Wowpedia:Policy status phases

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This page is an official policy on Wowpedia. This policy has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. Feel free to propose any changes to this policy, but please make sure that changes you make follow the official process and reflect consensus on the discussion page before you put them into practice. Any big changes need to be Adopted or Decreed to be enforced as policy. See Wowpedia:Policies for an overview of Wowpedia policies. See Category:Policies for a list of proposed and adopted policy articles.

Policy Status and Phases

Template:Policytoc The following policy concerns the status and phases that policies at WoWWiki will go through before being adopted (implemented and followed by WoWWiki users; see below) or otherwise:

1. Policy pages should have a status at the top that indicates whether the policy is still a proposal, ratified, or adopted. A policy can also be recalled by users or vetoed by the Admins.
   • Policy/Proposal – Some user has proposed the policy, but no one has voted on it or it hasn't received the minimum number of yes votes (ratification minimum) to be ratified.
   • Ratified – The policy is in effect, but there are changes that need to be carried out or implementation details to solve before it can be fully adopted.
   • Adopted – This policy is officially accepted by the wowwiki community in so far as those who voted represent the community. It has been fully implemented.
   • Recalled – If an adopted policy gets more no votes than yes votes at some time in the future, it becomes recalled back to a status similar to proposal status, except that if the no votes exceed yes votes for some period of time (recall time), the policy becomes a candidate for deletion.
   • Vetoed – The admins can always veto a policy outright. There rule is law, but the users can of course comment on vetoed policies to try to persuade the admins.
2. Vote ratios and time:
   • Ratification minimum – I suggest 5 votes.
   • Ratification time – I suggest 1 week (7 days), but we could have a shorter time, like 3 days, if the ratification ratio is high (4 to 1 in favor) and the number of yes votes is high (15?).
   • Ratification ratio – If the ratification minimum has been met and the yes votes exceed the no votes by 3 to 1, then the policy is has met the ratification ratio. Examples: 5 yes votes & 1 no vote, 6 yes votes & 2 no votes, etc.
   • Recall time – I suggest 1 week (7 days), but we could have a shorter time, like 3 days, if the recall ratio is high (4 to 1 against) and the number of no votes is high (10?).

Notes: The standard for recall is lower than adoption, since a policy that people mostly don't like is likely to cause more trouble than a policy that people do like, but some disagree with.

Decreed Policies

Some policies will be established by admin via decree without voting, unlike normal policies. the primary example is the Exploits policy which AlexanderYoshi established to be in line with Blizzard's anti-exploit policy.

Community input is still valued in cases where an admin doesn't seem to have good reasons, so maybe another admin will revert it. So, please still ad comments to discussion.

Recalling a Policy

TODO: better explanation of this, including mentioning grandfathered policies --Mikk 17:52, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

Banners

The following banners will appear on policy pages (proposal or otherwise) to indicate their status (and phase):

• Template:Tlink – places the page in Category:Policy proposals
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Templates

The following templates can be used for setting up votes in discussion area of policy article:

• {{subst:Policy/Talk}} – this pulls in Template:Tlink and adds an editable voting booth
• {{subst:Policy/Recalltalk}} – this pulls in Template:Tlink and adds an editable voting booth

These templates will appear, but don't need to be added manually:

• Template:Tlink
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