This page is a Wookieepedia guideline. It illustrates standards or conduct that are generally accepted by consensus to apply in many cases. Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.

Instruction creep occurs when a person or persons add to a list of instructions repeatedly, causing it to increase in size and complexity over time. Instruction creep is generally frowned upon, as it causes instructions to be unmanageable and daunting. In general, people are less likely to read and follow long instructions than they are shorter ones. Instruction creep is common in complex organizations where rules and guidelines are created by changing groups of people over extended periods of time.

Instruction creep on Wookieepedia Edit

In general, try to avoid instruction creep on Wookieepedia. Wookieepedia is not supposed to be bureaucratic. Procedures are popular to suggest but unpopular to follow, due to the effort required to locate, read, learn and abide by them. Therefore, it is better to keep things simple when writing instructions on Wookieepedia. Our contributors are volunteers, and will simply go away if the policies are too confusing or too difficult for them to follow.

In practice, the principle of "Avoid instruction creep" means that new policies and guidelines should be added only where they will actually be helpful, and that instructions contained in existing pages may have to be pruned at times. Feel free to remove excessive requirements as you see fit, but if your changes are reverted, discussion should then occur on the corresponding talk page.

To quote Albert Einstein: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."