On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:14 AM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote:
I suggest that this is a piss-poor way to create
Wikipedia policy. There's
a substantial contingent of policy wonks who take any blanket policy statement
as gospel and use it as an excuse to avoid even *trying* to figure out if
some suggested exception to that policy is a good idea on the grounds that
we don't do such things, ever. It's a triumph of rules lawyering over
common sense. Of course, when questioned they will admit that exceptions
are allowed, but their attitude to any proposed exception remains the same.
IMHO, this occurs because it's a lot easier for people to decide "does
this follow the policy" than "is this a good idea". And eventually the
policy gets elevated to some level of immutable axiom, rather than
what it is — policy.
Steve