 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Do one thing and do it well. If you want to do another thing, that thing should earn consensus from the community and not just be inserted into a policy that has already reached consensus. |
Policy on Wikipedia functions amazingly well for the size and complexity of the community it governs. As far as social contracts go, none can be said to enjoy such broad support from those who live by it. This is achieved through a clear differention between those policies. When an idea has multiple parts to it, it may be easy to get support for certain ideals and less so for others. That idea, therefore, should be broken apart into sections and those sections allowed to evolve, grow and strain for consensus on their own.
Wikipedia policies are shockingly easy to understand edit
Wikipedians can count their lucky stars that they have avoided the muddiness that most law and rule systems accumulate. By leaving some things open, and preserving in policy the fact that it is at times beneficial to forget policy exists It shows a flexibility and easy-to-understand quality that have helped us to achieve what we have. It is easy to tell when something should or should not be done.
Wikipedia policies are shockingly concise edit
Policies on Wikipedia tend to deal with one thing and one thing only, and get their point across well. Unlike other systems, where strange ideas are tagged onto a broader, more acceptable vehicle to reach high status, Wikipedian policies follow the first two (and only non-computer specific) parts of the Unix philosophy: "Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together." In this analogy, yes programs should be replaced by policies, but the idea holds true.