Wikipedia:Changing policies and guidelines

This is a failed proposal. Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use the talk page or initiate a thread at the village pump.

Shortcut WP:CHANGE

This idea in a nutshell:

Do not change a policy or guideline in a way that would change the results of current or past disputes without prior discussion. Be bold in making policies and guidelines clearer or in updating them for new situations.

Wikipedia has policy and guideline pages to serve as dispute resolution aids. For disputes that occur repeatedly, policies and guidelines serve as a record of the consensus for how to resolve them. Pointing at settled policy allows editors to spend less time in disputes and more time making the encyclopedia better.

It is important to understand that Wikipedia policies and guidelines are wiki pages themselves, so they can be edited. And policies and guidelines change over time. This policy provides guidance on how policy and guideline changes should occur.

For the purpose of this policy, a policy page is defined as any Wikipedia official policy, guideline, or style guide that has previously gained consensus.