Wikipedia talk:Ignore all rules/Archive 13

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 An outside opinion on WP:WIARM vs. WP:WIARRM 2 A quote from Jimbo that may clarify things. 3 Joint workshop 4 Wikimedia Foundation Policy mention 5 It's not "ignore some rules." 6 Should WP:IAR be ignored? A proposal for expansion. 7 The Anti-IAR Cabal. 8 Versions 9 Explanation vs Ramification 10 The lazy student analogy 11 One line's best for this page 12 What ignore all rules is not 13 '...and according to Jimbo Wales, it "always has been"' 14 Merge WIARM into IAR? 14.1 Arguments for merging 14.2 Arguments against merging 14.3 Regular Commentary 14.3.1 Empowered to edit 15 Urging all editors to work towards compromise 16 I re-added the Zen koan. 17 Tony's revert of CBM's edit 18 Why the game? 18.1 Arbitrary break in the game 19 A proposal 20 History of the policy 21 An arbitrary break

An outside opinion on WP:WIARM vs. WP:WIARRM

Glancing over both essays, I don't see how they disagree. One leans more on pithy sayings, & other is more technical in its explanation & is illustrated with a flowchart. I can see how one would appeal to some people, & the other to other people.

But for me, the most important point of "ignore all rules" is what happens when you ignore all rules. Rules are simply the best way we all have agreed on to get things done in the best way, & often they don't make sense for one reason or another. Sometimes you can ignore the rules, & all is good with Wikipedia; other times, ignoring the rules only make things worse -- for you & Wikipedia.

Although this is only commentary on those three words, just like those other two essays, all of this emphasizes an important point: if someone hasn't thought about what might happen if she/he ignores all rules, that person probably is better off simply following the rules. -- llywrch (talk) 00:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

A quote from Jimbo that may clarify things.

From the Sydney Morning Herald. [1]:

If I see [a contributor] is publishing shit, maybe by swearing or not making sense, I warn him ...the second time he turns on, I block him.

– Jimmy Wales, May 2005^[1]

Gasp! How could he do that? Could it be because he's ignoring the rules when they hurt Wikipedia? How can Jimbo just "steamroll" over anybody like that? Wikipedia is about Collectivism The Community.™ Jimbo must obey The Community!™ If The Community™ decides something, The Community™ should be listened to and before taking such bold action, he should first and always consult The Community.™

People's views are subjective, but apparently some are more subjective than others. Wouldn't that, therefore, imply the existence of "objectivity" and "critical thinking," and thus a possible basis for "steamrolling" by individual editors who know what they're doing and whose efforts are hindered by The Community™?

I mean, if The Community™ is always right, how could there even possibly ever be a rule which "prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia"? If such a rule even theoretically existed, the Community™ will fix it.

Keep in mind, I acknowledge that "consensus" is a good thing and some degree of compromising -- possibly even some small amount of false compromising is necessary. And I agree consensus is inescapable, but only in the long-run. The "long-run" is ambiguous. It could be a matter of weeks. It could be years or decades or centuries. Thus, what The Community™ says now does not necessarily hold any water, particularly if it isn't backed by reason and is objectively harming Wikipedia.

The Community™ is not consensus and past consensus and current consensus should be totally ignored if it's harmful, because "consensus" is not only spatially global (across all pages), it is temporally global (throughout all time).

The act of ignoring the rules is not a violation of consensus, but a bold, radical step towards building consensus through breaking through a bureaucracy and\or democracy in violation of WP:NOT, in the same sense that Gandhi making salt and violating Indian law (under the British Empire) built consensus for an independent India.

Keep in mind: I'm not suggesting that any particular examples apply here, like "If I get WP:IAR clarified, suddenly I'll have a justification to engage in massive edit-warring, evil laughter!" I'm saying that, as a matter of principle, if a large number of users form a democratic bureaucracy, calling themselves The Community ™ and claiming to support "policy," such people and the policy pages they own should be ignored if they harm Wikipedia -- as an act towards building a future, rational consensus.

How is this interpretation unreasonable? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 06:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

You know, the community supports actions such as those described by Jimbo. There's no need to obtain consensus each time; it's understood. We block people who are blatantly disruptive. He's not even breaking a rule to do that.

Nobody is saying that we're going to let the rule of mob run roughshod over all our principles. Where is this mob? The community of Wikipedians is, by and large, and certainly in the long run, rational, thoughtful, objective and intelligent.

We actually do alright. We don't form bizarre local consensuses for asinine anti-Wikipedia activities, and if we do, then someone boldly ignores a rule to get people's attention, and then we talk it over and we make it better. That's all anybody is supporting here. That's the wiki process. We decide to do stuff, and then we do it. If someone points out that stuff is stupid, and if they manage to get themselves heard, then we fix it. If they fail to make the point, someone else makes it later.

IAR, at its best, prevents people from freaking out at the point where someone ignores a rule and starts the conversation going. It's difficult to keep people from freaking out at that point, and sometimes we have to wait for some dust to settle before the good work gets done. There are probably ways to improve this situation by editing policy pages.

By the way, what's with the trademark symbol? Are you scoring points or something? I don't think you're representing my position and that of others fairly and respectfully by doing that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, no one owns this page. Well, maybe the community does... ;) -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Joint workshop

I created Wikipedia:Ignore all rules/Workshop as a joint workshop for people to illustrate and discuss changes to the IAR policy without churning the main policy page itself. Hopefully this will help everybody meet in agreement! --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 09:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, I took the initial wikicode for that workshop subpage from the last revision before the current protection; I don't mean that to endorse any particular point of view! :-) Please leave the "joint workshop" notice at the top and the commented-out categories at the bottom when fiddling with the rest of the page, obviously (the workshop isn't policy itself, so shouldn't be in the policy category, etc). --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 10:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, okay, Grey Knight, lol. Also, based on some of the remarks here, I made some substantial changes to WP:WIARRM. Outside opinions are welcome! ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 11:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that setting up a workshop sort of misses the point :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

My understanding was that some users wanted no changes to the policy page without prior agreement, and that others wanted to make changes to show what they wanted agreement on. This way, the proposed changes can be safely put in, and other users can look at it, fiddle with it, and discuss it at leisure, without the understandable opinion coming in to revert it back to the last stable point. I think this is a decent compromise that allows us to edit the page in a WikiWay while still keeping a stable policy in place until some result should come out of the workshop (at which point the policy would still be stable, just stable on different content ;-) ). I suppose what I am trying to say is that, since we are using policy pages to make major decisions at all times, we should be careful what version of the WikiWay we use to edit them. (hm, perhaps we should have a policy on how to edit policy ;-o) If I'm still not clear in what I mean, please ask me and I will try to explain again! --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 13:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I dunno, editing pages in the WikiWay doesn't mean only making edits that have already met the approval of everyone else. It also doesn't mean reverting every change that you have even the slightest objection to. The best way to form consensus is for everyone to edit a page, slightly and without steamrolling others, until there's something people agree on. Remember that a revert sends the message "Your contribution was worthless." - Chardish (talk) 20:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Again, Chardish, your little experiment proved nothing other than that an MoS-defying edit performed without explanation or discussion will be reverted. The fact that the change was minor also means that the reversion was minor (and yet, you attempt to hang a great deal of significance on it).

Such a reversion does not mean "your contribution was worthless." It means "I disagree with your edit(s)."

Drastically altering this policy page (in a manner known to lack consensus) to make a point or to play a game (and I'm referring to the subsequent incident) sends the message "The countless hours of discussion invested by numerous editors with different viewpoints, all for the sake of reaching an acceptable compromise, was worthless." —David Levy 22:16, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Guys, there is more than one approach to the WikiWay of editing! Since we're talking about an important policy page here rather than an article, it's beneficial to the functioning of Wikipedia to keep it stable at any given point. Let's stop talking about the past and move on, edit together, and be happy. There's an old saying, "Wikipedia is no big deal" :-) --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 23:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Chardish, I disagree. The example you cite is a very bad example of what you're trying to say. Go to any page in Wikipedia, and introduce an MoS violation, and it will be reverted without much comment by someone who sees something out of line and fixes it. Introducing an MoS violation is a terrible way to test whether a page can be edited. We always use bulleted lists for "See also"; the effect of removing the bullet is to make the page look either broken, or not like a Wikipedia page. I've asked repeatedly whether you'd like to discuss whether your change was an improvement, but rather than discuss it, you continue to use me as an example of someone who reverts every little thing. I am not that kind of editor, I object to being characterized that way, and I defy you to find a constructive edit that I summarily revert rather than trying to work with the person.

If you think that I think your contributions are worthless, then I think you should take it up with me, face-to-face. If I thought your contributions were worthless, I would not have sought dialogue with you. I have sought it, and you have not taken up the offer. Who's being unreasonable in that situation? Did you think your edit was an improvement? If so, say why. If not, why did you make it?

Simply trying to use my revert as an example of what's wrong with IAR is foolish - I support editing the page, just not in content-free sure-to-be-reverted ways. What's the point of that? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Policy mention

Orthogonal to the other discussions presently happening: Personally, I recently discovered foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy, foundation:Access to nonpublic data policy. and foundation:Privacy policy. Per notice on those pages, those policies "may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored" (emphasis mine). That's by directive of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, which owns and operates the Wikipedia web site. (They do not own all the content on said site, but they do have final authority on its control.) In short, legally speaking, the Board trumps IAR. I am thinking this should be mentioned on the IAR page, because I recently saw someone suggesting IAR in a licensing policy discussion, and that is quite simply Not Permitted. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 12:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't think of any situation where ignoring those would "improve" Wikipedia, so I think the existing text actually covers it, in a sense. The clarifications at WP:WIARM and WP:WIARRM might like to take up this point, though (and perhaps the workshoppers too, if they feel it's worth explicating here). IAR is intended to allow us to circumvent our own internal "red tape", not a license to break the law (including any Wikimedia by-laws or suchlikes). We don't undermine the Foundation of Wikimedia for the same reason you don't undermine the foundations of your house! ;-) --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 13:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Ignore all rules, don't ignore the law. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Kim Bruning: That's a purely semantic argument, and not a terribly useful one. The Wikipedia Foundation Policies are not laws (WMF is the legal owner of Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean their words are laws). Even if they were, see my comment below. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 16:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, you might be open to a lawsuit if you violate the privacy policy. Mr.Z-man 18:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Everyone: The thing is, it seems to me that those Foundation Policies are not well-published on Wikipedia. Further, throughout Wikipedia, it is stated repeatedly (in various phrasings) that Wikipedia does not have firm rules (with "rules" being a synonym for "laws", "policies", "practices", etc.). But the Foundation Policies are an exception to that. And as I mentioned, some people are not clear on it. This isn't a case of "using judgement". Unlike every other rule on Wikipedia, WMF Policies are prescriptive (and not descriptive). WMF Policies don't necessarily have to reflect consensus (obviously they should, but that's a separate issue). In short, WMP Policies are different. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 16:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

There is an important distinction to be made here. If the foundation has actually required something, then we have to do it, whether or not we think it will improve the encyclopedia. But we ususally have a more restrictive policy than what the Foundation requires, so IAR may well be appropriate even if we're discussing something the foundation has commented on. -Amarkov moo! 17:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Why does it matter how well published those are? The privacy policy is on the bottom of every page, only checkusers/oversight/steward/OTRS need to be familiar with the non-public data policy, and that is enforced by the Foundation, you couldn't accidentally circumvent it. Most of Resolution:Licensing policy is reflected in WP:NFCC and the rest is fairly irrelevant to the day-to-day workings of the project ("a license which meets the terms of the Definition of Free Cultural Works"). Mr.Z-man 18:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It isn't the Board that trumps IAR in this case, but the law. You can ignore all rules but not the law. If the Board were to pass a resolution which completely violated consensus (or, for that matter, a law), we'd ignore them, and in the next Board election, toss them out.

It is because all enforcement on Wikipedia is carried out by us editors that all our rules have to be underpinned by a consensus to enforce them: if we don't agree with it, we don't enforce it. The Board has no power to enforce its rules aside from our consenting to them, because the Board does not have the staff needed to enforce its rules.

The single exception is their power to change the "rules" in software, which is pretty binding (provided it's technically feasible), or the power to shut the site down altogether. However, if they violated consensus via this means, we would move the complete encyclopedia to a new site, and ignore them more forcefully than ever.

In short, the Board's power over the encyclopedia (and community of editors) that is Wikipedia is solely derived from our consent. This means that they themselves are trumped by the same mechanism that underlies IAR, and no proclamations that they (or you) might make will change that. Meanwhile, the real world -- United States laws and/or acts of God -- can trump us all, whether we've written that into our rules or not. Those forces will happily ignore us.--Father Goose (talk) 21:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) That's a good comment, User:Father Goose. I would hasten to add, though, that one must take especial care before ignoring any of the Foundation's rules to get really high-quality consensus first, even if it looks completely clear-cut to oneself. Hopefully this issue would never come up, of course. We should extend the Foundation every trust, personally I would rather assume I was wrong if I disagreed with them! But, as you say, at the end of the day we could just pack up the whole encyclopedia and clone it if it came to that.

I'd also like to point out that United States law doesn't trump anyone where I live. (humour ;-o)

--_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 22:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting the Board is at all likely to ignore consensus, but legally speaking, they do not derive their power from it. They derive their power from the fact they're the elected Board of Directors of the Wikimedia Foundation, the legal entity which owns and operates the Wikipedia web site and servers. The typical worst-case scenario is, the Board amends the by-laws to disenfranchise us all, and then does whatever they please. Again, unlikely in the extreme, but if it were to happen, our only option would be to vote with our feet and go to some other site. Fortunately, the GFDL means we can easily take the content with us, so it would be a pyrrhic victory for any would-be cabal. Not so fortunately is that it takes a fair amount of money to run a site as big as Wikipedia, so it's no easy as all that. You do have a point about enforcement, especially for wide-reaching issues that can't be handled in software. But still, I am not so sure about IAR and the WMF. The WMF certainly appears to think they can override IAR. Historically, they've been able to do just that with WP:OFFICE. I'm a big believer in not setting people up for unpleasant surprises, and accidentally butting heads with WMF or WP:OFFICE on the grounds that it seems like an excellent time to IAR is, I think, a bit of a potential pit-fall. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and, incidentally, you can invoke IAR in licensing policy discussions: if our licensing policies, as written, have gotten the law wrong (or if they are being misinterpreted by some zealot), that's as appropriate a time to invoke IAR as any other.--Father Goose (talk) 21:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, case in point: People are suggesting IAR on WP:NFC in an unusual case (no copyvio or even "fair use" involved -- WMF had clear title to a copy). If it weren't for the WMF decree that the licensing policy shall not be ignored, I'd be inclined to make the same argument myself. Thoughts? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Er, no, our fair use restrictions are far tighter than what the law requires. The reasons for that being: not every country has fair use laws but primarily, this is supposed to be a free encyclopedia. Mr.Z-man 04:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to say that US law is the exclusive basis of our licensing policy. The reason you cite makes for a good example: if our policy says "it's okay to use this <media>" but the media in question compromises our ability to offer a free encyclopedia, then we should ignore the policy and act in the interest of the encyclopedia. DragonHawk's example may even be a specific case of this: a lot of people were claiming that our policy did allow it, but our counsel has now made it clear that that image is in fact not freely usable.

