Lately I've been very interested in the Request for Comment process, and have been responding to them when I have time. Perhaps one of the nice things about RfCs is that they're so unstructured, but I like to have some structure to work within so here's my rules of self-governance:
- 1. I'm not getting involved in RfCs within my area of special knowledge
- My first experience with RfC involved an edit war which I subsequently became involved in because it was "in my field", and it got bad enough that I felt I had to recuse myself from the ToL project in general for a while. I was also disappointed that there weren't enough neutral parties responding to the RfC, so I'm endeavoring now to be a neutral party available to others. As a rule, I'll only comment on articles or disputes involving a subject I'm at least somewhat interested in learning something about, but not involving the subjects I would otherwise actively contribute to.
- 2. I'm not going to edit
- I'll restrict my involvement to positive contributions on the talk page, but will not go in and edit the articles in question. Most RfCs involve some form of edit warring, and becoming just another chef to ruin the dish isn't my goal in responding to RfCs. (I might revert blatant vandalism or correct grammar when reading the article, but that's as far as I'll go).
- 3. Until I'm told not to, I will leave traces to responses (a link to the RfC response below the request on the list)
- I've seen a few cases where there were requests, but no responses, and it would be nice for responders to know if there's been any actions taken. (I brought this up on the the RfC talk page, but haven't gotten any input yet).
- 4. I'll watch
- If a dispute continues or even intensifies after the RfC is made, I will consider steps to "kick it upstairs" by notifying an admin, a relevant project (such as WP:WPSPAM) or ArbCom.