User:M~enwiki/Policies

One way to describe what happens on Wikipedia is to say that a large number of people act together to produce an encyclopedia. "Act together" should be taken quite broadly. Suppose that Suzy and Robby are building a block castle together. They might be building towers at one moment, and then Suzy might be throwing the triangular blocks at Robby's head the next. It's not that they've stopped working together, it's just that Suzy thinks that Robby's head looks better with blocks on it, while Robby doesn't want a lumpy head. (Similar disagreements arise on Wikipedia.) There are actions that are trivial, eliciting no real response from others in the community. There are also actions that will lead to other people throwing blocks at your head. Writing "Suzy likes Robby" in 20 random articles, for example, will lead to a block.

A policy describes common patterns of behavior, and influences further behaviors. People don't like participating in systems where the outcomes are not clear, so clear policies encourage participation. The vast majority of people behave cooperatively and want to reduce conflict; clear policies inform them of how they can do this and lead to there being less conflict. When policies are not written down, people have to learn them through trial and error - especially error. When this is the case, the system can seem very exclusionary or 'political'. When policies describe many bad or inefficient behaviors, leading people to behave in such ways, the system is often called a bureaucracy. Good policies should be made available in a clear way.