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.

The life of a WoWWiki Policy

These are the statuses and phases that policies at WoWWiki will go through before being adopted (implemented and followed by WoWWiki users) or otherwise:

Policy Status and Phases

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 – The policy proposal is open for voting.
• 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. Their rule is law, but the users can of course comment on vetoed policies to try to persuade the admins.

Vote ratios and time

• Ratification minimum – the winning side must have a minimum of 5 votes.
• 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: 5:1, 6:2, 9:3, etc..
• Ratification time – the winning side must remain winner for 1 week (7 days). However, if the ratification ratio is high (4 to 1 in favor) and the number of yes votes is high (15), 3 days is enough.
• Recall time – also 1 week (7 days). However, if the recall ratio is high (4 to 1 against) and the number of recall votes is high (10), 3 days is enough.

The standard for a quick recall votes is lower than for 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. Like with any other policy, you can start a vote to recall it. Or a new policy proposal to change it. But be aware that if you're e.g. proposing that WoWWiki should contain exploit information, any administrator is likely to Veto it outright.

Grandfathered Policies

A grandfathered policy is a something that had been in effect and actively enforced by admins as well as the vast majority of the contributors for a long time without it having been a documented policy. This kind of de-facto standard can be documented after the fact as a grandfathered policy; usually by administrators.

Like with any other policy, you can start a vote to recall it. Or a new policy proposal to change it.

More information

How to propose a policy

Please see WoWWiki:Policy/Policy votes

How to recall a policy

Please see WoWWiki:Policy/Policy votes

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
• Template:Tlink – places the page in Category:Policies ratified but not implemented
• Template:Tlink
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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
• Template:Tlink

Note that unlike "Vote" and "Delete" templates, there are no "/Closing" subtemplates for policies. The reasoning is that if noone cares enough to go check up on his policy without having a list of closing policy votes, perhaps it did not deserve to be a policy in the first place?

Categories

• Category:Policy proposals – The actual policy proposals will be listed here
• Category:Votes in progress – The voting booths for proposed policies are listed here
• Category:Policies ratified but not implemented – Established as policy but implementation work remains
• Category:Policies – All policies are listed here.