Wikipedia:How editing decisions are made
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Wikipedia editing decisions are made by weighing multiple considerations. Most policies and guidelines are written with "soft" wording to guide, rather than dictate, a result. This facilitates the application of a policy or guideline as only one of the many factors influencing the outcome.
The main mechanism
[edit]Simple common case
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This is best introduced by a simple common case....decision made by a single editor with only 2 potential outcomes, and the ideal situation where the editor is guided solely by Wikipedia's objectives, policies and guidelines. The process can be visualized as a scale where these main considerations are weighed and weighted and put on the two sides and the seeing which way it tips:
- The Wikipedia objective of building an encyclopedia including building informative articles and content in articles
- The effect of every applicable policy and guideline on the question at hand. For each, this includes weighting:
- The authoritativeness of the policy or guideline in Wikipedia hierarchy. This is based on it's policy vs. guideline status, it's prominence, and strength and broadness of consensus that led to it
- How strong and categorical the applicable wording in the policy or guideline is. For example "suggested: vs. "must"
- How directly and clearly applicable it is to the situation/ question at hand
More complex situations
[edit]Moving to decisions by larger numbers of editors simply adds more people making the same decisions, (often after trying to influence the others) and combining their results with certain elements of the process defined by policies such as WP:Consensus. More complexities arise when decision process has other biases or flaws. Wikipedia has mechanisms that help in these situations, especially by involving more persons.
Useful takeaways
[edit]It is rare that a decision is dictated by only one consideration such as one policy or guideline. For that to happen, the one policy statement would need to be clear cut, categorical (without qualifiers), of highest authority in the Wikipedia hierarchy, and so clearly applicable to the question at hand that no interpretation for the particular situation is required.
The most common action of a policy or guideline is to influence the result, not dictate the result.
This concept resolves apparent conflicts between Wikipedia's goals, policies and guidelines.