Wikipedia:Policy drift
 | 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: Wikipedia's policies and guidelines often incur small changes which can cause them to drift away from their intended purposes, or introduce confusing, self-contradictory elements. Changes to policy and guidelines should always be made in consideration of policy as a whole, with an eye to maintaining clear, concise, and consistent documents |
Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages - like all articles on Wikipedia - can be improved by any interested editor. Policy pages have a particular importance on Wikipedia, since they establish guidelines which affect all other articles on Wikipedia; significant improvements to policy are always welcome, but generally require a higher standard of consensus than other articles on Wikipedia, and are usually approached cautiously, through extensive discussion.
However, editors often make small adjustments to the text of policy pages that do not suffer the same kind of scrutiny as larger more significant changes. These may include copyediting, clarifications, addition of examples, changes in emphasis, reposition of phrases, minor section restructuring, or a host of other unobjectionable tweaks. Over time, these small edits can accumulate. This can introduce policy drift, where the meaning of the policy gradually changes, or where confusing, redundant, or self-contradictory elements begin creeping into policy text. This can have a deleterious effect on the project as a whole.
When making any edit to a policy or guideline page - even a small, unobjectionable one - editors should consider the meaning and structure of the policy as a whole, as well as its place in the larger context of Wikipedia policies. Editors should try to maintain consistent, clear, and concise policies.
Causes of policy drift[edit]
Decentralisation