[WikiEN-l] Bad And Wrong Policy/Procedure/Guideline Hitlist

Fri Nov 3 17:01:37 UTC 2006

On 11/3/06, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>
> David Gerard wrote:
> > What policies/procedures/guidelines on en:wp strike you as just awful?
> > Please list and elaborate.
> >
> > This could be in any of purpose, current wording, ineffectuality or
> > just being a completely bad idea. Or anything else that makes it just
> > awful.
>
> A7 and G11 continue to chap my behind.  They go against what we'd normally
> use for a CSD, and the high number of poor uses (yes, I know it generally
> works the way it's allegedly supposed to, but too many other things get
> caught in the crossfire) make it more of a pain than anything else.  And
> that's not even getting into the WP:BITE considerations.

Once upon a time there was a vote about "criteria for speedy deletion".  I
thought it was needlessly bureaucratic, and best to be ignored.  Since then,
a whole language has developed "A7", "G11" and the criteria have multipled
like crazy.  Once upon a time I ignored it because I thought it was needless
bureaucracy - now I ignore it because it is impenetrable bureaucracy, and
quite frankly, if I wanted to deal with crap like that I would have gone to
law school.

WP:IAR should really be historical at this point.  Did it have use back in
> the day?  Maybe so, but we have enough admins and useful policies and
> guidelines at this point where there really isn't ever a need to do so
> anymore, and is really just trotted out by people who know better these
> days.

While IAR is often abused as a reason to be disruptive, the truth is that
it's the last defense against insanity in many cases, specifically
becausewe have too many useless guidelines and policies.  When we have
too many
people who don't understand the difference between guidelines and policies,
and who wikilawyer guidelines into "absolute truths"... we have a problem.

IAR is good, but when done intentionally.

I don't think the off-wiki personal attack addition was a bad one in
> retrospect, but it would sure be nice to see some consistent application
> of it.

Yep - to begin with, in IRC

Ian