On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 7:36 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
When the objection is "the rule is being followed too literally instead of using common sense", the reply "in Wikipedia, we follow this rule" is free of content.
I think in the end people are disagreeing with your belief that your view is common sense and the other one is not.
In almost all Wikipedia wars, both sides are convinced that right and common sense are on their side. If some rules are a little inflexible, it's partly because it's rarer than you think that common sense has that much of a consensus. Sometimes the best way to end an argument is simply the "That's nice, but Wikipedia does it this way ..." response.
When there really is consensus that the rules get it wrong in one specific instance, I often find we ignore the rules quite well.
-Matt