[WikiEN-l] Can sweet reason still work on en:wp? Occasionally.

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a bizarre, but ancient, misunderstanding of IAR. All IAR means is
> that priority number one is doing what is right, rather than pedantic
> allegiance to a dictatorial interpretation of rules. Since IAR is not itself
> a justification for anything, there is never any useful information added by
> saying "I am invoking IAR." The only defense is "I did this because X" where
> X is the reason that what you did was a good idea, so you might as well skip
> to the end. Rather than saying "I am invoking IAR and I did this because X",
> just say "I did this because X."

And WP:IAR has said as much at various times; but such explanation
tends to be unstable because it eventually leads to people attempting
to codify rules regulating when it is permissible to IAR.  O_o

That said, sometimes after you've said "I did this because it was the
right thing to do caused no harm, and because failing to do this would
cause harm and rules X,Y,Z were created without any consideration of
this case, and ..." several times only be to be rebutted by some
person who, without refuting any aspect of your position, keeps
pointing out your flagrant violation of the strict letter of rule
27B/6 ... well, about the only thing to do is to cite back WP:IAR as a
rule. At that moment the rule-pushers head will either explode, or
he'll go burn himself out trying to edit war on WP:IAR, either way
your problem is solved. (or so you hope!)