User:ChristianKl/Help:Requests for Comment
 | It is proposed that this informational page become a policy or guideline. Please see the discussion on its talk page or the project chat. The following is a proposed Wikidata policy or guideline. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. |
The Requests for Comment process, is a place where the community gathers to discuss on a specific topic and form consensus about how our community wants to handle the topic. They are the place where our community declares that a certain help page or guideline becomes general Wikidata policy.
Technical requests edit
Requests for comment don't set the software development agenda of the Wikimedia Deutschland which develops the software behind Wikidata. If you want you can contact the development team. For specific feature suggestions it's also valuable to write a new ticket in Phabricator which is the place the team uses to track feature requests and bugs. The yearly Community Wishlist of the Community Tech team of the Wikimedia Foundation is also a great place to request new features.
Seeking help for content disputes edit
If you disagree on an issue with someone else within Wikidata, starting a Requests for Comment shouldn't be your first impulse. If there's a Wikiproject related to the content dispute, it's valuable to start by inviting the members of the Wikiproject into the discussion by using the {{Ping project}}-template. Depending on the issue Raising issues on talk pages of items, properties, Wikidata projects or on the Project Chat is also recommended.
Dealing with Requests for Comment that don't fit the scope edit
In case, a user starts an RfC that isn't in the scope of the purpose of RfC's it's recommended to close the RfC and copy paste the content in the project chat. RfC's that get closed in this way don't have to be listed on the list of closed RfC to make it easy for users to find policy decisions that our community made by reducing the amount of listed RfC that don't contain policy decisions.
History of the term Requests for Comment edit
Steve Crocker wrote the first Requests for Comment in 1969 as part of the ARPANET project to communicate ideas about common norms and standards that he thought ARPANET project should use. He wrote a policy proposal and afterwards wanted comments for it. Today, both the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Society (ISOC) use the term to describe their policy documents. Those organizations did which their process a great job at building standards on which our internet runs today.
When Wikipedia started it copied the term from that usage and as a result Requests for Comments are generally more formal than what most people expect when the first hear the term.
One example of an important Request for Comments from Internet Engineering Task Force is RFC2119 which communicates an understanding what's meant in policies that use the words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommend, may, and optional. Unless otherwise specified, Wikidata policy is also be read in a way that those words have the meaning that's specific in this RfC.
Spelling of Requests for Comment edit
The proper spelling for Requests for Comment within Wikidata capitalizes both Requests and Comment to illustrate that Requests for Comment is a proper name with a specific meaning. This is intended to communicate the message that the term has a specific well defined meaning and doesn't just mean "a place where I can get comments for an idea". Accordingly the proper abbreviation of Requests for Comment is RfC.
Minimum time for policy approval edit
An RfC that results in the adoption of new policy into Wikidata should be open for at least 45 days.