Policies

The Sims Wiki has a number of policies that apply to the wiki. These policies can range from formal behavior rules, to guiding principles, to guidelines on wiki content and style. All these policies are established either by a thorough community discussion and formal consent, or through long-standing precedent.

The wiki breaks policies up into two groups - User Policies and Content Policies

These rules apply to everyone who edits on The Sims Wiki
 * User Policies

These rules govern what content is and is not allowed, and how the content is displayed and organized on the wiki
 * Content Policies

Policy amendments
The following is a generalized explanation of the policy adoption and amendment process on The Sims Wiki. Policies are intended to clarify current procedures, or to reinforce a community decision. Policy amendments fall into two general categories - unilateral and formal amendments.

Unilateral amendments
Policies are intended to reflect currently-established precedents and community consensus, not to govern actions. To that end, any autoconfirmed user is allowed to make immediate amendments to wiki policies in order to correct minor issues (grammar, spelling, or clarification) or to bring the policy in-line with current practices, without the need to start a community discussion, consensus drive, or vote. In these situations, the amending user should provide an explanation of the amendments and justifications for amending on the article's talk page.

Just as policies may be amended at will to reflect current practices, any unilateral policy amendment may be reverted by another autoconfirmed user if it is determined that the amendment is not in line with current practices or prior established consensus. If the reversion is in good faith, the original amending user should not re-introduce the same amendment unilaterally (unless they are able to clarify matters with the user who reverted the amendment). In cases where there is wider disagreement or discussion on whether a unilateral amendment is appropriate, the amendment should be removed from the policy page and a formal amendment discussion should be started.

Formal amendments
Any autoconfirmed user may propose that the community, in an official capacity, weigh in on a policy with the intent to amend the meaning or effect of the policy. Users may also propose formal amendments if previous unilateral amendments have been rejected as not being in-line with established practices or precedents. Whereas a unilateral amendment seeks to bring policy in-line with currently-established practices or consensus, a formal amendment is meant to decide an issue definitively. All formal amendments should be proposed on the Community Discusssions forum. Amendment discussions are open to input from all users, and are decided by community consensus.

The community, through discussions which do not intend to amend policies, may reach a consensus which would result in the need to change a policy. In these cases, the discussion and demonstration of support for the conclusion shall constitute formal approval of a policy change, without the need to formally propose the amendment again. Subsequent changes to that amendment should be minor in scope. In cases where current practice or precedent is contrary to a previously-decided formal amendment, a user may unilaterally amend policy or start a new formal amendment discussion to resolve the issue.