On Thu, 19 Apr 2012, Charles Matthews wrote:
If someone tells you to drive at 5 miles under
the speed limit rather than
to drive at the speed limit, he may be trying to
keep you from getting
too
close to a line.
If someone tells you *not to drive at all* rather than to drive at the
speed
limit, that no longer has anything to do with "getting close to a line".
He's just making up his own rules.
Or he may have noticed that you are off your face or otherwise not fit to
drive, and is applying common sense. Good metaphor.
If I'm not fit to drive, he can tell me "you're not fit to drive."
Claiming
that it's because it has anything to do with getting close to the line is a
lie.
And the analogy doesn't work with drunkenness because there's no conscious
action you can do if you're drunk that will make you fit to drive. The
analogy would require that he thinks I'm unfit to drive because I never
learned how to drive, but he ignores that I passed the driving test.
In fact this analogy could work in the context of learner drivers; for whom
advising caution as they start out is a good thing! :)
Same applies to any newbie Wikipedian.
Tom