User blog comment:Thisismyrofl/Policies Wiki: Create and adopt generic policies for your wikis!/@comment-452-20130924224457

This sounds like a great idea. Once I've got my own ducks in a row, I'll contribute. :)

I like the emphasis on the template policies being generic, and that individual wikis should modify them for local use.

I find that too many wikis copy complex policies from other wikis without actually thinking whether those policies make sense for them.

Is the wiki focused on having one set of policies per subject, or can it have multiple policies which people can choose between?

When I was expanding some policies, the first thing I did was to go to a bunch of different wikis to see the types of things that they addressed, and used them to create a list of ground to cover.

So I think it might be useful to present multiple policy templates for the same topic so that people can "shop around" for policies more easily.

Doing this may also help encourage greater contributions, as people can drop by and copy/paste/license their local policies. (Perhaps a category of "example policies" can be set up to store "full" policies from other wikis)

A good example of why "alternate" policies are needed would be "Category policies". They're both valid approaches, depending on the subject and style of the wiki, so it would make sense to have both policies represented.
 * Some wikis have a policy of "categories are like tags - add every tangentially related category to an article",
 * Other wikis have a policy of "categories are for navigation - use specific categories",

When I was writing up policies using my list of "what other wikis addressed", I didn't necessarily follow the same direction as the policies of those wikis, and in many cases I wrote policies which were explicitly opposite what others had written, so there was no confusion.

I figure that it one wiki is going out of their way to forbid something, I might as well go out of my way to ensure that people know it is not always forbidden.

And likewise, I think the Policy wiki would do well to have "permissive examples" alongside "restrictive examples" so it's clear to people browsing that they don't need to forbid something just because another wiki does.