Rules on WP, was Re: Talk pages Considered Harmful (for references)

[Charles Matthews]

On 22 December 2011 18:10, Ken Arromdee <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> And for the general problem is something I've often noted: Wikipedia is set
> up to force people to follow the rules.


Interesting debating point, but I think the comment is ahistorical. It is
more accurate, IMO, to note that "slavish" rule-following on enWP is a
characteristic of non-"old school" editors. It may well be that the
community as a whole has shifted its centre of gravity on this issue. (The
point covers both the curatorial and disciplinary functions on the site, so
I'd make the case for parsing it further.)

> And the more you use "it's in the
> rules" as a club to hit bad users with, the more others can use it as a
> club
> to force bad ideas through; there's just no defense to "what I want
> follows the
> rules".  You see this all the time for BLPs: "Don't you have any empathy?
> We're hurting a real person."  "You're just trying to distract us from this
> rule.  Your own personal feelings aren't an excuse to ignore our
> policies..."
>
>

We have IAR, and "slavishness" might be called IIAR, so it should be
ignored as a guideline (IIIAR should trump IIAR). This could all get silly
but according to some logical stuff, that has been known since about 1920,
 I^4AR is probably no different from I^2AR.

In other words, if the writ of "ignore all rules" no longer runs because
the community thinks of it as too retro, there can still be some
meta-principle about not following the wrong path just because rules
indicate it. "Rule-bound" is like "muscle-bound", a pejorative, and rightly
so.

BLPs are of course an obvious place where it may be hardest to argue that
rules should be ignored.

Charles
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[Ray Saintonge]

On 12/23/11 7:27 AM, Charles Matthews wrote:
> On 22 December 2011 18:10, Ken Arromdee<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>
>> And the more you use "it's in the
>> rules" as a club to hit bad users with, the more others can use it as a
>> club to force bad ideas through; there's just no defense to "what I want
>> follows the rules".

Given the jungle of Wiki rules there is likely a rule somewhere that
says the opposite. Tracking it down is the stuff of lawyers, or at least
can waste a lot of time.  Rules work well when it's truly a question of
bad users. For others they generate chaos.

>> You see this all the time for BLPs: "Don't you have any empathy?
>> We're hurting a real person."  "You're just trying to distract us from this
>> rule.  Your own personal feelings aren't an excuse to ignore our
>> policies..."

Just like Assange was hurting real people with Wikileaks.

> We have IAR, and "slavishness" might be called IIAR, so it should be
> ignored as a guideline (IIIAR should trump IIAR). This could all get silly
> but according to some logical stuff, that has been known since about 1920,
>   I^4AR is probably no different from I^2AR.

A convergent or divergent series?
> In other words, if the writ of "ignore all rules" no longer runs because
> the community thinks of it as too retro, there can still be some
> meta-principle about not following the wrong path just because rules
> indicate it. "Rule-bound" is like "muscle-bound", a pejorative, and rightly
> so.

Follow the Tao of Wiki.
> BLPs are of course an obvious place where it may be hardest to argue that
> rules should be ignored.
BLPs need to be treated as the exception to the general rule.

Ec

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[Ken Arromdee]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2011, Charles Matthews wrote:

>> And the more you use "it's in the
>> rules" as a club to hit bad users with, the more others can use it as a
>> club
>> to force bad ideas through; there's just no defense to "what I want
>> follows the
>> rules".  You see this all the time for BLPs: "Don't you have any empathy?
>> We're hurting a real person."  "You're just trying to distract us from this
>> rule.  Your own personal feelings aren't an excuse to ignore our
>> policies..."
> We have IAR

IAR doesn't help.  IAR is useful only when you don't need it; if everyone is
reasonable, you can ignore rules.  But if there's a conflict between two
sides, and one wants to obey the rules and one wants to ignore them, the
side that wants to obey them wins every time.

Besides, IAR has a problem for BLPs.  It says the rules can be ignored
to improve the encyclopedia.  Helping a BLP subject doesn't improve the
encyclopedia (and yes, I've seen this come into effect).  So you can't use
IAR-or at least, you face an unnecessary hurdle in using it.

> BLPs are of course an obvious place where it may be hardest to argue that
> rules should be ignored.

Yes, but that can be bad as well--it also is hard to ignore rules *for the
purpose of helping the BLP subject*.

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