Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance

In the context of the present page "guidance" is understood in a broad meaning: it applies to most pages (except and discussion pages like the pages), and equally to almost any Help namespace page.

The recommendations on this page apply both to the creation of new guidance and to the improvement or updating of existing guidance.

An example of the first approach is the creation of following on the problems experienced in the Seigenthaler controversy.

The creation process of guidance like rather reflects the second approach.

Most guidance is created as a combination of the first and the second approach, for example results from technical novelties requested by the community (first approach), then written down in guidance on how to use the updated technical features (second approach).

It is usually not such a good idea to insert novel ideas on guidance in the top level guidance pages (top level guidance pages: policies and important guidelines). In that case, rather attempt an essay or a new guideline proposal. If help is desired in forming an acceptable proposal, one may wish to invite others to brainstorm ideas.

If an essay contradicts existing policies and adopted guidelines, the essay would better be removed in order not to create confusion. In other words: essays should not be used to create an alternative rule set: such alternative ideas can better be presented via discussion on the talk page of a related guideline or via a project namespace discussion platform like . Also guideline proposals should best not be used to attempt to create a contradictory rule set: use relevant discussion pages instead if you think your alternative ideas have merit.

Consider that the most important job on guidance pages is rather the pruning than the expansion of the rule set: constant expansion of the body of policies and guidelines can make it into a swamp, not near to the handy tool set editors may expect to find.

Also maintaining a clear and organic structure of the rule set can be seen as part of the much appreciated pruning efforts, for instance updating Naming conventions guideline pages to a common and recognizable structure can be seen as a contribution to such pruning effort.

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