geni wrote:
On 5/15/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
o_0
Anyone who tries to rules-lawyer "Ignore All Rules" has missed the point by a new record.
Well hopefully that has killed off the codified constitution suggestions.
Actually the claim is rather questionable since it used a definition of wikipedia from [[Wikipedia:Five pillars]] rather than [[WP:NOT]] (the two conflict).
However since direct citation of IAR is itself mearly a rather poor form of rule layering it seems only fair that an attempt be made to rule lawyer around it.
No I understand IAR I just object to people citeing it rather than putting forward a logicaly solid but outside rules argument. Do that well enough and people are unlikely to bring up rules in the first place.
"Ignore All Rules" doesn't mean "do whatever you damn well like." It does mean "If the rules are getting in the way of taking a patently obvious action, or would result in a ridiculous outcome in an edge case they were never really designed to deal with, shove the rules out of the way." If a lot of people object to your ignoring the rules, chances are, you screwed up, because the action is apparently not as obvious as you thought it was. If that happens, have the courtesy to reverse yourself and let the normal processes handle the issue. If everyone (or effectively everyone) backs you up, well then, you were quite obviously right! It's necessary sometimes, but it should be used very judiciously, and only with a very good rationale as to why.