Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Asking someone to "avoid" participating
does not imply disallowing that
participation. It only warns them that this sometimes leads to
conflicts.
Any ordinary person reading this in a straightforward way would take an
instruction to "avoid" doing something as a statement that it is not
allowed.
That may be consistent with your view of the "ordinary person", but
others may see it differently. Avoidance is a restriction that one
applies on one's own self. It does not depend on the imposition of
external authority. It favours the exercise of judgement and the
ability to know one's own limits. An outright ban on an activity could
easily be stated with less equivocation.,
Telling users to avoid doing something and then saying
that that doesn't
prevent legitimate uses because it isn't a ban, is expecting everyone who
reads the policies to be a Wikilawyer. This is absurd. Policies need to
be comprehensible by ordinary people.
Quite the contrary. Some "ordinary people" don't need to be led
through
by the hand like little children.
Ec