Guild Wars Wiki talk:Is This Proposal Needed?

No need for this. Proposals with no need have been rejected earlier after discussion and this is one of those that will go. Discussion is the best way to decide whether a policy proposal is needed or not, the system can't be automated. -- (gem / talk) 00:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion starts of at a disadvantage if you have to beat the reasons for a policy proposal out of the proposers like a dead horse. How can someone consider the value of a policy if no examples or cases of its need have been cited? How are people to know why the policy is needed? Why it is important - through demonstration not explanation. Dancing Gnome 00:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If a proposal has no reason then will most likely not be implemented. All of the implemented policies so far have met one of your criteria since users do not support policies that don't have a reason to exist. If in doubt, you can always use the talk page to ask for the reasons. Since policies are what define the rules of the wiki there shouldn't be a policy that policies a way how other policies might be automatically disregarded since this rule might acutually prevent us from reating a useul rule in the future. -- (gem / talk) 00:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If a rule were truly useful then there would be a demonstratable need for the rule easily at hand. If you can't demonstrate a need for something why propose it at all? This isn't aimed at stopping useful proposals it is aimed at stopping ones which are not needed. This policy should be very easily fulfilled for legitimate proposals. Dancing Gnome 01:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no need for this policy. — ク Eloc 貢 01:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Title says it all and as for evidence.. its def. lacking in this example. Can we quit with the asinine (love that word) attempts at a) proposing ridiculous drafts b) trying to be funny? -elviondale (tahlk) 04:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be more appropriate as a guideline, but I don't think this is really necessary. -- Gordon Ecker 06:56, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

So let me ask this then, how am I supposed to decide whether I agree or disagree with a policy proposal if I can't examine the incidents which brought about its creation? Is "this is not needed" without explaning or demonstrating why it is not needed or in some way its flaws helpful in anyway? If it were that easy we would never have policies. Saying "this skill balance is not needed" or "this skill balance sucks" fails because neither of those examples explains why? I can say that without reading the policy, if you are going to comment at least take the time to explain your comments, perhaps changes could be made considering your comments as that is the purpose of a draft. 08:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Reasoning has been provided but you chose to ignore it.

Point A, quoting from my post above: "If a proposal has no reason then will most likely not be implemented. All of the implemented policies so far have met one of your criteria since users do not support policies that don't have a reason to exist. If in doubt, you can always use the talk page to ask for the reasons."

Point B, quoting from my post above: "Since policies are what define the rules of the wiki there shouldn't be a policy that policies a way how other policies might be automatically disregarded since this rule might acutually prevent us from reating a useul rule in the future." -- (gem / talk) 09:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What if there weren't any incidents? The adminship, copyright, deletion and personal attack policies were all proactive precautions against hypothetical scenarios. There's nothing preventing anyone from opposing a policy because they don't believe it's necessary or asking why a policy is necessary. -- Gordon Ecker 09:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Change from Policy to Guideline

After recent consideration I believe this proposal would fulfil its purpose more appropriately as a guideline instead of a policy. This would prevent it from blocking potentially valuable proposals. I have also rewritten to clarify how demonstrating 'need' is to be done. I have only listed one incident as being required, however said incident would likely need to be a very exceptional one to warrant a policy. If the incident isn't exceptional then I would recommend more than one example. If anyone wants to re-word this to reflect this spirit feel free. I am also unsure of how to make the change from a draft proposal to a draft guideline so I have left it as proposal because guideline didn't work, however I want this to be considered as a guideline now. Dancing Gnome 09:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, this should be a guideline. — ク Eloc 貢 09:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

As a guideline this is totally useless, as a policy this only makes things more difficult. This kind of stuff IS asked regularily on the talk pages of drafts, and when it isn't there's no reason for it. You can go and look at the talk pages of all of the failed proposals, many have been rejected because it was decided that the proposal isn't useful at this point. Adding a guideline that does nothing is stupid. -- (gem / talk) 09:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This guide line does not say "This guidelined does nothing". Dancing Gnome 09:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

As a guideline no one is forced to use it. Guidelines present ways to handle certain cases if there isn't a reason to do otherwise. This particular guideline wouldn't dictate anything meaningfull since this stuff is already happening. And it's happening in a reasonable manner instead of a manner where you copy-paste certain rules from a guide line. -- (gem / talk) 10:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to search for stuff just to keep you happy and the rest of that section in that discussion disagree with you. It is no happening. Dancing Gnome 10:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

What? -- (gem / talk) 10:43, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with the extent that this goes to. To me, the true basis for policy support is not whether users think it is needed, but whether they want it. Yes, many often have a high enough threshold that it is essentially the same for them, but I'd rather push against that mindset solidifying -- it is unhealthy. Also, waiting until an on-wiki incident is available for the demonstrated want tends to result in others viewing the proposal more as a reaction, which increases the likelihood of arguments over the proposer and those involved in the incident, rather than arguments centered more on policy content.

That said, I wouldn't object to it as a guideline. It does seem like a meaningful convention, even though I disagree with it in principle. I think part of the point of how we structured guidelines was to make it easier to develop these ideas without getting bogged down in having to satisfy everyone.

I would tend to agree with a shift in wording to just promoting giving some explanation or reason rather than demonstrated need, though this would then also be a bit redundant to policy which technically sets that up already for any official policy proposal.

--Rezyk 08:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Rezyk sums it up nicely. I also say no for this proposal. -- (gem / talk) 09:31, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Also say no to this. If you don't provide evidence for a policy proposal, its your own fault when it fails. That being said, providing supporting evidence shouldn't be encouraged by guideline/mandated by policy. -elviondale (tahlk) 17:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I feel this proposal/guideline is not needed. If there is no need for it, if people can't bring convincing arguements or examples, it wont gather consensus. This also does not reduce work, since proposals still need to be looked at. --Xeeron 21:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

We have so many policy discussions which aren't based on reality or a need. We are constantly wasted large amounts of time trying to make rules for things which don't happen. Someone has one small thing happen to them and bam they write up a policy about it. I've seen users with lists of failed policies which we simply didn't need. It is a guide line, they are meant to help but are not entirely limited. If when proposing a policy someone fulfilled these conditions they will have a far greater chance of gathering consensus or at least demonstrating clearly what they want the policy to deal with. The guideline is meant to guide, not dictate. The numerous rejected policies we have should demonstrate something like this would be useful, had this been applied discussion has a ground to start off with, and a strong case to move on. 58.106.236.144 16:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The users would have posted those policy suggestions anyway, a guideline isn't helping with that. And as a policy this would just be harmful. The useless policy discussions take very little wiki time in reality, fiddling with a guideline like this would take more. -- (gem / talk) 19:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree. This is more of a common sense thing and users can come to an agreement if something is needed or not. This clearly isn't, so this proposal basically proves itself wrong. Can we mark this as rejected? -elviondale (tahlk) 20:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

If you are saying this would be worthless as a guide line I don't understand what you expect guide lines to do. I have read numerous policy proposals and quite often no specific details are given along these lines. You should stop talking about this as if it were a proposal for a policy, it is a draft of a guide line. 58.110.137.152 16:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't really care if this is a guideline, a policy, or a suggestion. Its not needed. If a proposed piece of legislation is not needed, users will say its not needed. Like right now for instance. -elviondale (tahlk) 17:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's a policy or guideline proposal if it's useless. -- (gem / talk) 19:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't even support this as a guideline either. (apologies for incoming novel...) It seems to me that if you are not satisfied with the justification given for a policy, you should easily be able to show why it shouldn't be supported until that justification is there anyway. In addition, your criteria are all highly burdensome only on people who want a proposal to be accepted. Given how time-consuming writing good policy is already, I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest that people find every justification, with examples, for a proposal. Let me go over your criteria, one by one, and show you why there are large exceptions to all of them:

• An example/s of an incident which has occurred that the proposal is intended to deal with it.

