Guild Wars Wiki talk:Ignore all policies

I'd like to have the following sentence added: "If a policy prevents you from improving or maintaining the official wiki, ignore it. User:Xeeron is the sole authority to determine what improves the wiki."

Alternatively, the following corollary can be written in: "If a policy prevents you from improving or maintaining the official wiki, ignore it. Corollary: According to IAP, all sysops will ignore this policy and still enforce all other policies as normal to help maintaining and improving the wiki."

It is not by accident that wikipedia (where this proposal comes from), accompanies the policy with a special supplement, basically stating "Ignore all rules does not mean that you can ignore all rules".

Let me put forward my point more seriously: This policy is bad. If it would work, we would not need any policies at all (including this one), because everyone would always agree on what improves the wiki and do that. We all know people do not. This is one of the "feel good" proposals that serve no other purpose expect making the ones who endorse it feel good about themselves. It invites users to cite this whenever they want to break a policy, removing concensus as the force determining the course of the wiki and replacing it with unilateral action. --Xeeron 18:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the title and wording; but I support what I believe to be the spirit behind this (as derived from the supplemental article). To me, the important points, which I feel this wiki has at least partially lost sight of, are What "Ignore all rules" means #2, 5, 6 & 7, balancing those with What "Ignore all rules" does not mean #1-4 (inclusive). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe we need policies at all, Xeeron. GuildWiki didn't have policies for the the first year, and the only reason it started having policies is because I wrote down the things we all did without them, as an aid to newbies. "Policy" was meant as "things we all usually uphold and you should usually uphold too", not "almighty intractable doctrine" as we seem to use it here. —Tanaric 21:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

If we decide to try to implement this as policy, I would like it to be a bit more clear regarding its meaning in the actual policy page rather than Wikipedia's supplementary article format. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 23:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Not having policies means that consensus has to be established again and again on the same issues, everytime they are brought up. Apart from being extremely time consuming, that is a recipe for wiki drama.

I can understand Barek's reasoning (I liked those points out of the supplement as well), but that is not something that should go into policy, we got the new GWW:GL for this kind of behavioral related, but not enforcable topics. The important point of this whole policy is: Don't lambast people for breaking policy, when they only meant the best. And for that, we don't actually need this page, we just need good sysops (which we have) and calm, civil users (which we mostly have). --Xeeron 23:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Before we can do this, we need more supporting guidelines or policies that define and outline our editing culture. Guild Wars Wiki:Assume good faith is not a guideline (yet). We don't have a definition of consensus. We don't have a civility guideline (yes, NPA partially fulfills this role, but I feel it's not enough). We also don't have a statement on the official purpose of this wiki (to baseline what exactly is a "good" contribution).

And like Aiiane, I also think it's better to explain the meaning of that one-liner (in our context) than just providing an external link. One of the reasons is because also need to highlight that policies are meant to be followed "to the spirit", not "to the letter" (unfortunately, we're getting arguments about the exact meaning of a certain wording all too often). -- ab.er.rant 02:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this proposed policy an instance of the adage that those who do not understand Wikipedia are doomed to reinvent it, badly? —S3 07:49, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Not originally. It's attempting to counter an instance of the adage that those who do not understand the GuildWiki are doomed to reinvent it, badly. —Tanaric 11:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I do support this policy, however i feel that it is maybe misleading in the way it is represented. I propse this as basically the same thing but slightly clearer in its approach. --ChronicinabilitY 23:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts

The "supplementary material" has been added to the draft. Thoughts, everyone? --Rezyk 00:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It is overall a bad idea. Policies like GWW:ADMIN or GWW:COPYRIGHT should never be ignored unilaterally. Most other policies are similarly sacrosanct. The only ones that I believe are subject to IAP are GWW:USER, GWW:SIGN and GWW:GUIDE (with associated guidelines). IAR exists on Wikipedia because Wikipedia has a vast and often ill-defined scope, and partly because its (co-)founder is a Randian objectivist infatuated with the constructed myth of the individual hero. Expectedly, reality does not conform to the ideal; most uses of IAR on WP cause drama. Because policies in this wiki are based on consensus, it is paradoxical to empower maverick users to ignore consensus when they so see fit. —S3 04:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It does read a bit like'Cause disruption to make a point'. Not my prefered way of dealing with things. As for WP, the one policy that is ignored is IAP. Backsword 05:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

S and Backsword are on the same lines as I am. If we need to break a policy to benefit the wiki, it's fairly easy to change the policies and that's what we have been doing up to this point and it's been working well. -- (gem / talk) 08:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

S3, Backsword and Gem very nicely explain all problems I have with this: IAP puts individuals above consensus, it is an invitation for trolls and if a policy needs to be changed, we can change it. Through the normal way of changing policies. --Xeeron 12:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I've viewed this problem of sabotaging consensus as something that IAR/IAP does try to avoid, but is rather weak in doing so. I'll do a deeper rewrite to attempt to strengthen that aspect while keeping the main benefits. --Rezyk 16:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem with a policy with a name 'ignore all policies' and content that allows to people to break policies is the fact that people will get ideas for abuse with it and will cause major drama. It's a well intended policy, but just like we've seen NPA and AGF being misused, so would this one. Making changes to other policies is quick enough so that anything that breaks a policy but is helpful can be allowed in a short time. -- (gem / talk) 16:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Rezyk - If attempting a re-write, I suggest starting with the title of the proposal - it needs to lose the Ignore all policies name. The safe-guards in the "What 'Ignore all policies' does not mean" section really temper how this policy should be invoked; but I fear that the IAP title is a lightning-rod for this to cause problems if it ever became policy. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:27, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

How about the opposite? Make a policy called "Follow all policies" and add a note saying "...Unless the betterment of the wiki requires violation of one of them" or something like that. A bit silly, but... Erasculio 19:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking that the concept behind this can be split and expanded on into "Guild Wars Wiki:Use common sense" and "Guild Wars Wiki:The spirit of the policy" or something. -- ab.er.rant 01:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Rewritten with some fundamental changes at: Guild Wars Wiki:Policy is not stringent. --Rezyk 00:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Fail?

Time to reject this one?

1. Mostly opposed.
2. Continued at Guild Wars Wiki:Policy is not stringent

Backsword 13:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)