Forum:Temporary forums/T:BOUND Reform

Opening Post
So for quite some time it has been the semiofficial stance of this wiki that T:BOUND implies some additional policy, something vaguely related to people "being bound by the way we currently do things". This informal broadening of the policy has never been precisely fleshed out, but has been alluded to quite a few times in admin decisions, including those that have had substantial discussion on the very nature of "community consensus" or T:BOUND itself. See, for instance, User talk:Shambala108 and Talk:Hugh Grant.

It's been suggested in the past that our rules can be difficult for new users to learn, and this is certainly the case. But having a rule that simply isn't written down and only exists due to self justification, the ultimate bootstrap paradox of a rule, makes this situation even more frustrating for new editors. It's important that we codify this policy formally into our rules in order to make things more accessible for new users. As stated at Tardis talk:You are bound by current policy, it's not immediately obvious that a forum thread is needed for this, but I think it's reasonable to have one in order to hammer out the precise wording.

Two years ago it was stated that


 * it makes sense to have a policy that says "even if the current setup isn't codified by a specific policy, you shouldn't, on a whim, try and implement a change that would have ramifications on thousands of pages without starting a discussion".

And I think this is the correct approach to take. In the main body of the rule, that is the section with three paragraphs, I suggest that we add a fourth, between what is currently the second and third paragraphs. The current wording I'm floating is the following:


 * As a corollary, "policy" doesn't just apply to those decisions that have been officially enshrined through discussion, but also refers to operating procedures that apply to multiple pages over large periods of time with the express knowledge of admins, even if these procedures technically contradict the results of a previous forum decision. Do not make large scale changes to the wiki without opening a discussion about these changes first.

But obviously the purpose of this thread is to workshop the wording. With that said, given the nuances of the issue, I would like to bring up another option. Separating this policy from T:BOUND entirely. I'm not sure this is the right path forward, and historically it's not what we've done. But it's certainly an option I think we should consider in this thread.