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This help page is a how-to guide.
It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. |
Some discussions, and most straw polls and votes on Wikipedia, need to be publicised widely in order to gain consensus for wide-ranging or fundamental changes. This page is a list of suggestions for places where such publicising should take place. It generally only applies to the largest and most structured discussions.
Most discussions will only use a few of the publicity methods shown. Normal discussions do not always need large amounts of input. A balance needs to be struck between gaining sufficient input for consensus, and overwhelming a discussion with too much input. Similarly, publicising minor discussions makes it more difficult for editors to identify the major discussions where their comments are more important. If discussion at a quiet talk page has just attracted no or very little input, then leaving a neutral note on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject or inviting users who commented in previous discussions on the page (but see WP:CANVASS) is normally the best first step.
Notices should always be phrased neutrally, should not be repeatedly posted in the same venue (though some regular updates may be appropriate), and should make clear when the discussion or poll will end, assuming it is not open-ended. When posting to a noticeboard about a discussion, you should determine whether the notices will be archived before the discussion has ended, and thus a follow-up notice may be needed, or if the original notice will remain visible until the discussion has ended. Different noticeboards have different archiving practices. Using a future timestamp in a hidden comment as described at User:DoNotArchiveUntil is one method of delaying most archiving bots from archiving a notice.
When setting up a discussion, interested editors should discuss and decide in which places to publicise the discussion. However, if the discussion has started without such decisions, and you think that wider input is needed, consider being bold and leaving notices in the appropriate places. If you do post notices, also post a comment at the discussion talk page that such notices have been made.
Best practice include:
(For more advice and common mistakes to avoid, such as inappropriate posting to individual user talk pages, see Wikipedia:Canvassing.)
While many technical issues will require a bug report, that is generally not the place to publicise discussion.
