[WikiEN-l] Docs look to Wikipedia for condition info: Manhattan Research

[Fred Bauder]

> On Tue, 26 May 2009, Fred Bauder wrote:
>> I understood it well enough. Accurate information on a number of
>> subjects
>> is inflammatory.
>
> This is another example of being overly literal and avoiding common
> sense.
> Obviously, when I say Wikipedia should avoid harm, I don't mean it should
> avoid *any harm whatsoever*.  Rather, it means that we need to think
> about
> how much harm something can do and not cause harm that is exceptionally
> acute
> when the benefit to the encyclopedia is relatively small.  How do you
> figure
> this out?  Well, you have to think--there's no rule for it.

You're preaching to the choir. Often when we want to do the right thing,
we are confronted with a demand for a rule, or presented with one,
typically "no censorship". There is no substitute for doing what is
appropriate in the circumstances. Trying to codify that principle is
futile, although Ignore all rules comes close.

Fred Bauder