One of the points illustrated by this is that our rules, or how we interpret them, can be wrong. We always have the right (perhaps even the duty) to question them when they are producing the wrong result for the encyclopedia. And I would assert that is true even when it is a Foundation rule. The Foundation is staffed by humans, like us, and they can get things wrong too. They tend to get the "big picture" stuff right, so we give them a wide berth, but the Foundation rules are not right simply by dint of being Foundation rules; they're right because they're sensible and we agree with them. If a case should arise where they would not produce a sensible result, we would ignore them, and be right to do so.--Father Goose (talk) 09:47, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, most people haven't claimed WP:NFC allows it. There was some initial disagreement because NERIC (the uploader) had tagged the image as GFDL, when NERIC wasn't in a position to grant that license. But most everyone seems to agree the GFDL tag was a mistake (it's since been fixed). All Mike Godwin did was reinforce that the image is not freely licensed. We knew that.  :) The real question is about WP:NFC and foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy. Here Wikipedia has a legal copy of something, and thus has a right to publicly display said copy, but not to make further copies. That runs into those policies. But this is something specifically of interest to the Wikipedia community, which isn't something those policies seem to have foreseen. One could argue that it's an ideal time for IAR -- a case where the rules didn't foresee a situation. But the WMF says the licensing policy Shall Not Be Ignored. Who should we believe?  :) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:45, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not "ignore some rules."

Based on some of the criticisms and remarks here and elsewhere, I made some major changes to WP:WIARRM.

If you read the article, you'll notice that I made the distinction between meek IAR and bold IAR. That seems to be where our disagreement lies. Some folks argue that WP:IAR should be "meek," that it cannot be exercised at any time, that it derives its power from consensus, and that it cannot be used to technically ignore every rule. I, on the other hand, believe that it can be both meek and bold, that it can be exercised at any time by anyone, and that consensus itself is just a rule that can be ignored.

On that last point: When I say, "consensus itself is just a rule that can be ignored," I do not mean that a person can ignore the principle of consensus. A person cannot of their own will attempt to exercise authority over the whole community through force. However, the principle of consensus is not necessarily the same as the policy or "rule." The policy stated at WP:CONSENSUS and the past and current community's understanding of it may be false. If this is true, ignoring the rule, which implies ignoring the past and current community, is a step towards building consensus with the community in the future. That's what boldly ignoring the rules is about. And that's why it is YOU (the individual) should ignore "ALL" rules if they harm Wikipedia, NOT you or The Community ™ should ignore "some" of the rules if you can get away with it. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 16:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

But if I ignore a rule without any agreement, claiming that doing so improves the encyclopedia, I will get blocked. And if I continue to insist that everyone else is wrong and I alone am right, I will be banned and nobody will listen to me. That helps nobody. -Amarkov moo! 22:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, you seem to be arguing that, if a wall is in place that shouldn't be there, then the "right" or "best" thing to do is to put your head down and run against it until you die of head injuries, rather than using some people skills and asking whether someone can help you take the wall down. I don't think we want to take such a stance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I am so glad these discussions are GFDL licensed. _{(1 == 2)}^Until 05:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

"But if I ignore a rule without any agreement, claiming that doing so improves the encyclopedia, I will get blocked," in 99% of the cases, that's true, Amarkov, which is why it's clarified that boldly ignoring the rules should be exercised very, very cautiously. However, it isn't necessarily true. When Gandhi burned public IDs in South Africa and when he made salt in India, some said, "Don't do that, Gandhi! You'll get arrested!" It was pretty likely that it would happen, but it didn't. Sometimes boldly ignoring the rules like that is a good thing and it is vital that people recognize it.

GTBacchus, the "walls" in Wikipedia are only worth keeping if they help Wikipedia stand. If they don't, they should be knocked over and new walls should be put up. On policy, you are a Conservative, a precautionist, who is worried that if we give people the freedom to "break the rules," while at the same time avoiding explicitly clarifying the rules, that it will be bad for Wikipedia. That is a totally self-contradictory position.

People skills are one of many tools that may be used ignoring the rules. It may, in fact, be good for a group of people working together to all boldly ignore the rules. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, I agree with you about taking walls down. What I disagree with is the idea that it's good to do it in the stupidest and least effective way possible. You're simply wrong about my position on policy. You think that I think we're giving and withholding freedoms, which is flatly incorrect. You are currently free to do whatever you want; break any rule, with or without explaining yourself. In some cases, you'll find yourself with a head injury, but what do I care? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, Zenwhat, for about the eleventh time, are you able to provide any concrete evidence that IAR in its current form is causing any kind of harm? I beg you for a concrete example, to prove that there really is a problem and that you're not just blowing hot air here. I dare you. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

GTBacchus, if you agree about knocking down walls, then how can you really make the limitation that you do on WP:IAR and WP:WIARM? WP:IAR means that any policy can be ignored at any time by any person for any reason, but with two simple requirements:

1) It must be good for Wikipedia, actually a good idea. 2) It must have the effect of working towards some kind of future consensus, even if it goes against existing consensus.

Wikipedia policy is about granting and taking away freedoms, because the goal of policy is to give people as much freedom as possible to make good edits and only taking freedom away when they harm the encyclopedia.

Furthermore, there is no necessity to provide "evidence" that a policy may be harmful if the clarification of it makes sense. Lack of clarity in policy, as stated above, and things like loopholes are guaranteed to cause problems, making it absurd to require evidence before supporting policy reform. In some cases, these misunderstandings might be held only be a tiny percentage of users, but that can cause a lot of damage if they're particularly impulsive people like me, if they're good editors that get blocked due to a misunderstanding, or if they're admins. ANY clarification of policy is a GOOD idea, despite any lack of evidence. The evidence might be so small we'll never find it until it's too late. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't make any limitation on WP:IAR and WP:WIARM. The idea that I'm trying to keep those pages from changing is entirely your own invention. I support clarifying IAR (it's why I wrote WIARM), and as soon as I see a good edit made to it, I'll support it. I haven't seen an improvement in some time, but I've got one or two in mind, which I might try soon.

The whole "evidence might be so small we'll never find it until it's too late"... too late for what? What on Earth is supposed to be going wrong? I have no clue what you're worried about. There are no "loopholes" in policy, Zenwhat, because Wikipedia is not a rules game. Those who think that it is eventually find out that they're wrong. There is no such thing as a loophole here. You just talk to people, and you get things done. You can stop thinking like a lawyer. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Should WP:IAR be ignored? A proposal for expansion.

It virtually always is. It is improperly understood as an exception to the rules, rather than the basis for the rules. WP:IAR has an inappropriately Anarchist tone and it's generally understood this way, because it's treated as an exception rather than being identified as the underlying principles which make Wikipedia policy hold weight. In this regard, when it is invoked, one is not "ignoring" the rules. One is ignoring a consensus that violates the rules. The blatant contradiction in the language of WP:IAR is demonstrated when one asks a simple question: "Should WP:IAR be ignored?" Generally, it is viewed as something harmful to the community when invoked -- which doesn't make sense, if it's a policy -- and this problem stems from the poor language. After all, it's just a single sentence. There is not a single policy on Wikipedia with such a complete lack of justification and clarity.

As a result, I propose expanding WP:IAR with the following text:

The core principle of Wikipedia is that it is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Thus, policy and the will of the community holds no inherently greater authority than the will of the individual user. If a policy or guideline is accepted democratically, but violates the core principle of Wikipedia, it should be ignored. The ability to make constructive edits to Wikipedia is a right, not a privilege, but that right comes [with the responsibility to not infringe on the same right by other editors, and thus uphold WP:policy, which includes the duty to oppose policies which hurt Wikipedia.

Zenwhat (talk) 23:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

What is your basis for calling the current understanding and wording of IAR "improper", "inappropriate", etc.? IAR has been around forever; according to the project's founder, it was the first rule. The above seems more like your own personal statement on what you want IAR to mean. I particularly find your linking of WP:NOT#CENSOR as "policy" suspect. You may want to read Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means if you're having trouble understanding IAR. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 06:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't support this. IAR was made to help people feel less anxious about editing, and to point out there will always be some situations we didn't anticipate, where a legitimate reason can sometimes justify ignoring a rule. -- Ned Scott 06:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:IAR can be read in several ways and in several different contexts. The trick is that there is (supposed to be) only a small subset of contexts where IAR is not self contradictory, and does not contradict other wikipedia guidance. Odds are good that once you find the interpretation of IAR that is not contradictory, you will know that you finally understand how wikipedia works, to some extent. Conversely, if IAR seems self-contradictory, then perhaps you don't understand the system yet. O:-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 06:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

(Reply to Zenwhat) I'd certainly have to agree about the "complete lack of justification and clarity", because you've managed to get it pretty much backwards: we ignore the rules when there is a consensus to do so. The actual mechanism for this is indirect: we only enforce the rules when there is a consensus to do so. At all other times, they truly can be ignored. If there's a clear consensus that a rule isn't right, it either gets rejected or rewritten until it does reflect consensus. And even if a rule is supported in general, if a case crops up where no one feels that enforcing the rule would produce a good result, sure enough, it goes ignored.--Father Goose (talk) 08:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

What would be wrong with simply naming it, "The Spirit of the Rules"? And by that, I mean, "A free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Not this religious nonsense. I mean, why should the clarification of "What WP:IAR means" be an essay fork, rather than included in the actual article? Can't we please include the information? In the absence of the establishment of strong editors' rights, Wikipedia will continue to be run as an authoritarian, bureaucratic collective and not like a liberal democracy. Zenwhat (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy, liberal or otherwise, so that's okay. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

When people start edit warring over the wording of IAR or making proposals to make the wording "clearer", I get tempted to replace all the content with random gibberish. Seriously, the wording doesn't matter. It means that you improve the encyclopedia. The rules are there so that people know how to improve, what not to do, and so we can show them to people who do things that aren't improvements. In occasional cases the rules don't apply correctly. IAR is here so that people will actually do the correct thing and improve the encyclopedia and not just blindly enforce the rules or grope around in the dark when there is a lack of a rule. IAR is not a rule that needs to be well explained so it can be correctly applied. If you need to explain how you are invoking IAR and how your action conforms to the policy, you are probably doing it all wrong. Mr.Z-man 20:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

DragonHawk: Wikipedia is not a democracy is used to justify Wikipedia's bureaucratic collectivism. Wikipedia is in practice a chaotic democracy where the majority view is defended with violence, users cannot invoke rights to defend themselves, and in ArbCom decisions, the burden of proof is not assumed to be on the accuser, so they're free to say, "Let's just block them both and call it a day."

Mr.Z-man: If users are edit-warring over the lack of clarity surrounding any policy, it should be clarified. If what I said above is false, Mr.Z-man, what in your opinion is the reason WP:IAR exists? You suggested we replace it with random gibberish -- that would be vandalism. Are you a vandal? Your statement "The rules are there so that people know how to improve, what not to do, and so we can show them to people who do things that aren't improvements" is a demonstration of bureaucratic collectivism. To word that same idea into law: "The laws are there so that people know how to function as a successful citizen, what not to do, and so we can show them how to be a productive, successful citizen without harming others." This is exactly how Chinese law itself functions and it's absurd -- demonstratably absurd in their decision to block Wikipedia.

My main point: The wording of a policy determines its meaning, not just the idea behind it. You falsely assume that everybody has the same idea as to what WP:IAR means. Some see it as the "spirit behind the rules," that always applies, others see as a "frequent exception," while a lot of people see it as a "rare" exception. There's probably also a very tiny minority that oppose WP:IAR. With the inclusionist vs. deletionist debate, your assumption is clearly not the case and it's not simply because of bad faith. The principles behind WP:IAR are just as common sense as WP:CONSENSUS, yet WP:CONSENSUS has such an abundant degree of clarification. It is also true that if you have to explain how you're interpreting WP:CONSENSUS, you're probably a troll. This is why the proper interpretation should be made explicit through clarification of all policies. Zenwhat (talk) 23:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Caught you, you're cherry-picking. ;-) Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy either! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 02:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I just want to say that I do agree with Zenwhat's overall point here -- that the meaning of IAR, as presently worded, is unclear, and we have only ourselves to blame for that.--Father Goose (talk) 04:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

"Blame" implies that something is wrong. I'm not sure it's bad that IAR is unclear to those who don't get it. If someone doesn't understand IAR, it's because they're caught up in thinking that Wikipedia is a rules-game. We can't break them out of that pattern by explaining the rule under which it's made clear that Wikipedia isn't a rules-game. The solution isn't to make more rule-text about it; it's to refuse to make more rule-text and try to shock people into understanding that that's exactly the point. Clarifying IAR too much might undermine it, and make it truly self-contradictory. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:18, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a difference between "more rule-text" and just doing a better job of explaining the rule -- more specifically, the idea behind it. Given that there is quite a bit of agreement about what that idea is among those who "get it", I find it extraordinary how much opposition there has been to trying to explain it better. Sometimes I hear the argument "that's what WIARM is for", but if one agrees with both IAR and WIARM, insisting that the two remain on separate pages is neurotic and irrational.--Father Goose (talk) 00:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

"neurotic and irrational" seems a bit strong. I think the reason people want IAR alone, by itself, is that the idea stands by itself to those who get it. Any attempt to clarify it with more words is, it can be argued, missing the point. Perhaps that is more of an editorial subtlety than anything else. And by the the same token, I don't see why you consider linking to WIARM so unacceptable. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I chose strong words. I think we're hiding behind the claim that it is "missing the point" to try to explain it when what we really should say is that we haven't done a good job of explaining it. Even I once claimed something like that, but I was wrong. IAR is not a koan. If we have a rule, especially one as fundamental as IAR, we should try to make its meaning clear. But instead of everyone on this page working together to craft a good explanation of IAR, we've having a months-long fight over whether it's possible (or permissible?) to explain it. Bull. If we agree upon IAR's meaning -- and I think most of us here do -- we can explain it. Why are we warring instead? Yes, our behavior is irrational.--Father Goose (talk) 05:07, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't it a koan, or something more or less akin to that? I think it is. I think that's why people are so insistent in keeping it short, succinct, and somewhat enigmatic. It's good that IAR presents a problem to those who approach Wikipedia as a system of formal rules. Breaking someone out of that mindset can be difficult, and including more explanatory text tends to reinforce the idea that this is yet another rule in the rule-set, just a weird (and possibly technical) one. It isn't that - it's an arrow pointing out of the "technical rules" paradigm. It has to clearly not belong to any ordinary rule-set. It should fail to make sense if approached that way. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Why would this be superior to just saying (along with other things), "Wikipedia is not a system of formal rules"? IAR a koan because we've made it a koan, but I don't see why it has to be one. We've gotten used to it being cryptic, and now assume that it can only be expressed in a cryptic way because we've always expressed it in a cryptic way. It's like IAR is the visible part of an iceberg that explains that Wikipedia is not a system of formal rules, but we're insisting that only the tip of the iceberg is the iceberg, and that the iceberg can only be perceived by staring at the tip.

It's remarkable that I haven't seen a lot of disagreement amongst the most active editors on this page about just what IAR means -- I've seen some disagreement about nuances, and a lot of disagreement about how to phrase it, but a lot of unity amongst the warring regulars about what the actual meaning is. If it is true that most of us here understand it in the same way, why can't we explain it to others? If WIARM is that explanation, or a good start anyway, why is it sacrilege to put the explanation on the same page as the rule?

Really, I think we all went nuts at some point here.--Father Goose (talk) 10:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

You may be right. I'm not sure I see what harm is being done by the current situation. Is it that people are sometimes confused? I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. I don't think WP:WIARM is difficult to find, or that people stay confused for very long. What's the necessity to merge that content to this page? -GTBacchus^(talk) 10:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the point about the clarity of IAR is not without merit. Some people don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around idea. However, the very simplicity of IAR is also a desired feature; those who can understand it in fullness find it to be supremely useful in its clarity. I don't think we should sacrifice that. Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means is provided to address this. Perhaps it should be made more prominent on the page. Would people be opposed to moving it up above the "See also" line, in a paragraph after the current, with wording like, "If you are unsure how to interpret the above, see What "Ignore all rules" means."? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Father Goose, one thing that occurred to me: I disagreed with you above, but after looking at your comments again, I think we're in agreement.

