On Fri, 4 Feb 2011, Fred Bauder wrote:
Clearly there are issues. I'm on Jimbo's side with this though. Some of my earliest edit wars were over whether The People's Republic of China could be described in the introduction as a totalitarian dictatorship. What has currently been hit on is "single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China (CPC)." with a link to "single-party state" an artificial construct for which there is little published authority.
We can't get so picky and bound up in rules that stating the obvious is forbidden.
It's easy for someone who is a little too anal-retentive at following rules to cause trouble, because the fact that he *is* following rules makes it so much easier for him to push his demands. And if you rules-lawyer, it's still easy to get away with it.
The reason is that having the rules on your side gives you one *heck* of an edge in any dispute. It's occasionally possible for common sense to triumph over rules, but only in the very obvious cases will this happen--if the person following the rules isn't demanding something so outrageous that anyone can see how bad it is instantly, it'll work.