles is a WP policy and you would think we would have a consistent interpretation and application of that policy after 10 years. Yet in this month alone 30+ changes have been made to the policy article. [1] Two or three editors are at loggerheads over adding or removing words that fundamentally change the manner in which the policy could be applied and interpreted. A lot of energy is spent in discussion, yet one editor (who I believe acts as if he owns it) won't tolerate any change he doesn't agree with. [2]. We continue to operate on the consensus of the minority and allow the constant changing of policy, especially changes that open it up to new interpretrations, without any real discussion as to its impact and wider interpretation by the community. Slowing down and adding structure and discipline to policy and guideline change, I believe, is essential to removing some barriers that newcomers face.

Yes, such changes certainly do not help. I must say my sympathies are with Pmanderson, in resisting change; the existing phrasing is somewhat redundant, but that does not hurt: all too many Wikipedia-users are really sloppy readers and need the redundancy.

I guess this is a good illustration of the important principle that there is no bigger enemy of an encyclopedia than somebody who wants to apply logic (or uniformity), for logic's (or uniformity's) sake (OK, there are also those who want to shoot, on sight, everybody wearing glasses or reading a book. Those are worse). If those pursuing logic (or uniformity) were to be banned succesfully, quality would go up quickly and drastically. - Brya 18:08, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that situation sucks. But I'm not sure just locking it down is the answer. There might be more danger in a policy that can't evolve than a policy that is too unstable.

Remember that policy is the natural outcome of practices in the community. There's no way that a few words from week to week, even major words, can reshape the broader inertia of what the community does in practice. If I were to sneak in and ass "... not!" to the end of a policy and nobody noticed for a week, I don't think it would make that much of a difference. Each policy has a certain common sense idea of what the spirit of it is.

I would rather think of policy as being there to counter the natural practices in the community. Doing what comes naturally (such as proclaiming the Truth, or rearranging other people's work to one's personal style preferences) is what causes problems. Policy is there to keep naturalness in bounds, and to try and make the encyclopedia work.

A lock-down looks pretty good to me, once a policy has reached a reasonably mature form, at least for central policies. - Brya 05:30, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I've never known someone to make a policy change that suddenly stopped the flow of some kind of negative activity. The only exception would be the policies in place since the beginning, because they established an expectation before there was that community inertia. In almost all instances where there was a major shift in policy, it had more to do with a crisis that a large group of editors responded to. (See: BLP.)

It's always been about consensus. I could change a policy today to "keep naturalness in bounds" and it wouldn't do a thing because it doesn't have consensus. Even if the policy change somehow slipped by.

I'm not convinced this level of policy "instability" is a problem. To the extent that it's unstable, the wording and the form are unstable. But the spirit of the policies have been more or less immutable, aside from a few major turning points. (BLP, flagged revisions, sexual content, etc.)

Is there really evidence that changing a few words in WP:TITLES has suddenly changed how we name our articles? Without evidence of a problem, I'm more inclined to believe that titles are a largely uniform practice that is disputed on a few details, and what little instability there is in the policy would be an accurate description of the instability in the community.

I have never known the EXISTENCE of a policy to stop the flow of some kind of negative activity, whether suddenly or slowly.

As to consensus, there is a big difference in how "consensus" is defined and how it is applied in practice. In practice, consensus often represents the rule, not so much of the majority, but by the most active or most voluble. Thus, consensus is a limiting factor to Wikipedia. - Brya 05:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Consensus tends to be a good limit. There is a consensus around a lot of things: that we report all reasonable points of view in proportion to their prominence, that we avoid fringe theories, that we verify things, that you need independent sources to show that something is worth covering at all, that making new observations is best done by publishing an academic paper than by pushing it on Wikipedia, that truth is not a workable standard, that material should be presented in a consistent style, that certain kinds of data dumps are fundamentally inappropriate for Wikipedia...

I agree these are limiting factors. But "limit" is not a dirty word. A functioning project needs limits. But the most difficult drawback of these limits is how it makes it harder for new users to become "socialized" into Wikipedia's norms. This isn't a problem with the norms any more than it's a problem with the new users. The challenge becomes something like immigration. If you give them help to learn the language and get a job, they integrate. If you let them wander around aimlessly and then harass them when they do something wrong, they're probably going to leave (or worse).

Back to the main point... it's exactly what you said. Policy can't act as a sudden change in normal activity. It's the other way around: normal activity is represented as policy. And any policy instability is either reflective of inconsistent practices, or just an outlier that will be ignored when people go on doing what they normally do.

When I said "consensus is a limiting factor to Wikipedia" I meant just that: in trying to achieve its objectives Wikipedia can not grow further than consensus allows it to. In practice, consensus is a mechanism that is strongly holding Wikipedia back.

But, again, there is a huge difference between "consensus" as it is described in the policy pages and "consensus" as it is practiced, out there in Wikipedia.

I don't think there is much of a difference in practice and policy. Mind you I haven't edited in a long time. There are editors who edit war, but they are sanctioned. There are unverified articles, but they're deleted or merged. There is POV information, but it is tagged and debated and (hopefully one day) fixed.

What is the alternative to consensus? A wikipedia that is a battleground between people with very different ideas of what Wikipedia is. Indeed there are problems and debates. But there is a normalizing or socializing effect of being on Wikipedia for a while. Most of the debates are within an acceptable range of parameters (e.g.: people agree on verifiability but might disagree on certain sources, or how to deal with unverified information in the short term). And the debates that aren't within an acceptable range... well, that tends to affect veteran users and new users alike.