When I said consensus, I meant localized consensus that doesn't represent the global consensus of the community, and is this a temporary phenomenon that will be (hopefully) eliminated. If established global consensus is itself wrong, then that's where it's Jimbo's job to WP:IAR. Any individual can break the rules in that case too, but it probably won't achieve much. Overall, though, yes, you're right that you can't go against established, global consensus and WP:IAR isn't about going against that.

Kim: Wikipedia is a bureaucracy.

Oh, and one more thing to reiterate: One of the main things I'm suggesting is that we just simply move Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means into WP:IAR. I see that somebody added the text, "If this is unclear, see Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means" but then, why not just have it be in WP:IAR?

Also, Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means is self-contradictory. The tag at the top says "This page is not a policy or guideline itself;" but it's in category, "Wikipedia policies and guidelines." Zenwhat (talk) 17:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Bottom line (and, ironically, the spirit of this policy): if you find yourself worrying about Wikipedia's policies (like you are doing), stop and relax. Focus on writing articles, that's why you're here. Policies come, go, and change as the encyclopedia grows. End of story. Also, if you think Wikipedia is a bureaucracy, you're going about Wikipedia wrong. Rockstar (^T/_C) 19:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Rockstar915 is right. One can approach Wikipedia as a bureaucracy, and one will be led into certain frustrations, for example with IAR, but one needn't approach it that way, and the best practice is not to approach it that way.

I really can't see what harm is being done that makes it imperative that we spell out precisely what IAR means, in clear detail, on this page, with some kind of urgency. What makes it imperative that a page like IAR or WIARM not contradict itself? Why the need for "clearly defined areas of doubt and uncertainly"? Wikipedia is working just fine with IAR as it is. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, in response to your original post, you say: "The blatant contradiction in the language of WP:IAR is demonstrated when one asks a simple question: "Should WP:IAR be ignored?"" I would reply that there is no contradiction, and that of course IAR may be ignored. "Should" is rather prescriptive language.

The policy is only contradictory if you believe that Wikipedia runs on a system of formal rules. It doesn't.

Additionally, "Generally, it is viewed as something harmful to the community when invoked", is an unsupported statement, with which I would take issue. I've seen many more uncontroversial and supported invocations of it than contentious ones. Much more numerous are the instances when we work in its spirit without "invoking" anything. (What have invocations got to do with writing an encyclopedia, anyway?) The uncontroversial applications of IAR don't make waves, so you might not notice them. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people do, however, believe Wikipedia works on a set of rules and that's the reason for the clarification. The guaranteed potential of people to misunderstand policy is the reason why every policy besides this one has clarification. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

So, if a lot of people are in error about how Wikipedia works, we should capitulate to that error? A lot of people believe Wikipedia works on a set of rules and that's the reason for IAR. Encouraging that belief is precisely not the point. That's more succinct than I'd managed to put it yet; thank you. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Capitulation would be for us to all start committing the error ourselves, or change IAR to embody the error (which of course would destroy IAR). Zenwhat is correct in saying that if a lot of people don't understand how IAR works (or what it "means"), we should at least make an attempt to explain it better.

To use myself as an example, it's taken me more than two years of working on Wikipedia to really understand what place the rules have here. That "place" was first established by IAR ("the first rule"), and since that time, most the dynamics that go along with its spirit have been discovered. But, for some reason, we refuse to document those discoveries; we refuse to say, "All right, this was the original idea. The idea hasn't changed, but we've figured out how to explain it better."

IAR is the root principle that governs the purpose and scope of all of Wikipedia's rules. It started out as an incomplete and indirect phrasing of that root principle, and in its current formulation is still quite incomplete and indirect.

If somehow this edit war didn't exist and we wanted to explain from scratch "what the heck the rules are for", then the meaning of IAR, and the role of Wikipedia's rules in general, would be far easier for people to understand.

This situation is really frustrating.--Father Goose (talk) 04:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I still don't see what's wrong with the current situation, or why it's a bad thing that it takes some people a while to understand how Wikipedia runs. We do explain it better, at WP:WIARM, which is (er... was) the only other page linked in the text of this one. What's so bad about taking a couple of years to really understand it? -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Work in the wikipedia project namespace is confounded by people who are trying to play wiki-nomic. :-P Starting from scratch and cleaning up the wikipedia guidance outside wikipedia (on wikibooks, for instance) might not be a bad idea. --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Father Goose: You say, in part, that "it's taken me more than two years of working on Wikipedia to really understand what place the rules have here ... we refuse to document those discoveries". I'm curious about that one. Do you mean to say you see things not well covered in existing pages like WP:WIARM or WP:SR? If so, what is stopping you from improving those pages? You seem to be in the ideal position to do so. If, on the other hand, your objection is really just to the editorial separation of WP:IAR and WP:WIARM, please say so. That point's not without merit, but it really doesn't have anything to do with learning curve. (If people can't find the WIARM link on such a brief page, there's not much we can do to help them.) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 20:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat: Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy is structured incorrectly to be able to function in an online environment. Any such structure is doomed to failure. As wikipedia still exists, and has existed for ~7 years, we can infer that wikipedia cannot possibly be a bureaucracy.

Next to that I asked a consultancy firm to do a quick analysis of wikipedia's structure. This was not an as thorough analysis as normal, but they suggested that wikipedia had mostly a "clan structure" (what we jokingly call "cabals" ;-) ). They did discover a small growing percentage of bureaucracy, which they strongly advised against (for reasons I already mentioned). They were somewhat surprised that wikipedia did not have more elements of adhocracy, although this may be due to the small sample size used in that particular analysis.

They did recommend we try to shift the wikipedia structure more towards adhocracy. I suppose IAR does support that somewhat since it helps enforce "low standardization of procedures".

--Kim Bruning (talk) 16:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

GTBacchus, it's clarification, not capitulation. People who misunderstand Wikipedia policy are not (paraphrase) "enemies of Wikipedia who should not be appeased." They are good-faith editors who simply don't understand why what their interpretation is wrong. Clarification can help address this.

Kim: Wikipedia is what could be called a "chaotic bureaucracy." This is a statement of fact derived from experience, not a statement of principle or policy. It's a bureaucracy but one from which authority is intended to be derived, not from users' bureaucratic status, but from the merit supporting their actions (hence WP:IAR). For this reason, "laws" are used, but they are not strictly adhered to. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, on the other hand, is not a statement of fact, it's a statement of policy and of principle. My point was that, in practice, Wikipedia is seen, treated, and run as a bureaucracy (see WP:Wikilawyering) and this seems to stem from people misunderstanding what WP:IAR means. As an example, in the ArbCom case involving Adam Cuerden [2], I laid out my opinion. In my closing argument (oh know, just used a legal term!), I invoked WP:IAR. Ironically, R. Baley who agreed with me said, "Would have left out 'per IAR' myself, but otherwise endorse."

Now, why should he say that? It seems to be reflective of a common misconception that WP:IAR invokes Anarchy, that it's dangerous to invoke in ArbCom or as a defense of one's actions, so it's rarely used and I'm not aware of any cases where it's been successful (although I'm a n00b, so there are probably several I don't know about). This is substantiated, however, because in Adam's case, it seems appropriate, but out of the dozens of people who defended him, I was the only one to invoke WP:IAR. Everybody else just invoked policy. If one looks over ArbCom decisions and various disputes, it's easy to find evidence that people invoke policy more than ignore all rules. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, what were you paraphrasing, when you said above "enemies of Wikipedia who should not be appeased"? Was it something I said? I ask because I would not so much as imply such a thing, and I hope that you didn't get that idea from anything I said. I really don't think about Wikipedia in terms of "enemies", and honestly have no idea what you mean there. I'm fully in favor of helping people understand this policy - that's why I wrote WP:WIARM. Now... can you explain just what the problem is with having IAR as a one-sentence policy and WIARM as an explanation? -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Appeasement, defeatism, etc, are synonyms for capitulation. Hence, your statements about how clarifying WP:IAR would be to "capitulate" reminded me of this guy. If you assume good faith, using a word like that seems inappropriate in a policy discussion. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, ok... except that I am assuming good faith (it hadn't remotely occurred to me to think otherwise), and I don't think that anybody here is an "enemy" of Wikipedia. I can quite easily "give in" to someone who isn't my "enemy" - even more easily to an idea. That language is not what I was after, so I'm sorry if my word choice gave you the wrong idea. We're all friends here.

If someone mistakenly (in good faith) believes that Wikipedia is a formal rule-based structure, and if we try to turn IAR into something more formal and rule-ish and spelled out in terms of clear DOs and DO NOTs, then we're capitulating, not to a person, but to the idea that we have to be a rules-game. We're better off resisting that idea, and working to help people become more comfortable with a non rules-based system.

By the way, I'd appreciate if you don't compare me to any other mass-murderers, if you can conveniently avoid it. Thanks in advance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Bush != Hitler. Ergo, Bush analogies != Godwin's law. The point isn't to turn WP:IAR into a more formal "rule," but just to explain why it exists. It can't just be like this black hole of a policy, where it's like, "I know there's other policies, but if you think they suck, just ignore them, mmkay?" Because that is so absurdly ambiguous that people have no idea what on earth it means. So, you end up with two people:

• Users who think they should be allowed to blatantly violate policy, based on WP:IAR (rarely, if ever works -- they're the minority)
• Users who can't think of any particular example when WP:IAR should apply (the overwhelming majority).

I'm saying we should rectify that -- not by modifying the rule, WP:IAR, by simply by clarifying what it means, why it exists, how it could theoretically be applied, how it's been successfully applied in the past, and so on. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say Bush was the same as Hitler, nor did I mention Godwin's law. I asked if you would please refrain from comparing me to any mass murderers, and I think I asked it politely. Prejudicial comparisons are seldom helpful, Godwin or no Godwin.

So you say we should explain the role of IAR, and thus clarify it. I say we're already doing that with WP:WIARM, which is not at all hard to find. In a worst case scenario, if someone can't find it, they eventually ask a question and someone points them to it. What's wrong with that? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

"That's just an essay". Just like these and these. Why discussing matters with Wikipedians, how often do you come across users who have actually read through that library of non-policy?

I retract my immature Bush analogy and instead put forth the following dilemma:

• If it is good for Wikipedians to be aware of the justification for WP:IAR
  • Then WP:WIARM belongs in WP:IAR because far more people will read it
• If it is not good for Wikipedians to be aware of the justification for WP:IAR
  • Then WP:WIARM serves absolutely no purpose.

Lastly, GTBacchus, I looked up at your claim above... After I noted the self-contradiction of WP:WIARM being in both Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines and Category:Essays, you said, "The policy is only contradictory if you believe that Wikipedia runs on a system of formal rules."

It's clearly confusing as hell, though, if we have the appearance of formal rules while having Ignore all rules as a policy which doesn't have any clarification, and the clarification page itself violates the apparent formal rules! It's true: WP:WIARM could contain gibberish and it would just as well prove the point. Stating, however, that such intentional confusion does not cause harm seems spurious.

Furthermore, I have an idea: Why don't we start a straw poll, asking Wikipedia editors whether they believe Wikipedia runs on a system of formal rules? I don't think you'll find 99% of editors saying, "No," or even anything close to that. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I would be delighted with the poll you suggest; I think that a lot more Wikipedians than you imagine "get" IAR. As for whether the current state of the policy causes harm, I'd like to see evidence for that. Clearly I don't find my position to be spurious, or I wouldn't hold it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Another reply to the above: from what I've seen, people don't take the "just an essay" attitude with WP:WIARM. People who are pointed to it just don't tend to respond that way. I'm open to seeing evidence to the contrary. Still nobody has demonstrated a shred of evidence that IAR's current state is causing any actual harm. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia, is a bunch of coded information on a virtual world called the internet. Wikipedia is what you make of it but really, Wikipedia is nothing. If Wikipedia is anything, it is to make life easier, rather than a reason to bicker about the rules of this nonexistant thing. No one is caused harm by a ghost, a floating book of life.

Maybe, all of this has outgrown itself.

BoshalladayNS (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The Anti-IAR Cabal.

GTBacchus made this note on my talkpage. [3] So, I thought I'd prove my point by digging up some stats. I wasn't talking about GTBacchus in particular, or maybe I was and if I was, then I was being an idiot.

In any case, there is a cluster here. Out out the last 500 edits:

Those statistics were made by hand. If any of them are off by one or two, let me know and I'll fix it. Anybody who knows how to use scripts or bots, please double-check them.

Now, a fair amount of those are vandals, several are bots, and several just made copy-edits. But as a basic measure of how this page is being run, consider from the fact above: Out of the last 500 edits to WP:IAR, a little under 1/3 of all edits were made by David Levy, Rockstar915, Lubaf, and Newbyguesses. Even though these are just four people, their wishy-washy opinion "ignore all rules doesn't mean you can REALLY ignore all rules," dominates this article. People come by every now and then and make edits to fix that and, when they do somebody, typically David, reverts them. GTBacchus is just a small part of this group, but he is still a part of this group. Saying, "I've only edited this article 13 times," isn't really much of a defense, because this article isn't edit that often. The last 500 edits have been over the course of 6 months. Editing this article 13 times over the course of several years is substantial -- it's that it's been a "cold edit war" rather than a hot one. But winning a successful edit-war of attrition, a "cold" edit-war, over a long period of time is not consensus. If you think is good for Wikipedia, regardless, I encourage you to completely ignore WP:CONSENSUS and to ignore me too. If you're right and I'm wrong, then I have no authority to complain about any "consensus." That's the point.

I'm currently facing this same kind of problem at WP:There is no credential policy. I posted the page in WP:VPP, plenty of people apparently read it, a few made copy-edits, but none of them were that interested enough to help defend it or note anything on the talkpage. Then, I get a tiny swarm of users, mostly Rogue Penguin, willing to edit war without discussing their edits, and I'm supposed to just appease them, according to a rigid 3RR and false consensus. See the discussion, too: Wikipedia talk:Disruptive editing#Blocking consensus. It's also the reason for expert rebellion. All you need to stop one rational editor is a few conspiracy theorist nuts willing to edit-war. Editors are free to be totally unreasonable, provided that they can form clusters of edit-warriors that create the illusion of consensus. To deal with this, these individual editors have to run to RFC, the noticeboards, admins, etc., and shout, "Help meeeeeee!! Save meeeeee!! These people are being unreeeeeeeasonable!!!!" and chances are, unless you can gather a cluster to support you (like the current "pro-science" and "anti-religion" cluster, i.e. Adam Cuerden, that's actually doing a very good job fighting off the religious and conspiracy nuts, while at the same time often going too far), then chances are you will not be successful. So, editing Wikipedia ultimately is not this hippie communistic "we all just get together and sing kumbaya and talk things out, dude, and somehow, it all just cosmically works out" On the contrary, it's more like living in the inner-city with a bunch of urban gangs all competing for spots to place graffiti. One guy walks up to a wall with a can of spraypaint in order to paint the Mona Lisa, and he gets jumped either by The Crips or The Bloods. (See East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry) And everybody has to join one of these two gangs, apparently.

This is why WP:IAR exists, ultimately. It's a fail-safe against bad policy. Policy Man's foot slips off the accelerator and his head is about to slam into a wall, but -- whoop -- IAR fortunately kicks in, the machine stops, and policy man's head remains intact. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 14:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no cabal. I am not sure the point you are trying to make. I don't see any gangs, and if you think of Wikipedia as a battleground then you will likely fail at collaborative editing. _{(1 == 2)}^Until 15:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, I don't understand why you continue to ignore useful advice about how to deal with content disputes. You claim that you're forced to IAR and edit-war, but you refuse to even try basic dispute resolution. If you engaged in good editing and dispute-resolution practices, you'd have no problems at Wikipedia, but apparently you prefer to create problems and then complain about them. It is more fun to feel like a martyr than to edit cooperatively? All you've got to do is try, but you seem unwilling to do that. If someone says you might have to explain yourself to other people, you come here and whine for thousands of words that some "cabal" or "Community 'TM'" is oppressing you. That's not a very productive approach to Wikipedia.

