Template:Draft proposal
 | The following is a draft working towards a proposal for adoption as a Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal must not be taken to represent consensus, but is still in development and under discussion, and has not yet reached the process of gathering consensus for adoption. Thus references or links to this page should not describe it as policy, guideline, nor yet even as a proposal. |
Usage
{{Proposal|WP:SHORTCUT}} or {{Draft proposal|WP:SHORTCUT}}
The only parameter is optional. If supplied, it displays as a link to the appropriate shortcut page for the proposal. (Note that this is not automatic; MediaWiki cannot determine the shortcut from the page itself. You need to discover or create the shortcut yourself.)
Adds pages to Category:Wikipedia proposals or Category:Wikipedia draft proposals if {{Draft proposal}} is used. Categorization of drafts can be suppressed with the |categories=no parameter.
For related Wikipedia header templates see Template messages/Wikipedia namespace.
Purpose
- See WP:PROPOSAL for advice on advertising your proposed advice page to the community
The Wikipedian community roughly follows a set of official policies and guidelines (collectively often referred to simply as "policy"). Pages reflecting policy are written by ordinary editors in the "Wikipedia:" namespace. Other editors review these proposals and edit to improve them and move toward greater consensus. Over time, many things may happen to a proposal – it may be changed substantially, be moved to a new location, become adopted as a policy or guideline, be rejected by the community, be recast as simply a Wikipedian essay, or fail to sufficiently develop into a viable proposal.
When a proposal is being advanced it is usual to tag the page with {{Proposed}}. Although a proposal is generally written in advisory tone, it is not policy until adopted by the community through the consensus-building process, and should not yet be tagged with {{Policy}} or {{Guideline}} (doing so pre-emptively may be viewed as disruptive).
If a proposal is still in the early formative stages and it is desired to gather creative suggestions from others on what purpose and direction such a proposal should have, one may wish to temporarily use the {{Brainstorming}} header template, and later use {{Draft proposal}} when these matters are clearer. Once proponents of a proposal are satisfied with the form it has taken and it is desired to move forward to the more intense debate that precedes policy acceptance by the community, {{Draft proposal}} should be replaced with {{Proposed}}. This change in status should be advertised so that interested parties have a fair chance to participate before anyone designates the proposal as rejected or adopted as policy. If there is a lack of discussion from the community, the proposal may be tagged with {{Dormant}}. Usual places to advertise a proposal are the talk pages of relevant other policies and guidelines and of topically connected wikiprojects, and the pages WP:Village pump (policy) and WP:Village pump (proposals) (or just the latter if the proposal is not about policy material but something else, e.g. a process or procedures). Be careful to not canvass with non-neutral wording or too-targeted notification when doing this advertising. A centralized discussion point (usually at the talk page of the proposal) is desirable, and making it an RfC will increase participation.
See also
- Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance
- Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard
- Category:Wikipedia draft proposals
- Category:Wikipedia proposals
- Template:Disputedtag(edit talk links history)
- Template:Proposed(edit talk links history)
- Template:Essay(edit talk links history)
- Template:Failed(edit talk links history)
- Template:Dormant(edit talk links history)
- Template:Guideline(edit talk links history)
- Template:Historical(edit talk links history)
- Template:Policy(edit talk links history)
- Template:Promote(edit talk links history)
- Template:Supplement(edit talk links history)
- Template:Superseded(edit talk links history)