[Wikipedia-l] Re: Policy

[Stephen Gilbert]

--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> Of course, the rest of you who subscribe to the
> mailing list clearly
> feel that it's necessary to lock down the policy
> pages, so vive la
> revolution!

Silly. The rest of me who subscribes to the list
thinks it is:

a) foolish to lock the policy pages for fear of people
changing them, and

b) foolish to advocate changing them whenever you
disagree with what they say.

In the case of a, I've all ready made my arguments;
check the list archives if you're interested.

As for b, it's always been my understanding the the
policy pages are simply descriptive; actual policy
comes from working on the encyclopedia and discussing
things with your fellow Wikipedians. The policy pages
simply describe the results of that process. Directly
editing those pages in order to *change* policy
negates any possible value of the pages. As Brion
said, they don't define policy, they describe it. Your
idea of editing the policy pages to come to a
consensus, rather than coming to a consensus and then
describing it, is similiar to re-writing your
dictionary to change the meaning of words.

Stephen G.

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