[WikiEN-l] IAR

[Tony Sidaway]

On 10/2/09, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem is, IAR doesn't specify or imply what they mean by
> 'improve'.

That's intrinsic to ignoring all rules.  If they could give you a rule
for when to ignore the rules, then they could codify that as a new
rule and ignoring rules would never be necessary--every conceivable
eventuality on Wikipedia would be covered by a rule.  The world
doesn't work like that.

This policy relies on people trusting themselves to make decisions and
take actions that seem okay to them, knowing that if there is a
problem somebody else will spot it and fix it.  It's an anti-policy, a
way of saying that the rules are only there to make things better and
they should not ever be used to stop that happening.

There is a theory that when everybody finally understands Ignore all
Rules it will be taken away and replaced by something even more
baffling.  There are some people who say this has already happened.