Not all policies should be crafted retroactively. Usually a wiki puts in place policies like NPA regardless of whether there has been a personal attack. Some policies are useful because they play a preventative role, not because they actually deal with an existing problem, and often waiting for a problem to occur before making policy damages good faith among editors, which results in less work being done on the wiki itself. We avoid unnecessary preventative policies by not supporting them already. Secondly, it takes ridiculous amounts of searching to find a specific talk-space or page-history incident if you don't immediately remember where it is already. It's practically assuming bad faith to accuse people of being lazy because they don't want to spend five hours dredging for links to every incidence of Mistake X to satisfy people. A persuasive, practical argument should be enough to justify a policy, with or without examples of a situation that is prevented. We don't need to fall down a well to know it's a bad thing.

• An explanation/s for why this incident is not wanted on the wiki.

This is redundant as usually a policy or guideline page itself explains this, and the only time it goes unexplained is when the explanation is painfully obvious. We don't need to spell out the obvious, and if someone really needs clarification on that, there's the talk page, and also the option to edit the page itself afterwards. If someone omits an explanation for non-obvious reasons, they are likely to follow up and amend the proposal if you ask, and if they don't, they are unlikely to convince other editors that the proposal is justified. Finally, if it isn't already there, you can be bold and add it yourself- the policy or guideline is still a proposal, after all. Sometimes changing it directly and discussing afterwards will get people who disagree with you to help you create a policy that everyone can support.

• An explanation/s for why this incident justifies the existence of a policy.

We should be able to assume things like heated arguements and people being driven away from the wiki are, in general, obviously bad. Not everything needs its justification spelled out, and again, people will want to follow up in cases where the justification isn't obvious. If they're not adequately justifying their policy, it won't receive support from editors. If no explanation for why a given incident justifies a proposal has been given, then show why you feel it doesn't justify it.

In general, I feel this guideline discourages useful hypothetical arguments, and only mandates that supporters of a proposal do the "legwork" in establishing whether it is justified, encouraging a useless asymmetry in policy and guideline discussions. An important thing to remember is that wikis operate on a principle that if something is worth doing, you should be able to convince others so. We don't always need to justify a policy to do that. Finally, I don't feel this guideline is even salvagable in a neutral form without being a one-paragraph "please discuss the justification of policies" guideline. It's a "have common sense" guideline, it has thus far failed its own criteria, (which for a meta-policy is a great way of seeing how useful it is) and we're better off without it. --Ari  (talk) 00:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

What about something completely unofficial like Wikipedia's essays? -- Gordon Ecker 02:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

It's irrelevant wether it's called guideline or essay as neither forces anything. This is just useless and might even be harmfull, so why bother? -- (gem / talk) 02:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can write an essay and point to it in debates. Wikipedia having rules on them strikes me as slightly silly. Not everything needs regulating; just put them in your userspace and all should be fine. Backsword 03:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

(Reset indent)

The point is it should be burdensome to the policy proposers, they shouldn't just be able to propose something out of no-where. If it is needed this will be easy to do, if it is not needed this will be burdensome and rightly so. It is burdensome to everyone else to beat out the reasons and need for a proposal from the proposer. No guideline is forces anything and thus by your explanation any guideline is useless. I have seen requests for examples to justify a proposed policy and the requests are not met or are responded to with another question, sidetracking the request and providing no explanation. A policy which looks good and sounds good on paper is often VERY different in reality. Policies and a person's thinking don't take into account all the unmentioned possibilities, when discussing a policy it would be valuable to be able to think of an instance which sparks the need so people can consider the policy in context, this also helps to clarify any miscommunication with the author and the reader. 58.110.137.152 08:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

That's not their essay policy, it's an essay about essays. Their essay policy is, in a nutshell, "Essays reflect the views of one or more editors, they are not policies or guidelines and are not official.". I believe the point of Wikipedia's essays is to explain prominent views without concensus support, such as the bold, revert, discuss cycle. -- Gordon Ecker 08:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)