[WikiEN-l] WP:COI violation

Sat Nov 11 19:01:34 UTC 2006

On 11/11/06, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> Any ordinary person reading this in a straightforward way would take an
> instruction to "avoid" doing something as a statement that it is not
> allowed.

"Avoid" is pretty clear language in any case.

Wikipedia has a social environment which is different from many other places.

Generally you can even do things which are forbidden so long as
everyone who cares agrees that doing so was good.  This, of course,
happens elsewhere too.. but it's quite common on Wikipedia. I've
previously argued in detail that this is the natural result of working
in an environment where almost everything can be totally undone with
less effort than it took to do.

So the language we've used is just a reflection of reality: Your
ability to get away with such edits is conditional on the approval of
all the established Wikipedians who are watching. We can't tell people
they are permitted to do something but then yell when they do
something unacceptable, nor is it fair to give a firm no but later
ignore the rule when they've done something everyone agrees on.

If we were to try to write a rule which explained the conditions we'd
find that it would need to become nearly as long as the entire body of
meta-discussion on Wikipedia before it did a good job at helping the
reader tell if their action would be accepted or not ...  even long
standing and respected users sometimes have a hard time guessing how
the community will react.

> Telling users to avoid doing something and then saying that that doesn't
> prevent legitimate uses because it isn't a ban, is expecting everyone who
> reads the policies to be a Wikilawyer.  This is absurd.  Policies need to
> be comprehensible by ordinary people.

No. It's a hope that no one is a wikilawyer.

The rules are to help people quickly understand what is generally
accepted and expected. A suggestion to avoid does exactly that... and
only a wikilaywer wants rules to be more than that.

If the rule says you should avoid, but you do it, and the community
does not agree.. This isn't time for you to start arguing rules.. this
is the time for you to realize that it's the communities position
which is actually binding.