I think this already exists
I think this already exists
English wikipedia already has loads of policy pages which effectively fulfill this function.
Whenever someone tries to reopen a discussion of an issue that has already been discussed to death they should be directed to the policy page that records what has previously been agreed. If they feel the policy is wrong then they can propose a change to that policy on the policy page rather than on one randomly chosen content page.
I don't think there is a need to duplicate this functionality under another name.
Policies on enwiki are often written in very-general terms to apply in a broad range of situations. They contain few examples. In many cases, the exact meaning is open to endless debate, which is to be expected when interpreting a broadly-worded policy or guideline. The focus of Directives, instead, could be extremely specific, as in deciding the meaning for a particular situation. For example, "WP:No_Personal_Attacks" is worded in very general terms. Then, suppose someone quoted the Holy Bible (Book of Matthew), "Don't cast pearls before swine" and another user replied, "Violation! You just called everyone working on some particular article to be swine; would you like to be called a pig?".
In such an extreme situation, a directive would be issued that quoting the Bible to another user is not a "personal attack" of people working on some other talk-page. The Bible contains some strong wording, so upsets could be expected, but they are not justified simply because the Bible contains controversial phrases. Once that directive had been issued, then people could be alerted to that decision, and not try to weasel a Bible quote (during user-talk) into a horrendous, unforgivable assault against all editors in some other article debate.
Please remember, a lot of bizarre conclusions are made in spastic interpretations of enwiki policies. Certainly, quoting the Bible would be a major issue of concern. By issuing hundreds of numbered directives, there would be a massive eyeopener as to just how wildly twisted the enwiki policies are being mis-interpreted in thousands of warped viewpoints. Defining hundreds of specific directives would quickly shut-down that "cottage industry" of weasel-wording about policies. A periodic review of directives would reveal all the numerous gaming-the-system tactics being misused to warp policies. Because there are so many twisted views, then numerous Directives are needed to thwart all the various tricks. Directives are needed to handle the broad scope of all the trickery currently underway, and stop each particular antic. If such people should be removed from enwiki, then examining the various Directives would pinpoint who the troublemakers are, and they could no longer claim, "I'm perfectly justified, because the policy wording is open to interpretation" (which is true); however, they would be caught disregarding the specific Directives, and they could no longer pretend there are no specific rules to follow. Directives could "close the loopholes" in broad policies, where people are gaming-the-system by using such loopholes. -Wikid77 18:48, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that would work. Bringing in a directive that quoting the bible is not considered a personal attack would open the door for people to use the bible to attack people and claim that the directive allows this. Wikilawyers will wikilawyer. I believe a general "No personal attacks" policy is best.