[WikiEN-l] Why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore

[Carl (CBM)]

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 04/02/2011, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a
>> goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we
>> need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really
>> complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the
>> goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it.
>> Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly
>> as we do."
>
> To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although
> people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I
> cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not
> following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules).

I think the comment by Nathan would be an accurate assessment of the
history of the Verifiability and No Original Research policies, whose
meaning has mutated so much that their initial, perfectly reasonable
origins have been lost to myth and legend.

- Carl