geni wrote:
On 5/15/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
o_0
Anyone who tries to rules-lawyer "Ignore All Rules" has missed the
point by a new record.
Well hopefully that has killed off the codified constitution suggestions.
Actually the claim is rather questionable since it used a definition
of wikipedia from [[Wikipedia:Five pillars]] rather than [[WP:NOT]]
(the two conflict).
However since direct citation of IAR is itself mearly a rather poor
form of rule layering it seems only fair that an attempt be made to
rule lawyer around it.
No I understand IAR I just object to people citeing it rather than
putting forward a logicaly solid but outside rules argument. Do that
well enough and people are unlikely to bring up rules in the first
place.
"Ignore All Rules" doesn't mean "do whatever you damn well
like." It
does mean "If the rules are getting in the way of taking a patently
obvious action, or would result in a ridiculous outcome in an edge case
they were never really designed to deal with, shove the rules out of the
way." If a lot of people object to your ignoring the rules, chances are,
you screwed up, because the action is apparently not as obvious as you
thought it was. If that happens, have the courtesy to reverse yourself
and let the normal processes handle the issue. If everyone (or
effectively everyone) backs you up, well then, you were quite obviously
right! It's necessary sometimes, but it should be used very judiciously,
and only with a very good rationale as to why.