विक्शनरी:Policy

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This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. It should not be modified without a VOTE.

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Wiktionary is a collaborative project and its founders and contributors have common goals.

Wiktionary policies and guidelines help us to work toward those common goals. These policies are continually evolving, and need some effort to maintain their evolution. You can contribute to the effort.

Key policies

You don't need to read every Wiktionary policy before you contribute! However, the following principles are key to a productive, collaborative Wiktionary experience, and should always be borne in mind.

Wiktionary is a dictionary, thesaurus and phrase-book.
Wiktionary is multi-lingual in that it has entries for words from any language. It aims to cover Every Word from Every Language. This Wiktionary is the English language Wiktionary. That means the texts of entries, including those for words from other languages, are written in English. Wiktionaries in other languages give definitions of these words in their own languages. See also the developing policy on foreign words and translations.
Respect copyrights. Wiktionary is a free dictionary licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Submitting work which infringes copyrights threatens our objective to build a truly free dictionary that anyone can redistribute, and could lead to legal problems. See Wiktionary copyrights for more information.
Avoid bias. Entries should be written from a neutral point of view, representing all usages fairly and sympathetically.
Respect other contributors. Wiktionary contributors come from many different countries and cultures, and have widely different views. Treating others with respect is key to collaborating effectively in building this Wiktionary. For some guidelines, see Wiktionary:Civility and Wiktionary:Dispute resolution.

Policies are listed by category at Category:Policies - Wiktionary Top Level, and alphabetically by topic at Wiktionary:Index to Policies.

How are policies decided?

Wiktionary policy will be formulated for the most part by consensus. Consensus can be reached through open debate over difficult questions, or it may simply develop as a result of established practice. The statements on this and other pages about Wiktionary policy are intended to describe community norms that are developing over time.

Initial ideas might be discussed in the Beer parlour or at Wikimedia's Meta-Wiki.
As policy issues are identified, someone will decide that we should think about having a policy related to this matter and create a policy Think Tank page to focus discussion. This page should be tagged with {{Policy-TT|Xxxx}} where Xxxx is the proposed name for the policy. (This tag can also be attached to any discussion page where policy type discussions are happening, without the need to actually create the policy page. This will bring the page in to the Policy Think Tank category.)
- The new policy page should be announced in the Beer Parlour, at all the recent places the policy was discussed, and to all the users who have been active in debating the idea so far.
- In-depth debate will then take place on the associated "talk/discussion" page. Discussions sometimes also happen in IRC and on our mailing lists, but keep in mind that "official" policy must be agreed to on Wiktionary itself.
If and when the policy idea seems to have some support, and the policy wording has been developed, the policy page can be upgraded to a policy Draft Proposal and tagged with {{Policy-DP|Xxxx}}.
Later still, as the policy has more support and no objections, and has been sufficiently refined, the policy can be further upgraded to Semi-Official status and tagged with {{Policy-SO|Xxxx}}.
At a stage not yet reached by any policy, the policy may be declared "Official" Wiktionary policy. The method for doing this is not yet clear and has not been defined. An Official policy is to be tagged with {{Policy-O|Xxxx}}.

If a policy may be controversial, it should always be discussed before being proclaimed as "official". Consider the guidelines in साचा:w for reference.

Policies that result from established practice are sometimes harder to identify. If there is no objection to the practice, it may be difficult to sustain community attention long enough for a formal process of adopting it as policy. In this situation, the best solution may be to document existing practice on a "Policy - Draft Proposal", or a "Policy - Think Tank" page. This then provides a location to discuss the practice and possible changes to the policy, and it also allows people to cite a source for the policy, if necessary.

Formal "Voting" on a policy is discouraged, but may be used to better judge how sentiment is leaning at a particular point in time.

Pages with Policy Implications

Some pages — such as the Style guide — have policy implications. They are not written as policies, but since they instruct people how to use Wiktionary, they do impact on whether the policies are followed properly. These "Policy Implications" pages need to be checked occasionally to see that they reflect the policies listed elsewhere. Tag these pages with {{Policy-PI|Xxxx}}. This tag will not visually impact on the page but only add the page to the "Policy Implications" category and "Top Level Policies" category.

Rejected Policies

Some Proposed Policies will be abandoned. The work on these policies is retained in case it may be useful for rework later, to avoid going over the same discussions all over again. Policies that are rejected are tagged with {{Policy-RP|Xxxx}}. See Rejected Policies

How are policies enforced?

You are a Wiktionary editor! Wiktionary has no editor-in-chief or any central, top-down mechanism whereby the day-to-day progress on the dictionary is monitored and approved. Instead, active participants add new articles, improve others, and make corrections to the content and format problems they see. So the participants are both writers and editors.

Most policies and guidelines are thus implemented by individual users editing pages, and discussing matters with each other.

There are some administrators appointed that will tackle the problems of vandalism and housekeeping, for which they need extra privileges. Anyone with a fair track record of contributions can apply for administrator status.