[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ken Arromdee]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy.
> One of the functions of IAR is to protect us from becoming slaves to 
> policy that leads us to information which defies common sense or which 
> leads us into absurdities.

IAR is only useful when everyone agrees that what you want to do is common
sense.  If there's any conflict about it, IAR is pretty much worthless--that
is, it's worthless exactly when you need it.  And Wikipedia is peppered with
conflicts where rule wonks always want you to follow rules, and quoting IAR
to them means you lose.

And as I pointed out, if you need IAR to make a rule not totally break things
in the cases where the rule matters--that's really a sign that you should
just fix the rule, rather than quoting IAR.  Of course, rules are nearly
impossible to fix (except by abusing other rules).