Wikipedia:Precedents

This is intended as a quick reference to various pages that list arguments to avoid and other precedents. It is also intended as a guide to getting the most out of various discussions, and avoiding writing in a way that may be given less weight, in favor of a way that may have more merit.

It is not intended to be binding policy, nor is there an expectation that editors who comment in debates should be familiar with it.

Precedence on Wikipedia

What is precedence on Wikipedia?

Precedence comes from normal consensus building process, and the arbitration committee have determined there are different levels of consensus; though, they have not explicitly stated the levels, only that local consensus can't override global consensus. This practice of levels of consensus is the framework that creates the idea of precedence on Wikipedia. If the community as a whole have reached a consensus, one discussion on one article can't overturn the whole community consensus. Policies and guidelines are the big community precedents on Wikipedia that should have consideration in every Wikipedia discussion.

While the arbitration committee hasn't explicitly established the particular level of consensus (aka Wikipedia's precedent), they can be identified through commonsense measures. These are the levels from highest to lowest:

• Global precedence - this takes the form as policies and guidelines. These should affect every article and every editor should generally follow them.
• Regional precedence - this can take the form as naming conventions for certain types of articles, among other similar concepts that can be found on Wikipedia. Thise precedents only have influence on certain articles. It could also take the form of general practices of certain types of articles. For example, on most articles about the US presidential elections the fist sentence is as follows: The [insert year] United States presidential election was the [insert election number] quadrennial presidential election, held on [insert full date].
• One article - this is precedence for one article. Once a consensus has been met on an article, it has influence mostly exclusively on that one article. This should generally be something rather specific to that articles subject.

How should precedence be followed?

On Wikipedia precedence is considered to be non-binding because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. However, that's not to say precedence should not be a major factor every editor uses when making decision over content disputes. When there is a higher precedence in a discussion or there is already a precedent on a topic an involved editor should be very inclined to follow that precedence.

When deciding if a higher precedent should not be followed the following factors should be evaluated :

• Does the higher precedence not reasonably relate or solve the issue that is very specific to this discussion?
• Does the higher precedence lead to an outcome that seriously doesn't benefit this case?
• Do you believe the community members that built the higher precedent wanted it to apply to a situation similar to this?

When deciding if a precedent of the same level should be changed consider the following factors:

• Have the circumstances around this discussion changed since the time the last precedence was established?
• Was the past precedent strong and how many community members reached that consensus?
• Do you believe the past precedent was egregiously wrong?
• Is the past precedent hard to work with?

Summary list

Type of discussion	Useful references
Deletion discussions (xFD)	Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes
Adminship (RfA) and Bureaucratship (RfB)	Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions
Arbitration cases (Arbcom)	Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/How to present a case Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Past decisions
Policy and proposals	Wikipedia:Perennial proposals

See also

• Wikipedia:Outcomes
• Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines
• Wikipedia:Consensus
• Wikipedia:Ignore all rules
• Wikipedia:Other stuff exists - essay on the correct and incorrect usages of applying precedent.
• Wikipedia:Ignore all precedent