By the way, it's nonsense for you to tell me I'm engaged in a cold edit war when, of my 13 edits over the last two-and-a-half years, none of them were reverts of attempted new versions, and a substantial number of them were attempts to help integrate bold changes into the page. I'm one of the most constant supporters of innovation at this page, and I get accused of trying to keep it static. What utter hogwash. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hogwash, that was the word I was looking for. What a load of utter hogwash. _{(1 == 2)}^Until 16:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Both are appeals to ridicule. Gasping and saying, "Oh my lord, what poppycock! What atrocious hogwash! What absurdity! Why, never in my life!" doesn't actually further the discussion. It just flatly states that you disagree with me without adding any support, which doesn't in any way work towards consensus. If I'm wrong, there is an objective way we can settle this: Dig through the recent edit history of the above users and their corresponding remarks on the talkpage, and we could very easily make a list of how many users support expanding IAR or merging it with WIARM, and how many users insist on keeping it as a single sentence. Also, after this is done, we could notify each user and ask them to confirm if their name in the list is correct. Good idea? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Both GT and I made valid points in our comments beyond our calling it hogwash. What you are proposing is basically an opinion poll, except it is created out of old comments created in a variety of contexts followed by confirming with the original posters. That sounds like a very round about way of determining the current consensus. Why not just propose that the two be merged here? I doubt it will be accepted, but that is generally how one proposes something. If you want more people to see it then make a post a WP:VPP drawing attention to the discussion here. But I don't think you can accurately judge the current consensus by rehashing old opinions, we need new opinions. _{(1 == 2)}^Until 17:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, speaking of advancing the discussion, have you got any idea how many substantive points of ours you've failed to respond to? It seems you'd rather pitch a fit about how some "cabal" is controlling IAR than actually work to improve it. I'm standing here saying, "let's improve IAR; let's talk about improvements," but you're more interested in proving that I'm part of a sinister plot. How does that advance the discussion?

Let's talk about IAR. Let's improve it. Are you in? Let's edit, and let's do it mindfully and effectively. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

"Old comments"? So, let me get this straight: Only the handful people watching this page day in and day out, and reverting -- they're the only ones that are relevant, I take it? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC) GT, there's likely some stuff in there, yeah -- I don't respond to everything, just the most poignant stuff. But if there's anything important you think I missed or ignored, enumerate it and I'll respond to each point one at a time. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:58, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

More important than any of that is this: are you willing to work collaboratively? What do you want, for IAR to be clarified? Let's talk about that, not about non-existent cabals.

What edit would you like to make to WP:IAR to clarify the policy? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, there are two kinds of people in these kinds of situations: those who complain about problems, and those who provide solutions to them. You have fallen consistently into the first group, and show no signs of budging. Not only do you constantly assume bad faith, but your tireless ad hominems are really starting to push people's buttons. If I were you, I would stop trying to accuse people of having "wishy-washy" opinions of IAR or of attempting to own the page and actually a) identify the problem (if there even is one), b) propose solutions to the problem, and c) stop with this immature "everyone is attacking me, there is a cabal, I'm right and you're wrong" whining. You write like you're older than a twelve year old, so start acting like it. Rockstar (^T/_C) 18:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I've offered a solution: Please see the section above, starting with, "If I'm wrong, there is an objective way we can settle this..." I assume you are interested in building consensus, therefore this proposal should be acceptable. If not, state your objection to it. I wasn't even pushing the whole cabal issue, but then GTBacchus appeared on my talkpage, whipping out 13 diffs in my face and accusing me of making false accusations. I never even directly brought out the WP:OWN policy, but just said that he and others don't like anybody making changes to it, and it's true, because even tiny changes like an italics here or there, is reverted by the same people who object to the most trivial of changes. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, Zenwhat... you have accused me of trying to keep this page from changing, have you not? ("GTBacchus, if you agree about knocking down walls, then how can you really make the limitation that you do on WP:IAR and WP:WIARM?") Have I tried to keep this page from changing? None of my edits to the page have been in that direction, so what are your grounds for saying that I try to keep this page from changing? I've presented my evidence; what's yours? What limitation have I ever made on IAR? Name one. Or, even better, let's talk about what edit you would like to make to the page. Got one in mind, or are you just here to play victim?That was written in frustration earlier and wasn't civil. I apologize, and retract it. I'm sorry, Zenwhat, for taking a condescending tone like that. I'll watch myself more closely. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC) -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

No, wait, I got it... you want to merge IAR and WIARM, and you want to use the edit history to gauge support for that idea. I'm all for it. Are you willing to undertake the analysis? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

But please not by hand, it sounds painful, try using something like grep. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Adressed to user:Zenwhat-Please do not continue to mis-characterize editors as belonging to an anti-IAR cabal, or any cabal, as you have done here. That is insulting, inaccurate and unhelpful. The spuriousness of this particular proposition will be evident to any editor who peruses the recent talkpage archives. Perhaps you mis-speak in thrall to strongly held beliefs, or in seeking to inject some liveliness, or humour into discussions, and I can appreciate that, but be aware that intemperateness can easily cause offence, and time be wasted in acrimonious to and fro-ing, which does not add to the 'pedia. Newbyguesses - Talk 00:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Versions

Inspired by Kim Bruning's suggestion that we should have a different variant of this rule every day, I created WP:Ignore all rules/Versions on which we can all put our preferred version. The purpose of this is not to be a workshop for replacing this page, or to be any kind of policy, but rather to record the varying interpretations people have of this rule. —Ashley Y 23:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Great, now we have two "workshops" where we can collaborate. As Kim noted above, these worskshops miss the point of WP:IAR. The whole point of collaborating and WP:BRD: If you think a page (like WP:IAR) is wrong, then fix it!

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:Ignore all rules/Versions is not a workshop. —Ashley Y 01:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, of course you fix pages that are wrong, but sometimes, when a disagreement arises as to what is right or wrong, we use various methods to structure our discussion. These are also ok. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ashley, I took a look and I like your version, actually. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious as to what /Versions will show up. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 07:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Explanation vs Ramification

It seems to me that much of the attempts to explain IAR are really explorations into the ramifications of IAR. IAR is really simple, if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. That is not complicated. What it means is that you can ignore rules when the prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, not sure how much more explanation that needs.

WIARM, and the recent "explanation" added don't really explain what IAR means at all, they just explore what happens when it is used and traditionally legitimate reasons to do so. Just food for thought. _(1 == 2)^Until 17:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Another question for thought is the extent to which "if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it" fails to capture the actual spirit of IAR. The point of IAR is not to follow the rule generally, but ignore them sometimes. The point is to empower users to ignore them at all times. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

What? I don't follow your logic. First off, one should only ignore rules when not doing so would prevent them from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. That is the spirit of the rule. There is nothing in the spirit about how often one should use it. If one ignored rules at all times it would not be in the spirit of IAR, that is just anarchy. IAR is about not following the rules when they prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. I think the one sentence explains the spirit of the rule very well. _(1 == 2)^Until 17:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

IAR is not "don't follow the rules when the hinder you from improving the encyclopedia"; that sentence was never really accurate. IAR is "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business." In other words, ignore all rules. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That version has long since fallen out of favor. If you want to propose its return then propose it, but the spirit of a rule can change as well as the letter of a rule. I think the community wants rules to be ignored for the benefit of the project, not just for the benefit of the individual. _(1 == 2)^Until 17:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"Fallen out of favor" is quite a claim. Could you back it up? I had assumed that this page being inaccurate recently was just a fluke, and because of its excessive brevity. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It is no fluke the current version. It exists because attempts to change it are resisted by the community. The most recent revert to the long established version is supported by me. I think it reflects consensus and that no proposition to change it has gained favor. _(1 == 2)^Until 18:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's time to work towards a compromise, particularly if the policy is being misinterpreted as some claim. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to see evidence that the policy is being interpreted as some claim. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The lazy student analogy

The point of policy documents is to explain our practices in a way that allows new users to read them and learn how our community operates. This page, however, has no context and no explanation. This could be because of several reasons:

1. We don't actually know what it means. In this case, we should figure it out.
2. We know what it means, but we can't figure out how express it. In this case, we don't actually know what it means.
3. We know what it means, and how to express it, but we don't want to. In this case, we're just being lazy and doing a disservice to new users.
4. We know what it means, but we want to express it on an essay page instead of a policy page, so that we don't have to actually commit ourselves to what we write. This is unethical.

I see no reason why this policy page shouldn't express the history, context, and common interpretation of our practice regarding IAR, in the way that our other policy pages describe the principles they cover. In any case, there is no consensus for the present cryptic version of the page, and we need to work towards a compromise version. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You left out:

1. We know what it means, and the content of the policy reflects that. There are other interpretations, but they are just interpretations.

I think that is an opinion held by many. It also does not require an assumption of lazyness. _(1 == 2)^Until 18:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The policy, however, does not give any interpretation of IAR. I'm sure we can find some compromise language to explain these interpretations and which ones have consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

One line's best for this page

This one's worth keeping to one line, nothing more.

That said if anyone does want to "explain" (on a subpage or essay preferably) then try this:

The community endorses this principle [IAR] in two main ways: 1. Users are encouraged to enjoy adding content, not needlessly creating or having to read rules It is not necessary to read the rules before contributing to Wikipedia. Users are able to contribute immediately, and pick up any communal norms as they edit. 2. If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. This was the original formulation of IAR. Rules and policies exist to document norms that the community has agreed upon. No policy can cover all situations, nor can words always capture the intention behind a policy in all cases. If policy wording were applied too literally without exception, it would sometimes harm the project, not help it. So although polices are communally agreed, and should generally be followed, in exceptional cases it may be for the best to use judgement and override them. Editors doing so should sure of their judgement, and be prepared to justify their actions.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with what you have said here. The suggested content is fine for an essay, a new one or one of the existing ones. _(1 == 2)^Until 18:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The original, and still correct, formulation is "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business." The point of IAR is that one should actively ignore all rules (perhaps the name gives it away). — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Still correct? Say who? The community has preferred the current version of that version for some time, so what are you basing this "still correct" theory on? IAR should not be used for ones personal benefit but for the benefit of the project. It is controlled bypassing of the rules to achieve a goal, not anarchy. _(1 == 2)^Until 18:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

IAR cannot be "used" or "invoked". It isn't a rule. It is a fact - that users are encouraged to ignore the written rules and go along with their business. The policy isn't "break the rules if need be". — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The wording about "if you don't like them, ignore them" has tighter limits - a person who is causing harm or problematically editing cannot ignore them, and should not be told they can. See proposed revision to add the spirit of this without the huge loophole. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the one sentence version. The first(original) sentence says that you can ignore rules if they prevent you from benefiting the project, while the addition says you don't need to be benefiting the project as long as you don't harm it. Frankly I think that is a rather fine line, and that if you are ignoring rules you should have a specific benefit to the project in mind, not just to make you feel better. Regardless, I will see what others think ._(1 == 2)^Until 18:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I have decided to revert to the long standing version until the addition has some level of consensus. I do this for the reasons I gave above in my post here of 18:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC). I do not however have any objection to its inclusion in an essay about IAR. _(1 == 2)^Until 19:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

What ignore all rules is not

The primary concern is that people are misinterpreting the short wording. I have not seen any evidence of this, regardless I think it can be fixed by pointing out what Ignore all rules is not. I have started with a few ideas in an essay here: User:Until(1 == 2)/What "Ignore all rules" is not. Let me know what you think, if it gains some acceptance I will move the essay into the Wikipedia: namespace. _(1 == 2)^Until 19:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If your essay represents consensus, we should add some of it to this page. As I pointed above, we shouldn't hide our policies inside essays. Let's be honest about what we think the rule means, rather than claiming "it's obvious". — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hiding? What do you mean? I wrote an essay because it is opinion, not policy. I would not propose it become policy because it is just one interpretation of policy. What I have written expands dramatically on what the policy actually is, and should not be interpreted as policy, thus the essay tag. _(1 == 2)^Until 21:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Until(1 == 2), I agree with your revert here. [4] That classic version about "nervous and depressed." People shouldn't just ignore them like that, so arbitrarily. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

'...and according to Jimbo Wales, it "always has been"'

Is it necessary that this be included? This has been one of our policies for quite a long time, as the rules to consider part of the message box attests; one edit by Jimmy saying the same thing doesn't strike me as particularly important. How would the following wording be?

The following is policy on the English Wikipedia, and was Wikipedia's first rule to consider.

Shortcut: WP:IAR

--Picaroon (t) 20:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Jimbo's opinion is cited in plenty of policy pages, including WP:V, because it is influential and meaningful. The idea of the "always has been" part is the fact that WP:IAR is the core, guiding principle of Wikipedia. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

How about:

This page documents an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It is a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

It is the standard template that all other policies carry. _(1 == 2)^Until 21:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No, because it's not as meaningful, so even though it's a standard of the MoS, it should be ignored. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge WIARM into IAR?

While we may proceed with Zenwhat's suggestion of analyzing the page's history, we can also ask the living what they think, I presume. Let's set up sections where people can explain the best reasons pro and contra merging the explanatory essay into the policy page. The subsections below can be freely editable, and let's try to keep the arguments succinct and orderly, so people can really compare them side-by-side. I'm starting off the list with three brief statements on each side. Please elaborate and support with evidence as appropriate. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Arguments for merging

• Explanatory page is disregarded as "just an essay". (Is this true?)
• Better to have clarification without adding an extra click.
• Will result in better understanding of IAR.

Arguments against merging

• Current version enjoys broad community support. (Is this true?)
• Avoid instruction creep.
• Ain't broke; don't fix.
• It would be self-contradictory; new editors are supposed to be empowered to edit without worrying about reading a lengthy set of rules. [added by David Levy, 21:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)]
• WIARM was written as an essay and puts forth opinions that, while being one set of good ways of interpreting IAR, are not the only interpretation. While an essay does not need wide acceptance among the community, policy does. One is a guide, the other is a rule. [added by _(1 == 2)^Until, 16:20, 29 January 2008 (UTC)]

Regular Commentary

Our policy pages typically give full context and explanation on their topic; this page is an exception in that regard. I don't know if "merge" has the right connotation, but I would fully support expanding this page to include context, explanation, and history of the IAR principle. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

On that line of thinking, the one-sentence form currently in would make an excellent "nutshell" line, wouldn't it? --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 20:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a complete merge is not likely, or particularly helpful considering the advisory nature of the essay. While perhaps some of WIARM can be introduced, I wonder what specific parts? _(1 == 2)^Until 20:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support this suggestion. WIARM isn't perfect for this purpose, but it's a good starting point.--Father Goose (talk) 02:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Empowered to edit

I fully support David Levy's assertion that new editors should be empowered to edit without knowing or reading the rules. But when they do turn to the policy to read it, finding a one-sentence policy won't clarify matters. One of the things that IAR could take from WIARM is the fact that knowing policy isn't a prerequisite to contributing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I support clarifying WP:IAR but oppose a full merge with WP:WIARM because some of it is false. Mostly, WP:WIARM is good, but some stuff in there is bad.

This sentence is the worst:

Rules derive their power to compel not from being written down on a page labelled "guideline" or "policy", but from being a reflection of the shared opinions and practices of a great many editors.

