User:Thebiguglyalien/sandbox

Policies and guidelines

Policies and guidelines are the highest form of consensus on the English Wikipedia. They have received a high level of scrutiny and gone through the policy and guideline proposal process. Their stability and consistency are important to the community, and Wikipedia has a standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines. Accordingly, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change. Bold changes are rarely welcome on policy pages. Improvements to policy are best made slowly and conservatively, with active efforts to seek out input and agreement from others. Most policies and guidelines start as community or local consensus, but they must go through the proposal process to be implemented. Decisions by the Arbitration Committee are assumed to reflect policy.

Community consensus

Community consensus is made through agreement in sitewide discussions, such as the village pump, a relevant noticeboard, or a request for comment. The most important aspect of community consensus is that everyone had an opportunity to find the discussion. The best way to create community consensus is to open a discussion at the village pump or a relevant noticeboard, and then to notify users in other places such as WikiProjects or other noticeboards. Failure to seek wide input may weaken the final consensus. A discussion on a talk page or a WikiProject doesn't establish community consensus on its own. Community consensus can be applied to any part of the English Wikipedia, and it should be obtained before making any changes that substantially affect a large number of articles. It should comply with all policies and guidelines, though rare exceptions can be made in extraordinary circumstances.

Local consensus

Local consensus is made at a talk page without sitewide discussion. It is useful for agreeing on changes to a single article that would not affect any other articles. Local consensus applies only to the place where it was created. Consensus made on one article does not necessarily apply to related articles, and WikiProjects may not enforce their consensus on any article, even ones under their scope. Any standards or advice pages created by WikiProjects are recommendations that have no more status than an essay. How-to and information pages and template documentation pages also cannot be used to enforce standards on an article. Enforcing local consensus across several articles may be disruptive editing, and it can be challenged by any editor.

When local consensus cannot be formed, users should seek dispute resolution. Local consensus is superseded by community consensus or by policies and guidelines, and it may not contradict these. The number of users supporting a local consensus and the length of time it has stood do not give it additional weight. Ignore all rules on its own cannot be used to justify local consensus that violates community consensus. If users wish to apply local consensus to other pages, then they should seek to create community consensus. Users do not have to preemptively seek consensus for every change they make unless it contradicts a previous consensus. If no one has commented on an action, then it is assumed to have weak local consensus until it is challenged.