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