Template:Proposal
 | The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. |
Template documentationUsage
{{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: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)
- {{brainstorming}}