Policy Cleanup Project

We need a few categories to quickly go through all the pages on the wiki and classify them for easy retrieval. We've scheduled a work party for July 6 to make major headway on this project. We can look at all pages, even those not currently categorized as policy pages, since we are operating with the knowledge that some of the policies on the wiki have been implemented incorrectly.

See Policy Development for what the current policy development work flow is.

Classification Notes

Classifying policies by their stage of development

Policy

All policies that are fully documented and sourced and currently in effect.

Outdated Policy

Policies that are not being enforced or have been made obsolete by changes in the organization, etc.

Undocumented Policy

Policies that appear to be current but do not have a link to a meeting where the decision was made.

Proposed Policy

Potential policies that are in discussion and have not yet been approved.

Needed Policy

Policies that are are needed due to obvious or external reasons, but don't seem to be anywhere. These will likely be blank pages, but if the name of the policy is insufficient to explain itself, a short clarification is in order.

Policy Needs Work

If a policy is good and current but needs other work (for example it needs a link to a procedure or something) then categorize it in Policy Needs Work.

Procedures

For convenience most procedure text should probably be located in a clear separate section on the policy's page. When this is not appropriate, the page containing the procedure should be categorized as Procedure and contain a link back to the policy it is attempting to implement.

Classifying policies in other ways

We also should classify policies by which department, governing body, or whatever the policy applies to, for example, HR related policies should be categorized as HR as well as Policy.

In some cases, we may need to sub-divide the policies. For example HR could be sub-divided into Reviews, Hiring, Staff Discipline, etc. When doing this the subdivision's category page should be categorized as its main section.

Language suggestions

As we go through policies we may find some that are obviously out of date or unclear. We can mark up the policies with suggested changes, including strikeout text and bold text to indicate changes. These changes can then go forward to the staff collective for approval.

Examples of categorizations

[[Category: Policy]] [[Category: Outdated Policy]] [[Category: Undocumented Policy]] [[Category: Proposed Policy]] [[Category: Needed Policy]] [[Category: Policy Needs Work]]