WP:CONSENSUS is often invoked as an appeal to tradition and this is a fallacy, since consensus can always change. To say, "You can't ignore consensus," does not mean, "You cannot attempt to make changes and argue why those changes should be made." "You can't ignore consensus," also does not mean, "The community came to decision X, therefore you must abide by X." What, "You can't ignore consensus," means is that you can't totally ignore other people for the sake of getting your own views put forward and you have to actually collaborate with the community. Unfortunately, a lot of people, possibly even the majority, do not have the view. In other words, this means that it is an unwritten rule that it is "against policy" to be a Wikindividualist, commonly referred to as "Wikithoritarian." This philosophy, however, itself has a long-standing tradition to support it and it is just as valid, if not more valid than wikidemocracy which would have the view that the majoritarian mob is what always defines "consensus." ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The quotation you cite is not an appeal to WP:CONSENSUS as tradition. You must misunderstand what is being asserted there. I agree entirely with what you say is meant by, "You can't ignore consensus," and I don't see how the quoted bit above says otherwise. The statement in WIARM is not a statement of wikidemocracy, mob rule, or anything like it. How are you reading that in there, and what would it take to clarify it?

All the sentence is pointing out is that a "policy" tag or a "guideline" tag isn't some kind of magical charm that turns an otherwise unsupported page into a policy. Thus, it's not the tag that gives the page power, but the fact that the principle behind the page is accepted by the community. If it had the tag, but not the acceptance, then it couldn't be enforced. If it has the acceptance, but not the tag, you still may find yourself having to deal with it. Does that make sense? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I take a position somewhere in between the two of you. If a page is marked "essay" but is really has consensus, it is more difficult to enforce as many people will see the standard "essay" tag saying "It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it." and infer from that that as editors, they are not obliged to follow it. —Ashley Y 00:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Would you agree that the point of this page is largely to get people to stop thinking that way? -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No. I think it's ridiculous to oblige people to follow something that explicitly says that they're not obliged to follow it. The "policy" tag is evidence of consensus, while something saying "not obliged to follow it" is evidence that they're not obliged to follow it. —Ashley Y 01:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I wonder whether you understood my question. When I said "to get people to stop thinking that way", I meant, wouldn't we prefer for people not to think in terms of "obligation" to rules at all, but in terms of improving the encyclopedia within the context of the wiki? Does that question make sense? -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really, I would prefer editors to feel an obligation to follow rules that they personally don't agree with, if those rules have a consensus that they have failed to overturn. —Ashley Y 02:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

My impression at Wikipedia has always been that we try to encourage people to always think in terms of improving the encyclopedia, which implies an obligation to follow rules unless they can come up with something better, in which case it implies an obligation to innovate. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes it implies an obligation to just give it up and do it the way everyone else wants it. —Ashley Y 03:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

How is that different from what I said? If what you come up with is truly better, you'll convince others, right? -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:41, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily, consensus can be wrong, but we have to live with it anyway. —Ashley Y 07:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If consensus is wrong, then it's wrong for a reason. We can keep pressing a good reason until consensus listens. In fact, I'd say it's our duty to oppose a consensus that's wrong. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes that's considered annoying and even disruptive. Often what happens is that there's lots of discussion, possibly a big "!"vote is held, and then people see if there's any kind of consensus. Quite often there's no consensus at all, and it's quite clear that no amount of pressing good reasons from one side will make the other side listen, so we just settle with whatever. —Ashley Y 19:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No. There is no deadline, and our duty is to get it right in the long run. That might involve walking away for a while, but it doesn't involve resigning oneself to something that doesn't actually make sense. If people adopt that attitude, then Wikipedia has failed. Sometimes what's considered "annoying" and even disruptive is what's right. There is no need to "settle"; if there is, please provide an example.

People are only obliged to follow rules insofar as those rules sensibly apply to the given situation. Blind rule-following is not encouraged. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia would be improved if "BC" and "AD", reflecting a Christian point of view, were replaced with the neutral "BCE" and "CE", in accordance with the foundational NPOV policy. However, I can't go around making this change, even on my own, because there's a guideline that says I should leave them alone whichever way they are. If I did, people would get annoyed and complain, and revert me with reference to the guideline, and I might eventually be subject to block. As it happens, there was a proposal to adopt "BCE" and "CE", followed by a huge discussion in which every argument for and against that anyone could think of was hashed out. This was followed up by a "!"vote, which split about even. So the guideline was not changed.

Now I must say, this isn't a big deal for me. My only contribution in fact was to vote in favour, and I didn't even bother to give a reason. It's quite clear to me that it would be an improvement, mind, but it's a small improvement. So I'm perfectly happy to settle for what is wrong, because that's where consensus lies. I have better things to do. Sure, I could do what you suggest and raise the issue again, but it is unlikely to change anything, and if I persisted it would be considered disruptive.

If you simply mean being eventualist about it, that's fine, but in practice settling for what is popular but wrong is not much different from an unbounded wait for consensus to turn. —Ashley Y 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

(Outdenting) Ashley, you would argue that Wikipedia would be improved if we used "BCE" and "CE" instead of "BC" and "AD", which may be true, but it is an opinion. You can't prove that it would be an improvement, so we have to acknowledge that it might or might not. You suggest that our practice is to "settle" for what's popular, but that's not the case. Our practice is to do our best to figure out what it best, and implement it when we can agree what that is. When we can't agree what that is, intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge that the other side might be right.

Nevertheless, if you consider it an improvement to switch to always using "BCE" and "CE" date formatting, then it is your duty to keep arguing for that as a policy, and if you do that, I've got your back 100%. Simply editing articles to reflect your view is not a workable solution, because as you point out, there are still a lot of people who have to be convinced. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Everything is an opinion, really, but some opinions have consensus. Collectively, we figure out the consensus on what is best, and do that. But this often means individuals in the minority, or sometimes insufficient majority, must settle for what is popular. I've settled for the existing eras policy because it's not worth the effort to attempt to change it. It is not my duty to keep arguing for the change, as I have better things to do with my Wikipedia time. —Ashley Y 05:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right about the duty part. I got a little excited there. If we're unable to obtain consensus for the opinion that "BC" and "AD" are inappropriate, then how do you know that it's correct? How do you know better than those who disagree with you? How do you know that our current solution isn't the best? I would claim that you can't know that. Either you trust the Wiki to find the right answers, even in cases where you disagree, or... I don't see how else it could work. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

How do I know anything is correct? We could all agree on something, and it still might be wrong. Consensus and truth are two very different things. I don't trust the Wiki to find the right answers, I trust the Wiki to mostly find the right answers (or else I wouldn't bother with it). Sometimes it's wrong, and sometimes we just have to live with that. —Ashley Y 07:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I just don't see how you can cite the "BC" dispute as an example of the Wiki finding the wrong answer. I don't see how we can identify such cases, except by consensus. Maybe there is such a thing as absolute truth, but we have no access to that, so I don't see the use in appealing to it. Here's an important question - is there any practical difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying. If not, then what are we talking about? Semantics? Religion? Seriously, what are we talking about? If you respond, please answer this question.

I really prefer not going back and forth in an endless "no, my way", "no, my way," which seems to be what we're falling into for the third time in as many days. What's up with that? -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If you don't share my belief concerning eras, then obviously I can't convince you that the Wiki found the wrong answer here. Of course, I say "found", but really what happened is a half-and-half split on a proposed change, which I think everyone agrees means defaulting to the previous written rule.

But why do you think even consensus identifies right or wrong answers? Consensus only ever identifies consensus. Mostly it's right, but sometimes it's wrong. —Ashley Y 08:01, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's your belief. I think it's clear that we disagree in our beliefs, but there is no practical difference, is there? I don't know why you're ignoring my direct questions. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It is a subtle appeal to tradition and an an appeal to popularity. Rules do not "derive their power to compel... ...from being a reflection of the shared opinions and practices of a great many editors."

Rules derive their power from their ability to make Wikipedia work. WP:CONSENSUS is just the only way by which that can be achieved. Wikipedia is not a democracy nor is it a bureaucracy, and that sentence contradicts both policies.

Also, Ashley Y: I respect your position and you should certainly be listened to. I'm willing to compromise on some combination of WP:WIARM and WP:WIARRM, and the existing WP:IAR if that's what people want. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If the sentence can be worded better, then please propose a rewording. Maybe there's a way of entirely reworking that point. If you dislike the wording, it doesn't mean you dislike the idea that I was hoping to get at when I wrote that sentence, which is that the "policy" and "guideline" tags aren't magical tokens which will empower any page on which they're placed. If you wish to emphasize that the power of policies and guidelines lies, not in their consensus acceptance, but in the fact that they're "correct" in some abstract sense, then do it. That seems to me to be a fine metaphysical hair to split, and I have no idea what the practical difference is, so I'm pretty happy to consider different wordings. Please understand that the intent of the sentence to which you object was to demystify "policy" tags, not to advance my own theory of the sources of authority on Wikipedia. I can't tell what the point is of that discussion, so by all means, let's sidestep it. On the other hand, I'm not very comfortable assenting to sentences in policy (essay, whatever) that I can't make heads or tails of. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm somewhat mystified by this argument. Zenwhat, you and Ashley are disagreeing with the claim that Rules do not "derive their power to compel... ...from being a reflection of the shared opinions and practices of a great many editors. I have to ask, why does it matter? Why is this a sticking point? It seems to me to be an utterly semantic distinction - either you call it this, or you call it that. Doesn't it amount to the same thing? If not, how not? -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I already did propose an alternative wording here. It was reverted by Rogue Penguin. [5] It is a sticking point because it essentially sanctions Wikidemocratism in policy, which contradicts existing policy. Even if that wasn't your intent, that's what it does. You can say that policy isn't magical tokens, but if policies are "descriptive" rather than "prescriptive," then it is inaccurate to put that edit up, because most people do see policy as inherently binding. I invite you to compare the ratio of wikilawyers to rogue editors invoking IAR and you'll find that the latter are far outnumbered by the former, because even if you're in the right, NOBODY invokes IAR, because it's an ignored policy.

Also, that's another thing, too: I switched descriptive and prescriptive around, but I thought about it and policy is both prescriptive and descriptive. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I think we're making progress.... First: I see you asserting that the sentence sanctions "Wikidemocratism", but I don't agree with that evaluation. I'd like to hear what others think. I can see why you'd read it your way, but I can also see reading it other ways. A clearer wording would probably be better.

Second: as to your assertion that IAR is an "ignored policy" and that most people see policy as inherently binding, my experience tells me otherwise. My experience tells me that IAR is alive and well. I see IAR cited in discussion regularly, and often with good effect. If it's my word versus yours, we'll make no progress; let's get more input on that question.

Third, Switching descriptive and prescriptive is a separate issue from the above. It is my position that our policies, at their best, are more descriptive than prescriptive, and it is my belief that this position is shared by most experienced Wikipedians. I am happy to have this belief tested. I'm ready to find out whether people believe what you're claiming they do.

Finally, this conversation is currently not about WP:IAR and the merge question, but about the wording of the page currently located at WP:WIARM. Should we move this discussion there? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Policy on Wikipedia has always been descriptive of practice, not prescriptive. That cannot be changed by editing a page either. _(1 == 2)^Until 07:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I am looking through this discussion and I cannot see any clear proposal of what change should be made. The only spelled out proposal is that of a merge from WIARM to IAR, but it is clear that there is very little desire for this to occur in its entirety. I see arguments that Wikipedia policy is not descriptive of our practices, but prescriptive. That is just not so, these rules exist because people wanted these rules and wanted them enforces. They exist because the reflect accepted practice. If a rule did not have the support of the community then it would not function properly. Such a fundamental change cannot be created by altering policy, because policy is descriptive. I wonder if there are any changes proposed that do no involve inverting our philosophy regarding rules? _(1 == 2)^Until 16:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason why WP:Policy is often prescriptive rather than descriptive: The "policy page" consensus is not necessarily the same as "global consensus," since the two groups are made up of different individuals. There are a fair amount of individuals who don't particularly care about what policy pages say and are going to do whatever they want, if they can get away with it. Generally, discussions on policy pages don't just involve "How do we do things?" but "How OUGHT we do things?" If WP:WIARM is itself descriptive of how things work around here rather than prescrptive, then it should acknowledge that a lot of editors take a prescriptive approach to policy.

Also, 1=2, your statement "That cannot be changed by editing a page either" goes against #1 and #3 of Wikipedia's core principles. Granted, you are free to ignore those, but if they're wrong, please explain why.

Jimbo's statement about "doing the right thing" is basically what WP:IAR is about. If it stands in the way of Wikipedia's success, people should ignore policies and yes, this implies they should ignore other people if what they're doing is the right thing to do and others are firmly entrenched in supporting the wrong thing.

You guys are misinterpreting this to mean, "People should ignore consensus and ignore all people at any time, in order to do whatever they want." There has to be more than the internal, subjective desire to do the right thing, but there also has to be the outward, factual circumstance that they are doing the right thing and they have to be carefully considering what impact their actions are having on Wikipedia. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, we're so close to saying the same thing. First of all, it makes no sense to say that someone "should" ignore other people, unless you think that ignoring other people is effective. In fact, it is not, and saying that people "should" ignore other people is saying that people "should" engage in counter-productive, self-undermining behavior. Is that your position? Can you name a situation where ignoring other people is anything other than a stupid, blinkered idea? I've never seen one.

As for the "outward factual circumstance" of doing the right thing, you seem to think that this can be determined in some absolute way. It can not. Thus, when we have people claiming that some action is the "right" thing, and other people claiming otherwise, and there are intelligent people on both sides arguing in good faith... in such a situation, the only way to tell which choice is the "right thing" is by trusting consensus to determine it. In such a situation, ignoring the people on the other side is a recipe for drama, for poor dispute resolution, for not getting things done, and for how not to ignore all rules. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Urging all editors to work towards compromise

Some editors, acting in good faith, are reverting to a previous version of the policy. The difficulty with this is that there isn't agreement on the short version either, as is apparent from the recent flurry of edits to it. Consensus has been broken. Nothing on this policy page can change the actual IAR policy, and I don't believe that anyone here has that as a goal. The issue is only how to describe that policy in words.

Part of the wiki process is that all editors must work towards a compromise, middle ground version of our pages. This may mean that the final version is not the "ideal" version of any editor. Some editors may need to accept less explanation on the IAR page than they would prefer; some editors may need to accept more explanation on the IAR page than they prefer. All editors, however, are compelled to work towards compromise by the nature of this project.

I'd like to ask all editors to avoid reverting only because they feel a change is not "necessary"; that sort of revert doesn't work towards a middle ground. Even editors who feel no change is required are compelled to accept some change in the compromise version, or convince others to accept the version as it stands. Simply reverting edits in the hopes that others will give up would be, at the very least, in opposition to the founding principles of the project.

Writing a policy page certainly involves building consensus. It may also require temporarily leaving in place wording that you find unacceptable, so that others have a chance to improve it when you are unable to. Hasty reverts don't move this process along, they only impede it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Given the lack of any agreement on this talk page to change things, I would say the existing version stands very well. I don't see this broken consensus, I don't even see an opposing version that has been discussed for more than 2 days by a handful of people. What I see is months of scattered changes, that are not agreed upon, or even related to each other. That does not mean the existing version lacks consensus. I want to compromise, but compromise on what? The vast array of suggestions on this talk page all beg for compromise, but I don't see any that have more support than the other. I don't see any that have even close to agreement. The only version that has been consistently argued for by a wide range of people month after month is the current version. _(1 == 2)^Until 22:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

If a page version is being actively edited by editors in good faith, then it doesn't have consensus. We don't need to find agreement to for the very idea of making a change in the page - that would be the bottom of bureaucracy, and goes against the spirit of wikipedia, where no page is finished and all pages are subject to change at any time.

