User talk:Lexein/Sourcing of policies

WP:V

I like this, and have had similar thoughts for a while. In some cases it's not enough to cite an external source or internal discussion. WP policies are supposed to document existing practices, so verifiability would say adding to or modifying a policy would require showing that WP is already doing what the new version says to do. Descriptive not prescriptive. 66.127.54.40 (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. In my own experience, there's a mix of motivations:

Corrective - People aren't doing this right!

Aspirational - I've always wished things were this way, even if they aren't (normally the domain of discussion and essays like this)

Whoops, whim, CYA - A few of us just started doing it this way, so now we insist. This is the case with article titles "policy", in my opinion, and that fact should be acknowledged as the source and historical foundation of this undeserving-of-the-name-"policy".

Sour grapes - what I write.

--Lexein (talk) 11:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)