[WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia Policy as sovereign law

[Gregory Maxwell]

In a recent EnWiki policy discussion there was a conversation which I
found quite interesting.  I've removed the names to avoid singling out
the guilty, because I doubt they are alone:


Person A: "(...) I think that might be a good idea. Doing so for any
BLP deletion is a bad idea since they are usually for reasons
completely against policy (as in the current case where the only
reasons given are "The subject is going to sue us" and "We mustn't
harm people", neither of which are policies)"

Person B: "Heh, that last bit is a little disturbing. Indeed, there is
no policy that says we mustn't harm people. I think the idea here is
to change policy in order to reduce the amount that we unnecessarily
harm people. It's fair to debate to what extent this proposal actually
accomplishes that goal, but it's a little disturbing to here someone
basically assert that since there is no Wikipedia policy saying we
can't needlessly harm people, that it is okay...."

Person A: "This is a proposal to change procedure. If you want to
change an underlying principle, you need to do so explicitly."

Basically person A is arguing that avoiding causing harm to people is
not explicitly a English Wikipedia policy, and so if you want to push
a proposal or argument based on the concept of avoiding harm you must
first change Wikipedia policy to recognize harm avoidance as a
principle worth upholding.

I never used to expect Wikipedia policies to contain such points
because I always considered Wikipedia policies to ultimately be
subordinate to a number of higher powers: The laws of the countires we
live in, basic common sense, and basic human decency.   Yet I've seen
a number of cases were Wikipedia contributors seem to have built the
opinion that Wikipedia policies are the only rules binding the actions
of Wikipedia users, and that details like human rights not only should
but must be ignored unless they are established in the sovereign law
of Wikipedia policy.

Person B's response gives me hope that this believe system is not yet
the majority view.  ... So I'm left wondering, how the heck did this
start happening, and how can it be avoided?    Is it the result of how
the policies are presented? Or are there just a few bad applies that
need to be disinvited from the community.

Thoughts?