Wikipedia talk:Act of Wiki

About this essay
I drafted this essay following a conversation about the amount of discussion which was necessary for a rather limited-range issue. Some people wanted to treat the matter in a casual way, some people said that there should be a !vote, and some people questioned whether since the matter could conceivably affect the broader wiki community, whether we should advertise the issue broadly in Wikipedia or even other Wikimedia projects.

Lots of wiki rules get established. No one wants the bureaucracy to be excessive. I did not draft this policy to set expectations that Wikipedia policies and guidelines should all come from an Act of Wiki, but rather, I wanted to demonstrate the highest level of bureaucracy which the Wikipedia community finds normal. If there is ever any small issue affecting a small demographic, then my position is that no one should expect the bureaucracy to address that issue should have more administrative investment than the process for establishing Wikipedia's broadest reaching and most important rules, which are the policies.

Colloquially off-wiki people sometimes say, "It does not take an Act of Parliament to decide this issue...", which means that there are less complicated ways to find a resolution without having a deliberative process which is more costly than the situation merits. Similarly, "It does not take an Act of Wiki to decide" relatively issues on Wikipedia which the community ranks as anything less than top importance.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  16:20, 7 April 2018 (UTC)