[WikiEN-l] need to work out clear policies on MANDATORYandOPTIONAL rules on WP

[charles matthews]

 "Tom Cadden" wrote

> As has been pointed out repeatedly, the MoS does not say 'do what 
> Brittanica does' Brittanica is a business-orientated hardcopy encyclopædia 
> which follows governmental usage to avoid offending native populations 
> because it needs them to buy their product. It is called sometimes 
> 'Strategic Naming'.

> They follow their own MoS. We follow ours. Ours is not business based but 
> based exclusively on the most common name principle.

[[Wikipedia:Wikilawyering]]:  "Wikilawyering is attempting to 
inappropriately rely on legal technicalities with respect to 
Wikipedia:Policies or Wikipedia:Arbitration."

'Wikilawyer' is pejorative; 'policy wonk' is not.

If blindly insisting on 'following policy' makes the English Wikipedia 
factually worse, and offends our community members, and offends 'native 
populations' (my God, do people still express themselves like this?) why the 
hell should we do it? Making 'exclusively' a universal override is 
wikilwayering.

Charles