On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/02/2011, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
"It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do."
To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules).
I think the comment by Nathan would be an accurate assessment of the history of the Verifiability and No Original Research policies, whose meaning has mutated so much that their initial, perfectly reasonable origins have been lost to myth and legend.
- Carl