Compromise in this case will mean moving forward by trying different wordings until we reach one that people can agree upon again. My point is that it's impossible to find agreement on a new version when no new version remains live long enough for others to comment on it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with your first statement, it is an over generalization. You do need agreement for change if it is opposed. Policy reflects wide acceptance, look at the wording of the {{policy}} template. When you change policy you are changing the reflection of consensus. We don't need complete agreement, we just need enough agreement. Lacking agreement to change, it would be counter to the community to do so. Again I ask what change? There is not one proposal on this talk page that has any more support than the other. The only thing consistently argued for is the current version.

You can find out what people think of new versions by asking here. You ask us to wait and see if it is accepted, but how do you tell if it is accepted if not for waiting to see if it is removed? The talk page is a powerful tool, suggest a wording and see if there is support for a change. If there is not, then that is not a failure of Wikipedia, it is just the way people want it. _(1 == 2)^Until 22:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The changes back to the previous version are opposed, as well, and agreement for them must also be found... that is what is missing in hasty reverts. You could simply make a post on the talk page asking for clarification to see if other people support switching back, and wait a day for comments.

It's quite an overstatement to claim that the page is the way people want it, if they are not given a chance to look at changes to the page and comment on them. What you are asking for, I believe, is a requirement that a few people watching the talk page must first agree to any changes before the page is edited. That sort of requirement would be antithetical to wiki editing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

1==2, if you take a look at the list of the last 500 edits (enumerated above) and glance through the recent archives, you'll see the current version does not have "wide consensus." It's just managed to stay up for a long time because of a handful of diligent, uncompromising but well-respected editors. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It is the only version that has enjoyed support for any length of time. There simply are no alternative versions that have as much support as the current. I suppose if you want I could make a tally of the last 500 edits, but I think we all know what version the community keeps reverting to. It is not a handful of uncompromising editors, it is a wide array of editors, some involved in the dispute others not. Simply painting your opposition as uncompromising will not validate your points. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I re-added the Zen koan.

I re-added the koan Kim originally put in.

I think it's a good idea, because it offers clarity without any kind of contentious support for wikidemocratism or wikindividualism, or whatever. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it was Chardish's Koan, I think. Well at any rate, let me go hide in this here nice bunker. Have a nice day! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 07:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It's been clearly established that such a change does not reflect consensus. May I suggest that you instead link to the kōan from WP:WIARM? —David Levy 14:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, stop edit warring. It is very well known to you that there is considerable opposition to the koan, you could not be ignorant of that fact. Re-adding it against consensus is disruption to prove a point. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, it is neither vandalism (it is not patent nonsense) nor edit warring (the edit was made once and only once), nor disruptive (the encyclopedia was not significantly harmed), nor was there any side effect that was trying to prove any particular point (no one has even suggested what such a point might be).

Having destroyed all accusations of policy violation [*], we can still look at accusations of ignoring consensus. Most or all previous objections were argued based on procedural technicalities. I don't think anyone really even got into a discussion to form consensus on the actual content yet, would you believe? :-)

I'd like to commend David Levy: his comment about linking from WIARM is constructive, and I hope Zenwhat will consider it in good faith. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC) [*] It might be interesting to propose a new practice of doing a 24 hour block for every incorrect accusation/application of policy. That would probably be one of the few ways in which it is possible to enforce assumption of good faith

And actually proposed that :-)--Kim Bruning (talk) 16:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In response to your "proposition", I don't need to assume good faith when it is not reasonable to do so. AGF is not a suicide pact where you blindly assume good faith regardless of the facts before you. _(1 == 2)^Until 16:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Making an edit to a previously reverted version that is well known to be opposed on the talk page is against the spirit of our policy against edit warring. Just doing an edit again is not going to change the fact that it is opposed by the majority on the talk page. While I am the first to agree it is not vandalism, I do think it is disruptive to make edits one knows to be opposed by consensus. _(1 == 2)^Until 16:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You mean Our actual edit warring policy? You're going to have to explain to me in what way this could be edit warring, based on that page. The policy does not mention anything about majorities, I'm sure. Oddly, there is a policy that explicitly states that wikipedia does not use majorities. Are we done now? --Kim Bruning (talk)

Wikipedia works best when people with opposing opinions work together to find common ground, that is the spirit of WP:EW. If an edit knowingly goes directly against consensus then it is in violation of the policies spirit. An edit war can be done by many editors over a long time. As an attempt to win a content dispute through brute force, edit warring undermines the consensus-building process that underlies the ideal wiki collaborative spirit.

But once again we are off topic, as a person involved in this dispute I won't be taking any admin actions. I simply am imploring those present to not make edits they know violate existing consensus. _(1 == 2)^Until 16:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat is a rather new user to Wikipedia, and he has this tendency to learn from by making mistakes. And...how do I put this? He's a fast learner. He makes a lot of mistakes.

So I don't think you're in any kind of dispute with him at all. That would be reading far too much into his actions.

So I'm objecting to the assumption of bad faith.

Let me explain further: To obtain consensus, you need cooperation. And cooperation requires (the assumption of) good faith. So forget consensus. We're not talking about that here.

What you're doing is attempting to rationalize your a priori assumptions of bad faith by quoting large numbers "rules". I think you're fooling yourself.

Now I can can look after myself, and I don't mind a bit of back and forth. But here you're WP:BITEing a newbie to cover for your own mistake. It would be nice if you would apologize to him. Even if you don't, I do expect better from you in future. At least bite on someone your own size ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC) So here I am holding out my arm, waiting to be gnawed on. What a day.

I would like to add that I believe that we will get a lot further on this page if we discuss the content of edits, rather than whether it was proper or acceptable for the edit to be made in the first place. AGF means one doesn't cry disruption when the person who made the edit clearly wanted to improve the page, even if their vision for the page clashes with one's own. - Chardish (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I love the koan, but it might be better placed on What "Ignore all rules" means. --Tony Sidaway 02:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Tony's revert of CBM's edit

I've reverted [6] an edit by User:CBM that added the following words:

Editors who are making positive contributions to the encyclopedia don't need to worry about the details of our written policies.

Whilst I think that we can all agree that there is a sense in which the added text is trivially true, it's also ambiguous (Ignore all rules doesn't mean you can doodle "poopy poopy poopy" in an article just because you've made positive edits, for instance) and it also it seems to me that it seeks to limit the meaning of ignore all rules to a particular context. --Tony Sidaway 01:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I would be very glad to find a wording that is less ambiguous, if you could propose one. I could change the first line to "When making...", if that would resolve the objection that edits might laternate productive and nonproductive edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I cannot think of a better wording than the one on the page at present. I'd be interested to see other opinions on your proposed addition, though. --Tony Sidaway 01:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

To the extent that the senence I added is correct (and I am sure you know what I was intending to say, minor criticisms aside), could you explain how a naive reader would learn it by reading the page as it stands? — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

He would learn that, if a rule prevents him from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, he should ignore it. --Tony Sidaway 02:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, but nothing else. IAR goes far beyond that - it includes, for example, that there is no reason to worry about what the rules say, if they make you nervous. No other policy document consists of a single, cryptic sentence with no attempt to explain what any of its terms means. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

IAR is the secret and all-important core of our project. I think that the moment we start explaining it, adding to it, clarifying it, within the policy itself, we weaken it. It should be absolutely as short as possible, so as to get the reader to think about what it means. It is that process of thinking about it that brings ... enlightenment. Antandrus (talk) 02:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, what you say is valid, but we need to find a compromise version. As I said above, that will likely be shorter than some editors like, and longer than some editors like. IAR is not a policy, not a rule - it's an underlying foundational principle of the site. We can't weaken it by explaining it, because nothing we say on this page will effect it at all. All that we can do here is explain to new users what IAR means. I can't see how to sustain the argument that a core principle of our site should be a secret known only to the illuminati. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, IAR most definitely is a policy.

Secondly, we have arrived at a reasonable compromise. An explanatory page has been written and linked to. —David Levy 05:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that CBM's edit was incorrect. Here's an alternative:

When editors who are making positive contributions to the encyclopedia, they don't need to worry about the details of our written policies.

Certain editors do not give special exemption from policy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 06:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

But they are given leeway, and that is grammatically incorrect. Lose "who are making" for "make". — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 06:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If it's grammatically incorrect, then make fix it good, Penguin. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Even where grammar is concerned, it's impolite to edit others' posts. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 07:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

All that addition accomplishes is saying the same thing that is already there. It would fit well in the explanatory essay, but is redundant and cluttering to the main policy. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with CBM's suggestion that the policy is more than "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." It is unfortunate that the policy is the subject of almost continual attempts to extend or (more often) limit it. I think our page What "Ignore all rules" means does a good job of trying to explain the extensive range of acceptable and unacceptable interpretations of the policy, and this adjunct is in my opinion preferable to altering the quite simple and economical wording. --Tony Sidaway 02:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Tony on this one. It's not to say that CBM's suggestion is bad, but it's not what IAR is meant to mean, and greatly depends on context when used in that way. The main points of IAR was to keep people from being nervous about there being rules, and to allow for reasonable exception, since we can't predict everything, or make every rule perfect. -- Ned Scott 07:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Why the game?

This is getting silly. For a long time now people have been making changes they know don't reflect consensus, then complain about some conspiracy to prevent editing when they get reverted. It is getting old. It is not a viable strategy to influence consensus. When you make an edit that is known to be opposed you are baiting a revert. When you make a bold edit that has not been discussed on the talk page that is fine, but when you get reverted don't act like someone slighted you. If the community truly agreed with your change it would have been accepted. If you think the community thinks something different, then demonstrate it by gathering opinions on the subject.

Don't just keep doing what has been done here over the last two months, it is disruptive, and it is not productive. If it was productive then it would have caused change by now, it has not. Much of the "proposed" changes to this page are lost in the edit history because nobody made a record on this talk page, much less a discussion demonstrating consensus. I promise you that if your idea gains consensus on this talk page that I will argue for its inclusion as strongly as I argue against the inclusion of content that does not have consensus, even if I disagree with it.

The reason is that no one person can just decide how this page is to be, it needs to be a community decision. _(1 == 2)^Until 16:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Dude, whatever. That was Zenwhat. He's still learning. Stay cool. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC) We are going to have to discuss your particular substantive issue at some point, but that's for much later :-)

Are you assuming good faith, Until? So far, you have three people supporting the Zen koan. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 23:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I very much like the koan. It's a good story and well illustrates the point of IAR. (It's actually not a koan, since the central metaphor is easily accessible to rational understanding, but that's another argument.) It's best linked from IAR rather than in IAR, in my opinion, --although I have to admit I enjoyed it greatly during the time it was there. Is it possible people are making too big a deal of this? So we change the content of the page once in a while, and then change it back? hmmm... Peace, everyone. And don't forget to ignore all dramas.  :) Antandrus (talk) 01:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

"It doesnt matter." --Tony Sidaway 02:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to the general editing pattern over the last two months, not one specific person. Look through the protection log of this policy alone and you will see what I mean. _(1 == 2)^Until 05:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you cite diffs to show this "overall editing pattern"? Regarding the protection, it takes two to edit-war. And technically, those wanting to keep this page as the status-quo have an incentive to edit-war, since when they do that their version stays up longer. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Dude, I think we've had enough for one day. --Kim Bruning (talk) 07:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Reverting bold edits made without consensus is not edit warring, each of those protections were due to such "bold" edits being made over and over without discussion. I could provide diffs to show this, but I would basically be reiterating the history. If you insist I will go through and show diffs demonstrating that many users have preferred this version, while no one suggested change has enjoyed such acceptance. But really you could just read this talk page and see that only the current version is consistently argued for. The other suggestions keep changing form and lacking support. _(1 == 2)^Until 14:59, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Multiple reverts are edit warring. Period. We agreed on this as a community quite a while ago. Reverting bold edits multiple times is actually worse, because now you're violating 3 different guidance pages. (yes, making bold edits is actually in line with WP:CONSENSUS as written atm). The list of accepted IAR exceptions to 3RR and EW is VERY VERY short. --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me expand on this (one should always be careful with "period"). Some non IAR exceptions also exist: There are some rapid editing situations related to edit conflicts where 2 reverts might be needed to achieve the effect of a single revert; and there are situations with multiple editors working on different sections simultaneously or with different intersecting discussions simultaneously, where coincidentally the sum total of reverts might be rather larger than 3, but where no actual conflict exists. I may want to expand further, as required. --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC) Possibly this could be added to a documentation page

Done: Wikipedia:This is not an edit war - at least this discussion is useful for something. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break in the game

Let me correct myself, one change has been accepted by the community, the addition of the link to "Other versions of this policy, by various editors" seems to have been accepted. See, it can change. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see much value in that link, but I'm not opposed enough to it to remove it. Separately, saying "look, it was changed, you should be happy now" is antagonizing. I'm not sure if you realize that. However, I'm sure it's not your goal to antagonize us, and I'd like to point out to you that it is not in any way our goal to antagonize you. What we seek here is to bring greater clarity to vitally important policy page.

I have to pray that you see some value in that goal. If you do, may I beg that, for your sanity as well as ours, you discuss with us some possibilities about how to bring that about? You've been fighting the same fight for months on end, and it's impossible to avoid a trench mentality after a while. When in such a situation, you end up losing sight of what you want, what "the other side" wants, and how consensus -- actual consensus -- could be achieved.

So I now make a personal plea to you -- and to anyone else who has favored the (embattled) consensus version. If we set it as our goal to make the meaning and use of IAR clearer to anybody reading this page for the first time, how would we do that? How could we do that in a way that would meet with your approval? You've mentioned being receptive toward importing something from WIARM; what parts of it do you approve of?

Please, let's find ways to improve IAR and reclaim our sanity in the process. Fuck all this arguing. It's death. Let's just talk. Please.

What changes could you personally endorse? Please, let us know.--Father Goose (talk) 07:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I, for one, would be ok with a sentence stating that the policies, guidelines and essays at Wikipedia do not constitute any kind of formal rule-set, and that independent thinking is encouraged in each potential "rule" situation. -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Father goose, the only thing I have been battling for months over is that this policy reflect consensus. There simply is no agreement that the current version lacks clarity. I think it explains very clearly how you can ignore a rule if it prevents you from maintaining or improving Wikipedia. What you consider clarification more often than not is a limitation on a rule that was not meant to be limited. You are pleading for me to work towards a goal based on reasoning I don't agree with.

I don't think the changes made make anything clearer, more they attempt to impose interpretations on what is supposed to be a general fail safe rule that works when the detailed wording of other policies fails. I simply cannot understand how linking to the essays does not provide the perspective you wish to bring to IAR. These essays explain the various readings of IAR very well, but those interpretations are not policy, they are opinion, they are interpretation of the ramifications that some people have observed. I find such additions to policy to this confuse and weaken and limit the meaning of IAR.

If you get consensus for a change here, then I will fight for its inclusion as hard as I have fought against the inclusion of content that goes against consensus. Even if I do not agree with it. All you need it to find agreement. If you cannot find agreement it is not because people are being pushy, it is because your idea is not embraced by the community. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, Father Goose, I'm still waiting for someone to cite evidence of a problem. —David Levy 14:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry you see much value in the addition, but that was not my point. My point is that the page can be changed in a manner that the community accepts. The claims that it is being "protected" against change at any cost are simply false. It is just that many changes to this have not been accepted by the community, most likely because few people bothered to check if they would be accepted. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

To folks around here in general, I don't know if I have suggested this yet, but try proposing your changes on this talk page and see if you can find agreement amongst the editors who watch this page. You have have better luck influencing changes in policy that way. Or in the case of the koan, you can just read the already existing discussion where you can see it is clearly not accepted by the community. _(1 == 2)^Until 15:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to altering the wiki-editing procedure at this point in time. It would be even more ironic to do it here than it would be to do so at Wikipedia:Consensus. Thank you. --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me explain the logical bind I am in, and then maybe we can figure out how to solve it.

