[WikiEN-l] A further descent into self-referential idiocy

[Andrew Gray]

On 05/06/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/5/07, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > There is *one* passing comment, made in response to my complaint,
> > about a neutral article being a defensibly a "good thing", because
> > then we get on top of the google results and it's better than the
> > alternatives - I disagree with it, but it's a reasoned position.
> > Otherwise... not a smidgen of editorial thought. Just an incantation
> > of an article of faith, a slavish devotion to a meaningless line in
> > the sand.
>
> Your contention appears to be that every policy should be up for
> rediscussion and renegotiation on every single AfD?

Er, no. *Editorial judgement* should be used on every single AFD.
There is a critical difference.

We're not talking "let's all decide to ignore the need for neutrality"
or "let's all decide to ignore the need for sources" here. I do not
see any policy that would be breached or redefined by deleting this
article. We should *always* be able to use editorial judgement to
decide on whether or not to include topics, save when doing so would
cripple our mission to be neutral (but even then, editorial judgement
on whether or not, etc, comes into play)

> Wouldn't it be
> better to leave AfD for *application* of policy, and have the
> philosophising at some central location? I'm not saying your arguments
> aren't valid, but to accuse people of "slavishly" applying policy at a
> place designed for the application of policy is unfair. That's what
> they're supposed to be doing there.

The day that the policy says "we should have articles on high school
athletes", then they will be slavishly applying policy. What they are
doing now is slavishly quoting guidelines and construing them as
inassailable and absolute, graven on tablets of stone handed down from
the God Of Encyclopedicity. I don't know if the unspoken assumption is
"we have a right to do this" or "we have a duty to do this", but
either way it's wrong.

There is a reason we talk of "ignoring all rules" not of "ignoring all
judgement".

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk