On Tue, 30 Jun 2009, Apoc 2400 wrote: > Some would say that we need no rule for this as we have IAR. However, > Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is about ignoring rules when they prevent > you from improving the encyclopedia.
I've complained about this for some time (to no avail). IAR may be short, but it's not free of loopholes, and when a loophole in it is used, it's almost always this particular one. Usually it comes up in privacy situations rather than life endangering ones, but it's the same loophole: IAR only lets you ignore rules in order to improve the encyclopedia, helping someone's privacy doesn't improve the encyclopedia, therefore, you're not allowed to use IAR for that. Perhaps a change to IAR. Of course, most people who propose changes to IAR quickly get shot down because the rule is supposed to be simple. But here I'm proposing a change which *widens* the rule, while most proposed changes not only complicate it, but narrow its scope. "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, or otherwise doing what's right, ignore it." I understand the desire not to turn IAR into paragraphs, since that defeats its purpose, but it seems to be needed here. "Otherwise doing what's right" is still a vague term, but no more vague than the rest of IAR, and it would plug the loophole, not just here, but for privacy and BLP issues in general. I also think that this situation is a blatant case of *not* applying IAR (unless you think the rule being ignored is "don't lie about the reliable sources rule"). Actually applying IAR instead of abusing other rules would have been much better. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
