[WikiEN-l] Jimbo on Commons

[Steve Bennett]

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:14 AM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> I suggest that this is a piss-poor way to create Wikipedia policy.  There's
> a substantial contingent of policy wonks who take any blanket policy statement
> as gospel and use it as an excuse to avoid even *trying* to figure out if
> some suggested exception to that policy is a good idea on the grounds that
> we don't do such things, ever.  It's a triumph of rules lawyering over
> common sense.  Of course, when questioned they will admit that exceptions
> are allowed, but their attitude to any proposed exception remains the same.

IMHO, this occurs because it's a lot easier for people to decide "does
this follow the policy" than "is this a good idea". And eventually the
policy gets elevated to some level of immutable axiom, rather than
what it is — policy.

Steve