• If I do not consent, you accuse me of acting in bad faith. So I cannot edit.
• If I consent to your suggestion (along with others), we are actually changing editing procedures. According to the "meta rule" that policy must be "descriptive not prescriptive", this page would then no longer be descriptive, and must be marked historic. Once again, I cannot edit.
• Ergo, if I only look at the options you provide, I can either not edit, or not edit.

So you've got me stuck inside a box here. Since this particular box is one of your making, and you have previously rejected some of my previous attempts to think outside of it; could you think of a way out of the box?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 04:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

If it helps any: You have unwittingly made a classic nomic ending move. You have managed to confound a procedure with itself. People who have played calvinball (which can be played as a kind of nomic) at wikimania boston managed to accidentally or purposely end the game in this manner several times. The take home message was that you should be aware of nomic-like situtions, and avoid, prevent, or negate them as best you can.

1. No one is "altering the wiki-editing procedure." I's entirely reasonable to suggest that controversial changes be proposed on a talk page. People are welcome to boldly perform them on the policy page itself, but the likelihood of reversion (also a normal part of the wiki-editing procedure) arguably renders this unproductive. There's nothing wrong with recommending a normal means of discussion through which consensus may be established.

2. Please stop spouting this "nomic" business. It's quite annoying, especially considering the fact that you are the one who advocated transforming the editing of this policy page into a game. —David Levy 14:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I was about to write a decent nasty reply, backed by evidence, when I discovered that you actually now support this policy. WTF? Okay, now you have me confused, I must admit.:-)

Anyway, this is a question to Until (1==2), and is tailored to learn about their personal understanding of the situation, and it is only coincidentally posted on the wiki. It is not specifically intended to make any kind of sense to anyone else. It only appears here, because it is the relevant location in the thread. Sorry to waste your time.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 18:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"I was about to write a decent nasty reply, backed by evidence, when I discovered that you actually now support this policy. WTF? Okay, now you have me confused, I must admit.:-)" Huh? Why are you surprised that I support the policy? What are you confused about? —David Levy 20:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I thought you were still opposed to this policy. So I have to re-evaluate my perception of your position here, to say the least. And since I have to conclude that you are clearly acting in good faith, I have no choice but to be nice to you and treat you with respect. Darn! :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean "still opposed"? What led you to believe that I ever acted out of opposition to this policy? Aside from my initial impression (back when I was a newbie), I've always been a strong supporter of IAR. —David Levy 06:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It was a long time ago, apparently I've been confusing you for someone else (just checked through all my logs <phew> what a job). Apologies :-(. --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem.  :-) —David Levy 13:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

In reply to what you claim I am advocating, note that I was also one of the first to keep (forward)-verting to a simple version, only a little while after you first started editing: [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] . Later others started duplicating that behaviour, for instance this late-ish example: [16].

So I am well aware of the fact that this is a practice that I started or at least significantly contributed to. I am -in effect- fighting my very own shadow.

I do now believe that I was in error. For an example of how things can be done right, see for instance the beautifulde:Wikipedia:Ignoriere alle Regeln, or fr:Wikipédia:De l'interprétation créative des règles. Or perhaps (I wish I could read hungarian) hu:Wikipédia:Ne törődj a nem hivatalos irányelvekkel, the fact that they mention RFC 1855 seems rather promising. Or see it:Wikipedia:Ignora_le_regole , I love the 5 pillars box. On the other tentacle ja:Wikipedia:ルールすべてを無視しなさい might be going just a tad overboard. I'll ask Britty to translate. Seeing the way the page is divided, I wonder if ko:위키백과:규칙은 무시해도 좋습니다 is taken from the french version. I'll have to find a korean.

So now that I feel that I was previously in error, I am trying to undo my own tradition. I suppose that being accused of acting in bad faith for changing my mind is a kind of not-so-instant-karma :-P

Hmmm, come to think of it, comparing the different languages does sort of cover part of the aim of having several different versions to choose and learn from.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You actually think that we're "following a practice that [you] set." Do you honestly believe that you're that influential? Do you know how such a claim comes across?

You have not been "accused of acting in bad faith for changing [your] mind." You've been accused of acting in bad faith for continually imposing edits that you knew were controversial while feigning ignorance of this fact (falsely claiming that you were unaware of the controversy). —David Levy 20:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, at least one person literally quoted and referenced me as source, 3 years after my first such action. [17] (same as above). Aren't you just following their example since then? It obviously does not make me particularly happy or proud, right about now.

Note that none of the current edits under discussion would seem to be at all controversial on other language wikipedias.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 20:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I sometimes quote other editors, and other editors sometimes quote me. That doesn't mean that anyone is "following a practice that [the other] set."

I don't know what's controversial or uncontroversial at other languages' Wikipedias, and I'm unable to properly evaluate such matters (given the fact that I'm fluent only in English). I also don't see what bearing that had on consensus (or lack thereof) here. —David Levy 23:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Everything on wikipedia is text, if you quote someone or imitate their edits, or act within the consensus set by those edits, you are basically following their act already. In fact, that's how consensus works in the first place, isn't it?

On your 2nd point, wikipedia is an international project. But you don't need to be able to read other languages very well. Just check out the pages and page layouts. --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

1. Expressing agreement with someone is not the same as imitating his/her behavior.

2. I'm unable to assess the reasoning behind those pages' layouts and their significance to the respective Wikipedias. —David Levy 06:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

1. Is fine. But people have both expressed agreement and imitated my behavior. Why do you believe your behavior here is acceptable? Because others have done it too. Why have others done it too? Because they saw others do it before them. Why did those people before them do it? Um, I have this creeping horrible intuition that I know where that line ends. Certainly, correlation ≠ causation. But you have to get mighty suspicious.

2. That is too bad. I am serious. If you had been able to glean any information from them at all, I could have offered you a decent compromise (seeing as that then we would already have a usable set of versions of IAR, which is my own objective). Drat!.--Kim Bruning (talk) 12:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

1. I reject the notion that we're simply emulating the behavior of you or anyone else. We aren't sheep, so it seldom matters who was the first person to do a particular thing (unless that person's name happens to be "Jimbo").

2. In my opinion, we already have a good compromise and a very strong version of IAR. I am, of course, entirely open to the pursuit of further compromise (or any other type of revision that would improve the policy page), but I assess proposed changes with our Wikipedia in mind. I don't know what circumstances/rationales led to the other Wikipedias' adoption of alternative formats, nor can I rule out the possibility that they'd be better off with one along the lines of ours. (I do know that many Wikipedias employ various elements to which I object, sometimes strongly.) —David Levy 13:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

A proposal

late,late editt conflict :) user:Zenwhat, whom were you addressing here? Both? Us? Them? He, she,it? This is a "common' talkpage. Please observe the talkpage guidelines, and address your comments to us, the "unwashed multitudes", in respect of improvements to the page, not philosophical mumbling and argument, if, I , may, humbly, request. Newbyguesses - Talk 07:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Both of us mostly seem to agree on how WP:IAR should be applied in practice:

• Users shouldn't violate policy in a way that hurts Wikipedia
• Users should ignore policy if it helps Wikipedia
• When users invoke WP:IAR, they shouldn't do it carelessly
• WP:IAR is not a blank check to ignore policies to do whatever you want

In pretty much any practical case, we would agree. A troll comes along and pushes POV, "IAR!!!" they should still be banned. On the other hand, if there's a theoretical situation where the rules get in the way, they should be ignored.

Here is where the disagreement is: Some people want to word the language more strongly in favor of wikidemocratism and\or inclusionism (based on WP:CONSENSUS, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:ANARCHY) while others want to word the language more strongly in favor of wikindividualism and\or deletionism (based on WP:IAR itself, WP:DEMOCRACY, WP:BUREAUCRACY). The first group believes that WP:IAR derives its authority from WP:CONSENSUS, while the second group (me included) believe that WP:CONSENSUS derives its authority from WP:IAR, since WP:IAR was the first rule.

The existing WP:IAR stub has existed like this for so long because by making it so short, we all agree. We all agree, of course, with the single sentence because that single sentence has totally different meanings to all of us. By completely ignoring the wide variation in which people understand that single sentence, it's avoided disputes on it. In other words, based on Carl's list above, there is I think, "We know what it means, but we can't figure out how express it." We know what it means, but how we want to express it is completely different. This has avoided disputes over WP:IAR but it has also led to confusion as to what WP:IAR means and people aren't aware of the variation in interpretation, or even what WP:IAR itself even means, from any common interpretation.

So, as with any policy, clarification would be good. But I don't think it would be possible for us to have a single "clarification" section with language we could agree on. So, here is a proposal: Let there be more than one clarification or interpretation of it. Let there be two sections on "common interpretations", with the first section being worded the way it is in WP:WIARM and the second section being worded the way it is in WP:WIARRM, or something along those lines. In order to avoid disputes over which one goes first, we can flip a coin (i.e. use a random number generator).

How does that sound? Also, if anybody does use a random number generator: The first results generated should be binding. It would be childish to resort to, "2 out of 3!" and "Wait, no! Not fair! 3 out of 5!"

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, and it looks like Until(1 == 2) had already attempted to do something like that. [18] ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

And I see FT2 proposed something similar above. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Nah, I was just trying to compromise on someone else's edit, not really behind it myself. I was not really in support of the text that Phil removed being part of this policy. I have instead started an essay that may be linked to IAR if it gains consensus here :User:Until(1 == 2)/What "Ignore all rules" is not‎. _(1 == 2)^Until 21:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted to the longstanding compromise version. While I agree with the text that I just removed, I feel that it's far more helpful to link to the in-depth explanation provided at WP:WIARM (while retaining the policy's concise format) than it is to include a small summary. —David Levy 22:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

David: Could you cite something you've said above which establishes why you believe that?

So far, the only support for your opinion I've seen (on this page at least, perhaps it's further back in the archives) is, "It would be self-contradictory; new editors are supposed to be empowered to edit without worrying about reading a lengthy set of rules."

That argument seems weak. As Kim noted above, if it seems self-contradictory, you don't seem to understand IAR. Clarifying it isn't self-contradictory because the only actual policy is just the single sentence. The "clarification" below is just to help people possibly understand it if a single sentence isn't clear enough.

Also, as noted above, the existence of a "long-standing version" doesn't imply consensus. Brahmanical See, which asserted the existence of a Hindu Pope, existed with consensus for nearly 3½ years. I nominated it for AfD and consensus changed.

It would be a red herring for somebody to come along and say, "This page has existed for Nearly 3½ years! It has consensus (even though it's a blatant hoax)! Don't delete!"

Drop the appeals to tradition and please don't edit-war in order to get the version you support protected from editing.

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You're conflating two separate issues. The statement that you quoted was written to address the idea of merging WP:WIARM with this page. It doesn't apply to the idea of including the small explanation that I removed.

As I noted above, I did so (and restored the WP:WIARM link) because that page does a far better job of explaining the policy than a few sentences can. I'm not saying that we should retain the other version because it's been around for a while. I'm saying that it stems from a great deal of discussion (much of it heated), represents a long-overdue (and highly welcome) compromise, and simply is better than the alternative presented (even though said alternative isn't bad). —David Levy 23:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You said you made the revert "because that page does a far better job of explaining the policy than a few sentences can." On these grounds, why do you object to expanding WP:IAR with the information contained within WP:WIARM? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That goes back to my other argument. If we were to fill the page with a large amount of text, many users would assume that they were required to read and analyze it before applying the policy. Keeping it separate provides all of the benefits without distracting people from the core message. —David Levy 00:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

For instance, would you be OK with taking this [19] and then adding the link to WP:WIARM back in? Why or why not? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 00:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the current setup is preferable. I don't believe that your proposed version would be bad, mind you, but I feel that it's better to keep the all of the explanation separate than it is to add a small portion to the policy page. This encourages people who desire clarification to pursue WP:WIARM in its entirety. —David Levy 00:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

David, you're not presenting a logical argument. I was going to say this earlier, but I did not want to be a dick, but per WP:SPADE, I have no other way to put it than to say: 99% of your comments here, besides roughly two sentences above, have been a variation of the assertion, "Keep it the way it is. I like it." Your revert history has been reflective of this.

In a Wikipedia article, if people want a general idea of what the article is about, they read the lead. If they want a more detailed explanation, they read the whole article. This is how every other policy is too.

Why should WP:IAR be any different? In this case, too, you want the explanation to be an essay. Correct? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 02:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:SPADE might contain the worst advice on Wikipedia. You're clearly way too hung up on the "official status" of pages. Stop caring whether pages are "essay" or "policy" and teach others to do the same. Then you'll be correctly ignoring all rules. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I explained my rationale above, as I have on many occasions. I'm sorry that you find it illogical.

If you read the archives, you'll find that I've actually supported (and even argued in favor of) edits to the policy that defied my personal preferences, purely for the sake of compromise and consensus-building. For this reason, some of my reversions were actually from my preferred version, not to it. —David Levy 07:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia works through self-norming. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it's bad. By self-norming, here's what I mean: Most people do things a certain way and feel a certain way, and so they build consensus for a policy page to be a certain way. Once this is done, new users join Wikipedia. These new users come to Wikipedia and, in general, they will tend to blindly accept what the policy pages say as reasonable and, in turn, become a part of "wikiculture." There are some exceptions, of course, and when this happens, a single rational user steps up and says, "This is wrong!" At first, he may face opposition, but then another user may come along and say, "Yes, I agree this is wrong!" The lack of conformity to existing wikiculture can then snowball (see psychology studies in social conformity to follow the snowball effect) and at that point the policy is changed.

This is how policy is both descriptive and prescriptive. It's human nature for people to accept policy pages blindly and that's pretty much implied in the statement in WP:WIARM, "Don't follow written instructions mindlessly." If people already avoided following policies mindlessly, then that description doesn't serve any particular purpose. The reason it exists is to inform users not to do that (prescription). This is why policy pages are important, GT, and I don't think you can even downplay their importance given the amount of work you're putting into this one. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 05:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I know that, in many cases, policies, guidelines and other "rules" are followed blindly. I'm arguing that we need to prevent that, and that it is desirable to encourage people to edit mindfully, which means getting off the "policy" hangup. That hangup is an impediment to being mindful. Prescriptively written policy pages are also an impediment to being mindful, giving the impression that the thinking has all already been done. We need to encourage people to stop seeing Wikipedia in terms of "rules" and "policies" and to start thinking more in terms of "good ideas" and implementing those good ideas by means of communication with human beings. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

History of the policy

I will be adding a short history and background of the policy -- a factual one -- to this page, not to WIARM. Any objections to this suggestion, at least in principle?--Father Goose (talk) 03:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wicked. Or make a separate history page, or use horizontal rules! --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you please elaborate? When you say "this page," are you referring to the policy page, or do you mean this talk page? Will you be inserting a link, or do you intend to add the compete text to said page? —David Levy 14:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, to WP:IAR, not to this talk page, and not a link, but text right on the IAR page. Nothing elaborate, I anticipate -- a handful of sentences describing its inception; its evolution beyond the original "nervous and depressed" phrasing; and how it is actually used in current practice on Wikipedia. I'll keep it as simple as possible.--Father Goose (talk) 04:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

"There is no past and there is no future."

The concept of history is a silly abstraction in the human mind, which is filtered through the foolish yet predominant biases of the present.