There is a huge difference between policy and practice. Policy says "All editors are expected to make a good-faith effort to reach a consensus that is aligned with Wikipedia's principles."

In practice, "consensus" is anything that a bunch of editors has agreed on, and it may well violate any number of Wikipedia policies. As somebody pointed out here, there is no rule of law on Wikipedia, but only political networks of users. - Brya 05:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Lest we not forget why we are having this discussion--the strategic imperative to reverse a trend of decline in our editor force while maintaining quality and improving coverage of topics in the encyclopedia.  As part of these goals we have to access our policy regime and process as to how it can contribute to strategic success of the project.

I believe simple, objective and stable policies/guidelines will help us achieve strategic success, but the process has to change to get there. 

Imagine Wonkville where anyone can change the speed limit on Elm Street.  A new guy shows up in town and asks, "what's the speed limit on Elm St?" well, it used to be 35mph, but today ole joe changed it to 39. Why? Well, the wonkville police would only give speeding tickets if you were going 5 miles or more above the limit. So joe calculated the real (as practiced) limit and changed the signs to 39. But, if the limit is now 39, does that mean you won't get a ticket unless you're going 45? Maybe, if we follow practice (ie, 5 mph over the posted limit), the new limit would really be 45. Well, the new guy liked the eariler 35mph limit, so he changed the sign to 31mph. Another new guy shows up and says What's the speed limit on elm street. Depends who you ask and what day it is.

The thing is that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and policies are not law.

If the real world were like Wikipedia, there would be no speed limits. There would be a policy "don't drive too fast".

Within that policy, there might be instability about what too fast is. One day it's "the flow of traffic". Another day it's "around 35 mph". But a new Wikipedian isn't going to get into trouble for driving 36 mph. They're going to get in trouble for driving blatantly "too fast".

I just haven't seen evidence that the rapid changes in policy are meaningful enough to create confusion and ambiguity where there would otherwise be clarity. Quite the opposite. Once a policy comes along, its spirit changes extremely slowly, if at all. And Wikipedia is more about the spirit of the policy than it is the letter.

I won't deny that the sheer volume of policy is scary for newcomers. But it has little to do with last week's changes.

Wikipedia is a bureaucracy, and it is full of little laws, like "if you drive 34mph in Elm Street you must keep your left hand out the window at all times", "However, if you are going 36mph you must be wearing a hat" and "If you are going 40mph, you must hold the hat before your eyes". Each little law has its bureaucrats to uphold it (even though, usually, the little laws are against central policies).

Wikipedia is all about letters and form. The spirit of Wikipedia is mostly unknown to users. - Brya 04:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That hasn't really been my experience with the project. I've found IAR to come into play in enough circumstances. No one full out ignores verifiability, but you do ignore it in the short run as you're working on bringing articles up to quality. And when new users run afoul of policy, it's not because they added a source that doesn't meet the nuanced "36mph while wearing a hat" rule. It's because they didn't add any sources at all.

As long as verifiability is understood properly (everything can be checked in a reliable source) it should never be ignored. If you do misunderstand verifiability as to mean that listing references is all important, then please ignore it.

And yes, some users, and consensuses, do ignore verifiability. And yes, you can get into trouble for any kind of reason at all, depending on where you are. You can get in trouble for failure to violate NOR, failure to violate V, or NPoV, for removing a false reference, or an empty link, for correcting "2+2=5" to "2+2=4". Anything at all.

There are really weird consensuses in Wikipedia. Anybody can edit and anybody can form any consensus about anything. There are no limits to weirdness, as long as a bunch of users get together and agree on something. - Brya 05:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

»You can get in trouble for ... correcting "2+2=5"«: I'd like to see that! Reference or diff, please.

I have seen things like that, but the point is that in practice a consensus can be anything whatsoever. Not just through the groupthink “A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive ingroup, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” but also by the nature of the political process; politics is governed by interest, not by content, so if a group feels that a weird decision serves their interest, it will make that weird decision.

A consensus-system limits the contents that are possible within Wikipedia; just as "2+2=5" is rare, as it will usually be felt to be outside the consensus, so will anything of real quality be rare: the consensus will stop it. - Brya 06:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

If by your first paragraph you mean that, as a whole, people tend to do what they think serves their interest, then I agree with that. That's a truism that does not only apply to "the political process". Your second paragraph is not only cynical, it's also impractical. It only could potentially be meaningful if you had a clear definition of "quality" that is distinct from "useful for a substantial group of people". Clearly, "2+2=5" fails that by a long shot, and it will therefore never survive in Wikipedia. SebastianHelm 02:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I have long ceased to be surprised at what survives in Wikipedia, for really long periods. Putting in "2+2=5" will not survive, but it needs only be rephrased a little and it stands a good chance of surviving.

I understand that there are many who do not know what "quality" is and who do not want to know, and in Wikipedia there are all too often conditions where it cannot exist. Still, it is a pity. - Brya 05:56, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually mathematicians operate with additive operations wherein 2 (+) 2 = 5, see e.g. en:Abelian group.

Touché! Shows once again that making up a good example is really hard (and dangerous) work. - Brya 05:48, 27 May 2011 (UTC)