User:TenOfAllTrades/RD thoughts

This page is divided up as follows.

• Major sections (second-level '=='-enclosed headings) describe guiding principles for the Desk.
  • Subsections (third-level '==='-enclosed headings) represent guidelines that I think follow from those principles.
    • A description, any clarification, and rationale for each guideline is provided as body text.

Obviously in its current format it's unsuitable for direct placement on the Ref Desk. Further discussion is needed and welcomed about how these guidelines should be incorporated into our existing framework, and what changes or additions are needed.

I'm keeping this in my userspace for now because I'm trying to keep a lid on any potential edit warring over this content. By all means direct brickbats, kudos, and suggestions to the talk page, and we'll see if we can synthesize something useful.

The purpose of this page is to present what I think is a reasonable (and close-to-consensus) view of the purpose and philosophy of the Reference Desk, as well as some guidelines for users and contributors that I think fall naturally from that philosophy. Note that I am not addressing enforcement mechanisms at the moment.