The idea of writing a history page may be useful, but it would be particularly bad if it is used as an appeal to tradition. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 08:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if what I have in mind could be used in that way.--Father Goose (talk) 10:20, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you show us what you want to add then ask here. I can't really endorse something I can't see. _(1 == 2)^Until 04:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not asking for an endorsement or a commitment, just whether people are opposed to the general idea. You'll always have the option to edit or revert the specifics, should we get to that stage.--Father Goose (talk) 05:06, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm opposed to the idea of adding such text to the policy page (thereby leading people to believe that they're required to read it before utilizing the policy). A link to such text on a separate page might be okay. —David Levy 06:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I think that's the approach I'll have to take.--Father Goose (talk) 11:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, considering the "History" button at the top, and the "Other versions of this policy" link at the bottom, I think we got it covered. Good idea for an essay though. _(1 == 2)^Until 05:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that's no good; the staggering signal-to-noise ratio in the edit history makes it useless for that purpose. The actual history is actually very simple, though no one has made an attempt to simply write it down. And the "other versions of this policy" page is just more noise, to be blunt about it.--Father Goose (talk) 11:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

A policy should include what is needed to respect a policy, nothing more. This belongs in an essay which we can have volumes of. _(1 == 2)^Until 02:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I agree, though what we're striving for is "nothing more, nothing less".--Father Goose (talk) 09:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Father Goose, it should not be surprising. Look at this remark by Jimmy. [20]

My authority and the authority of the ArbCom does not derive from the Foundation directly but from the longstanding historical traditions of our community

No, the authority of Jimmy and ArbCom is derived from ignore all rules, which is the first and only rule. The rest are just guidelines. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 09:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You know, you keep asserting that all other authority here derives from IAR which is the "first and only rule". I'm not sure your interpretation is shared by the community. It sounds as if you're trying to formalize IAR into something it isn't. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. -GTBacchus^(talk) 10:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

IAR is not the basis of all other authority on WP. Ultimately authority lies with the foundation which is a "a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity". Beneath that is consensus, and IAR must fit into that consensus. While an application of IAR that does not fit into consensus is possible withing the spirit of the policy, it will not be successful if it is not accepted by the community. _(1 == 2)^Until 02:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

An arbitrary break

GTBacchus: What is called IAR is not in fact IAR. To get an idea of where I'm coming from here, see User:Zenwhat/The diamond essay.

Until(1 == 2): IAR is the basis for all authority, period, on-wiki and off-wiki. The Foundation has long since chosen to make itself irrelevant, despite its legal status. I will likely need to gain the support of the majority of Wikipedia and its bureaucracy to get this page changed, though, yes. Even with that, though, it may be difficult. Hopefully, David Levy will lose interest. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, your philosophies don't dictate our policies. I hope Dave does not lose interest. You just saying something is so does not make it so. I have yet to see you interpret a Wikipedia policy correctly in any matter IAR related or not. Your problem is not that you are held back by bureaucracy, but that people don't agree with your ideas. _(1 == 2)^Until 03:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course philosophy doesn't dictate our policies. But the truth does. You take two glass cups and drop them from identical heights. You can argue, "I think the first cup will break," or "I think the second cup will break," or "I think both cups will break," or "I think neither will break." No matter how much arguing you engage in, it doesn't change the fact that one, both, or none of the cups will break when you drop them.

Similarly, policy, like life, has nothing to do with rhetoric. You and Dave can own this page all you want, but in the end, if it hurts Wikipedia, you are violating policy even though you own it.

People seem to have this false notion that policy is dictated by rhetoric, but with appropriate action based on truth. That's what IAR is about. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 10:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

To that there is only one possible response: The Truth. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 10:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Penguin, please rebut this essay: User:Zenwhat/The kalama essay.

Do you deny the claims made in that essay?

If we are to go by "tradition," then I have to say, the Buddha and the several thousand years' old tradition holds far greater weight than a silly essay written by college-age kids on the internet. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 10:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You continue to ignore the question of what is done when one person is acting based on truth, but other people disagree, also based on truth. When two different "truths" butt heads, who decides which is enacted? This is an important question. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, The Truth was written for people like you. Your opinions are not fact, and no matter how many self-written essays you toss at us, that will not change. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 21:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The first version of this page is kinda funny. Sancho 19:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:Truth was written in reaction to POV-pushing trolls who, with ego, claim their views are the truth as a basis for pushing their points-of-view. This in no way establishes, however, that the truth (lowercase) does not exist. If you believe that, then I have absolutely no idea how we could continue this discussion. You basically see yourselves as pushing your own points-of-view and see absolutely no problem with this, so long as you follow policy, and basically try to think and act as a collective mind or, more concisely, a community mind. This is the main origin of non-reason on Wikipedia, people simply refusing to think for themselves. You agreed with my claims about this, GTBacchus, in WP:VPP. When I asked you how we could word your claims into policy, you were silent.

As it seems to me, WP:The Truth is good (it has some truth to it) because it encourages humility, which is a core ingredient in finding the truth. But it should not to be taken so broadly so as to claim there is no such thing as the truth. If that was how it was intended to be read, then it was written by wishy-washy, relativist, subjectivist, communitarian sophists who do not believe truth is above and beyond anything other than, "We agree." This claim, however, can be demonstrated to be false through violence.

I slap you.

"You slapped me!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did!"

"No, I didn't, really."

It isn't readily apparent how the above situation would apply to Wikipedia because you fail to see reverting and administrative action as a mild form of digital violence. This enables you, of course, to intimidate a minority of editors who disagree with your irrational assertions.

In response to those here who believe in policy fundamentalism (see Pat Robertson), policy conservatism (see Edmund Burke), and policy traditionalism (see Bill O'Reilly). You may control this page through brute force, but you do not control this page and you never can because there is no such thing as a "page on policy" and policies can neither be written nor controlled.

On truth:

"There is never a duel with truth; the truth always wins, and we are not afraid of it!"

– Dudley Field Malone, Scopes Trial

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, I didn't reply to you at WP:VPP because I'm still thinking about it. I don't know what you took my silence to mean, but it means I'm thinking about it. I actually did make a suggestion above for an edit, but you may have missed it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Zenwhat, you're continuing to ignore the practical question of how we decide whose "truth" is correct while working on this project. You simply assert that the truth does exist (I'm not sure who's claiming otherwise), but you say nothing about how we determine what it is. Saying that there is a "Truth" out there, and that it determines our policies, is useless unless you also say something about how to recognize that Truth when we see it. Any thoughts on this subject? How can we tell that you're speaking truth, and not some kind of voluble nonsense? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

GTBacchus: I took your silence to mean that you didn't particularly care.

How do we decide? Ultimately, there is no answer to the "practical question" other than:

• Learn things
• Think harder

Beyond that, we decide based on logic. Logic is wonderful because it describes how to think, but not what to think, so it does not in any way favor any particular person in a content dispute. Generally, policy discussions (even this one right now) do not involve absolutely any logic at all. Instead, policy pages which work like, "Well, here's what I think," followed by, "But no, here's what I think," then a third person comes along, "No, here's what I think." And the version which stays up is whatever the majority of people think, even if they're dumb. That's exactly how this page is working right now -- not that you're dumb, of course. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 22:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding my silence at VPP... I do care. If I didn't, I wouldn't have commented in the first place.

I don't think we disagree as to the substance of how we want people to approach Wikipedia, but we disagree strongly on how to phrase it. For example, what you say about logic, I consider to be agreed upon a priori. Perhaps I'm naïve that way. I figure, if we're assuming good faith, that includes the assumption that people are receptive to logic.

My issue is that I can't see how your version is different, in application, from what you describe as the current version. What's on the page (any policy page) now is what's closest to the Truth, as best we can tell. As soon as it becomes clear that something else is closer to the Truth, then the page will change. That has not yet become clear, or if it has to some few people, it has yet to gain sufficient recognition to... fly.

People here are receptive to logic, so if we're not accepting it, then we have to assume that logic isn't present. Unless we have some authority to consult on what is true and what is not true, we have to rely on consensus (applying logic) as the best available judge. Unless you've got a better judge, you haven't got a better (or any) practical definition of Truth, and that leaves your statements about Truth semantically empty, as far as this world is concerned.

Maybe I'm just missing something; if so, please tell me what it is. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The idea of "a priori," concepts is absurd, because nothing exists before our experience. This is demonstrated by the historical fact that logic didn't always exist; it was discovered. Many societies have relied on pseudologic and spurious reasoning. Many common people who are not educated in logic also continue to use spurious reasoning. Even educated people themselves may use spurious logic, because they don't truly grasp the concept of what it means. See existence precedes essence.

People here are not receptive to logic. A primitive form of reasoning, yes, but it's filtered through cognitive biases, particularly with regard to politics and religion.

My proposed revision is simply offered to give clarification on what IAR means. The Diamond Essay and the Kalama essay pretty much sum it up. So did the Zen koan, but of course that can't stay in there, either, can it? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 06:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, please. I don't mean "a priori" in some Kantian sense; I just mean "ahead of time". I find people here to be receptive to logic; I assume before entering an interaction that the person will be acting in good faith, and listening to others, and I'm generally not disappointed.

Now, it may be your opinion that the "Diamond Essay" and the "Kalama essay" clarify what IAR means, but it's not entirely clear to me that they do that. If people aren't accepting your clarifications of IAR, maybe it's because they don't find them clarifying. A clarification is useful insofar as people understand it. Have you asked whether anybody finds the Diamond essay useful, or are you just asserting that it will clarify IAR?

Finally, you still avoid the question of how to decide what the "Truth" is. You just say "we use logic", and that common people are not receptive to logic, so.... how does someone possessing the "Truth" use logic to actually leverage an edit into the encyclopedia? Does simply ignoring the foolish masses make them go away? Will simply saying, "but I'm right, and you're using spurious logic" actually work? Unless you can provide a practical way to decide who is right and who is logical, then you're not clarifying anything. -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Why do you keep assuming that the truth is something tangible, that either one person "has it" or doesn't have it? Any person who, if they are, in fact, guided by truth should do what they feel is right. The truth is not something anyone has at any given point, but an abstraction that we worked towards achieving, through letting go of our biases and critically examining our ideas.

I do not understand why it would be contentious to suggest that people should do that, using words like "objective" and "truth." If you do not understand what it means to say "use logic," (putting it in quotes), then GT, how can this discussion continue? Can we not agree that there are certain basic rules of reasoning, which imply that some arguments are bad and others are good?

So far, GT, there has been very little discussion here, just page-ownership. Everybody appears to have vanished from this talkpage and it's just been you and me back and forth. There is no doubt, however, that any changes to WP:IAR would be reverted by more than just you and me and it is currently being edited that way.

A person does not "leverage," when they edit. That is article-ownership.

Ignoring the foolish masses may be useful. It may not be useful. It depends on the circumstances.

Whatever could be called "a practical way" of editing Wikipedia could never be fully accurate, because it would always inherently be incomplete. That's the point.

People are not either logical or illogical. They either choose to be logical or they choose to be irrational. It's not a matter of "possessing" logic, but a matter of using the faculties that are available to every person. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 05:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why you think I'm assuming the truth is something tangible. I never said that. It's not what I believe. If you think I said that, you have misunderstood me.

I don't fail to understand what is meant by "use logic". I don't doubt or fail to understand that there are objectively better and worse arguments, or that logic is a real thing. If you think I don't understand this, you have misunderstood me.

I disagree with you that there is "no doubt" that any changes to IAR would be reverted. I base my position on reality: the page has been edited without being reverted, repeatedly. I've seen it happen, repeatedly.

You clearly mistook my use of the word "leverage". Perhaps I chose the wrong word. I don't recommend anything that looks like article ownership. If you think I do, you have misunderstood me.

I'd like to see the circumstances in which "ignoring the foolish masses" would be useful. I don't think I ever have seen that.

Zenwhat, I think you and I must not be communicating very effectively here. Your last paragraph - I can't imagine why it would be directed to me. Is that a reaction to something I said? Did I imply at some point that logic is some kind of operating system that each person either has or does not? What a bizarre thing that I would never say.

Let me try to clarify. I think I agree with most of what you're saying is the way to approach Wikipedia. I think we disagree to an almost incomprehensible degree in how to express that approach.

You say that making correct, logical, objectively informed choices is the top goal, and that it trumps (in a certain sense) any community opinion that may counter it. Of course that's true; I would never object to that (given the "certain sense" caveat). Now, if you've got a good edit to make, and there are people at the article owning it, and edit warring, and POV-pushing, and all that... in such a case, there is no mechanism on the wiki for you to get your edit into the article simply because you're right.

Being right is enough, as far as abstract justification, but it might not be enough in practice (there's that "certain sense"). In practice, you might also have to sell your correct, logical, objective idea. "Selling it" simply means using logic to explain to more people why it's a good edit, until whatever necessary forces align to make the edit stick. That will mean different things with different edits. Sometimes you only need one other person. Sometimes you just need to wait a few hours. Sometimes you need multiple admins and a majority of ArbCom on board. That could take years.

It can certainly be difficult to bring the community around to the truth (or Truth, or "Truth"), and in those cases, dealing with that difficulty is a practical necessity. IAR endorses ignoring everyone else, but it doesn't physically empower you to get away with it, unless those with the buttons are willing to push them. This system doesn't work unless the community (including admins, and ArbCom, and other higher-ups) is, in the long run, receptive to logic. If Wikipedians aren't acting in good faith and employing their faculty for thinking logically and objectively, then Wikipedia fails. We work on Wikipedia in the faith that people here will eventually listen to reason and make the right choices.

Now, because of this state of reality - because IAR doesn't come equipped with a magic wand that makes people recognize your rightness and step back - any advice regarding how to IAR should take the practical concerns into account. Simply saying, "IAR empowers you to ignore any rule, at any time, as long as you're improving the encyclopedia," seems to imply that doing so is going to work, in general. Otherwise, why say that people are "empowered" to do it?

If you actually want to apply IAR against popular opposition, then you will fail unless you deal (or someone deals) with the practical concern of how you'll keep from being banned for what you're doing (unless your getting banned somehow makes your edit stick, which would be odd). Getting yourself banned simply because you're right would be completely irresponsible, and we should be advising people to Ignore All Rules responsibly, and thus effectively. It doesn't matter if you were "justified" when you're dead. If you don't do the legwork required to make your correct edit "stick", then you're not improving the encyclopedia. I see no need to ignore this fact.

Now... I hope I'm actually responding to you, and not to some mistaken notion of what you were saying. If not, please let me know. Let's stop talking past each other, and find some common language. If I didn't manage to do it in this post, please let me know. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I could continue arguing with Zenwhat, but lacking any coherent arguments related to the topic at hand from him, I will choose not to feed this particular discussion. I feel I could, and have, spent pages running around in circles chasing slippery and intentionally obfuscated arguments. One cannot argue with the position "Truth is X and based on that X is truth so I am right", as such a position does not accept alternate points of view. If Zenwhat surprises me by making a cogent point using logic other people also use, I will gladly converse with him.

Until then I will gladly address any rational points made by rational people. _(1 == 2)^Until 16:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I've found the conversation educational so far. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but... given the limitations of the talkpage implementation, and how people weave topics in and out... For instance, when a topic is raised, it gets a section header, there is discussion and resolution. The immediate next poster should make every effort to start a new header or subheader because a)surely, a new topic deserves a new header and b)a new header hopefully signals that the previous topic is now resolved. (cheers all round!)

Another problem on this talkpage, because the project page is so short, much chat on the talkpage is of a recriminatory nature in the aftermath of the page getting protected yet again. I believe I witnessed a doozy of a dustup just recently - an admin coming in to protect in an obvious edit-war, who was then subjected to lengthy cross-examination, even interrogation, as to their ability to explain their own understanding of IAR. I may be exaggerating here, but editors should not be expected to submit themselves to "interrogation" just because they try to meekly express a small concern or make a minor edit.

So people back and forth covering their (bases) and the discussion of improvements to the page sinks into a kind of back-channel. We waste a lot of meta-discussing time, having hypo-meta or hyper-meta discussions, methinks, self-reflectingly. Newbyguesses - Talk 22:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)