Gregory Maxwell said:
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable
and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being
the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little
tidying up.
That's basically it. With the proviso that an editor must want to write
about it. Unwanted articles should never get written. There is a slight
flaw here if we permit people to produce articles using bots, such as
rambot, but that seems to be a result of a general decision that a certain
class of geographical feature should be in Wikipedia. Not an unreasonable
assumption, but not without its problems in the early days.
This is amusing because the direction to avoid original
research is often taken merely as advice and only used
as a rule when
there is conflict
That is not my understanding. "No original research" is official policy.