On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:27 AM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote:
On Thu, 2 Apr 2009, Casey Brown wrote:
In the end, it should matter what
is written and how it's supported -- not who wrote it.
This idea sounds great.
Is there a policy or rule for it?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:UCS>? :-)
Doesn't work. Any rule which says to use common sense will lose out against
a more conventional rule. The reason is that rules really become necessary
when you need to force someone else to follow them. If the rule gives a
specific, detailed, description of what is and isn't allowed, with no room
for human judgment, you can force someone else to follow it. If the rule is
based on human judgment, you can't.
"If everyone agrees, this is what you can do" always loses to "if
everyone
doesn't agree, this is what you must do". After all, having a dispute means
that not everyone agrees.
Not quite. If someone disagrees with you, you can explain why they are
wrong, and at the end of the argument, you can appeal to common sense.
Sometimes, if that person steps back and considers things with that
mention of common sense in mind, they will be persuaded.
I see appeals to common sense as a way to jolt people out of
rules-lawyering. But sometimes in a more successful way than saying
something like "Ignore all rules".
Carcharoth