G'day The Mangoe,
On 6/22/07, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The main reasoning behind BOLD is the fact that
it's easy to undo any
mistakes. That holds for (most) administrative actions as well as
basic editing, so why wouldn't BOLD apply?
But the problem is that it isn't that easy. 3RR gives whoever makes
the first change an advantage: their opponent will get hit by the rule
first. Being BOLD in policy is a major cause of The Wrong Version,
because it's likely that disputes will get the text locked in the
changed version.
This shows a major misunderstanding of 3RR, BOLD, and The Wrong Version
(although you may have been ironic with that last one). I'm not,
however, surprised.
The danger with being bold in policy lies in the inability to
distinguish between a proposal and an accepted policy. It also brings
us to that grey area where a seasoned policy wonk's bold policy change
can be explained as clarification, and a newbie's bold clarification can
be condemned as a radical policy change. This is precisely an area that
is in serious need of review.
3RR has never been anything but a short term emergency solution to a
problem.
If there is such a thing as a "Wrong Version", perhaps it could be
considered in contrast with "Stable versions" if that long awaited idea
ever gets off the ground.
Ec