Currently there is no well defined process for ARCing articles, nor for what the ARC designation actually is.
When we think of ARC, we think of fiction - tales and SCPs that are preserved for their significance to other articles.
The ARC process exempts articles from deletion and marks them with a special designation. But take a gander at the list of archived pages:
http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/system:page-tags/tag/archived#pages
You'll notice something peculiar - there are a lot of non-fiction pages there. Old guides, essays, hubs, the like.
Historically, the process of ARCing has covered a range as broad as it is undefined - in the distant past, it had been done similarly to deletion votes or admin fiat. More recently, it has been done with a staff wide vote.
But - this proposal is not concerned with the tales and SCPs that have been ARC'd. While I do believe that these should be discussed, here we discuss those non-fiction pages.
MAST's mandate is to maintain these pages, and in light of a lack of guidelines for archiving in general, I propose that:
We differentiate ARCing fiction and non-fiction pages. We leave ARC to designate fiction pages, and a new category, archived, for non-fiction pages.
The archive process (defined by the removal of the rating module and movement to the archived: category for a non-fiction page) for those pages tagged with admin, guide, and essay be handled by the MAST Team in the following process:
In the case of an updated guide or essay being approved via an 05 vote, the previous version will automatically be archived.
Should something else in this category (admin, guide, or essay) need to be archived for any other reason, the MAST captain must approve the archiving.
Any staff OS+ may make an objection to the archiving by contacting the MAST captain. This objection will be discussed by the relevant parties before responding to the staff member who has submitted the objection.
In the case of an update guide or essay going up for an O5 vote, we should take care to make note that the previous version will be archived as part of the approval process.
This discussion thread is open to all OS+ and JS with Captain's approval
Edit: After discussion with TSATPWTCOTTTADC, I've elected to changing some of the language on this. I am suggesting that we have "ARC" only refer to fiction pages that were archived, whereas non-fiction pages that are archived will be referred to as "archived". This change has been propagated to existing non-fiction pages on the site, and hopefully should clear up some language going forwards.
ARC: fiction pages only.
Archive: non-fiction pages only.
Edit 2: making it clearer what the ARC process is at the moment of writing this proposal.