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The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays on Wikipedia is obscure. There is no bright line between what the community chooses to call a "policy" or a "guideline" or an "essay" or an "information page". This explanatory essay itself is a supplemental page, which is an even more ambiguous group. [1]
Wikipedia has many policies and guidelines about encyclopedic content. These standards require verifiability, neutrality, respect for living people, and more. The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia. They do not generally need to conform to the same content standards or style conventions as articles.
List of policies and guidelines — a list of principle policies and guidelines. List of policies — a comprehensive descriptive directory of policies. List of guidelines — a comprehensive descriptive directory of guidelines. Manual of Style contents — a comprehensive descriptive directory of the pages which make up the Manual of Style.
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organization. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making.
Wikipedia actually has few strict rules, but rather is founded on five fundamental principles.Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are developed by the community to clarify these principles and describe the best way to apply them, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free and reliable encyclopedia.
The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is thin and obscure, but some page types are more appropriate for some types of information or advice. Use help , procedure/process , supplement , and information pages appropriately.
So what is the difference between policies, guidelines, and essays? Nothing that you can count on, exactly like this page says. It sounds to me like your complaint is much closer to "I wanted this page to declare that an important difference exists between these types of pages, and it reflects reality instead of my personal preferences."
The main difference between policies and guidelines are that policies have fewer exceptions and have less room for interpretation than guidelines. Yes, there are some non-negotiable policies like WP:BLP, where a libel lawsuit could be an existential threat to WP, but these are exceptions to the exceptions, not the basis for all policies.