User blog:Drew1200/IMPORTANT: An Update on the Policy

In the past, whenever we've made a change or addition to the policy, we have always announced that via a news blog. Recently, we've decided that this is not the most effective way to be doing things. Instead, every time we make a change to the policy, it will show up in a log, shown at the bottom of the Policy page. The log will contain a link of what was changed, as well as any comments or reasons for it being changed. Additionally, we will continue to announce any major changes on a news blog.

The decision making process for the policy will be the same, we're just changing the way it gets announced. We're planning to add several new policies while this is being set up, so keep an eye out for those.

In addition to this new log, we're going to begin working on a large project to reorganize the policy. As I mentioned above, there will be a couple of policies being added, specifically a new admin policy. Any other changes will also show up in the log, but other than that policy, we're not planning on rewording anything else at the moment - just reorganizing it.

This new system will have the policies divided into two different categories. The first, and more important, will simply be called "Policies". These are the rules. It's required that everyone obeys them, no matter what user rights they have. The second category will be called "Guidelines". Similarly to the policy, these rules are meant to be followed. However, we will be less strict with them. If there is a good reason to break one of the guidelines, then we won't hold the user to it. That being said, they should be followed, unless there is something beneficial that they are preventing. While we promise not to be as strict with them, the administrators still reserve the right to block or ban a user accordingly. I don't want you to be fearful of that, I only want you to be aware that the guidelines should still be followed.

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to put an emphasis on policy petitions. If you see something in the policy that you want changed, added, or removed, then just make a petition. We really want to hear the community's opinions, and petitions are one of the best ways to accomplish that.

Over the next couple of days, I'll be working on reorganizing the policy. Once it's done, we hope for the policy to appear much cleaner, and that it will be easier to navigate.