On 19 April 2012 15:22, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Thu, 19 Apr 2012, Charles Matthews wrote:
If someone tells you to drive at 5 miles under the speed limit rather than
to drive at the speed limit, he may be trying to keep you from getting too close to a line.
If someone tells you *not to drive at all* rather than to drive at the speed limit, that no longer has anything to do with "getting close to a line". He's just making up his own rules.
Or he may have noticed that you are off your face or otherwise not fit to drive, and is applying common sense. Good metaphor.
If I'm not fit to drive, he can tell me "you're not fit to drive." Claiming that it's because it has anything to do with getting close to the line is a lie.
And the analogy doesn't work with drunkenness because there's no conscious action you can do if you're drunk that will make you fit to drive. The analogy would require that he thinks I'm unfit to drive because I never learned how to drive, but he ignores that I passed the driving test.
In fact this analogy could work in the context of learner drivers; for whom advising caution as they start out is a good thing! :)
Same applies to any newbie Wikipedian.
Tom