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Preferring a discussion over bold editing it would seem that the sentence "Be prepared to justify your actions to anybody with a reasonable objection" could be worded: Be prepared to justify your actions to anybody with a reasonable objection because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. At the least this should be at the top as a "See also".
I just ran across this and think it informative, likely something that could be offered to newer editors, more especially any that might "transgress" in some area as to receive a warning, as a suggestion to read. However, the Ignore all rules (IAR) section (and policy) is often misunderstood or even misused.
We are advised to "ignore all rules" when it is an improvement to Wikipedia but this can be subjective. In theory it is a concrete policy that we can ignore rules when improving Wikipedia. It is referenced in Five pillars that Wikipedia has no firm rules. IAR is intended to be a check on bureaucracy. A new editor does not have to know "all the rules" to edit and Please do not bite the newcomers should always be considered.
If an edit is bold and not contested it is a normal process of editing considered consensus by silence (explanatory supplement) and therefore cannot break any policy or guideline at that time. This process ends immediately when at any time an edit or action is contested.
If an edit is contested community practice will usually resort to the BOLD. This is an "explanatory supplement" to Wikipedia:Consensus (policy) and Wikipedia:Be bold (editing guideline) but claims of IAR can be contested that will normally lead to a discussion. When the statement or expression is used that invokes "ignore all rules", it is ultimately subjected to consensus, not just taken as a given, so gives the illusion that "rules can be ignored" when in fact that may not be true. WP:Policies and guidelines (that does include some "essays") can be ignored by local consensus and will be acceptable unless there is some form of WP:Dispute resolution, possibly a request for comments, that may involve a more broad community. A closing of such a discussion may result in no consensus thus a claim of IAR could be upheld.
The bottom line is that a claim, that should give limitations on bureaucracy, will only work when not contested, so no real reason to consider IAR, however, as soon as something is contested it will usually bring in a host of quoted policies, guidelines, and even possibly some broadly accepted essays during discussions.
The section of "What Wikipedia is not" includes the often disregarded "A procedural, coding, or grammatical error in a new contribution is not grounds for reverting it, unless the error cannot easily be fixed. Many times a blanket reversal is used even if content is a net positive contribution possibly just needing some tweaking. When used properly WP:BRD (a form of one-revert rule could be an indication that there should never be any edit wars yet there are, and the "explanatory supplement" (that is optional) is often over-used. Otr500 (talk) 10:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't there 7 rules here? Did one get removed somewhere? Or is the more information section or lede supposed to be one? Skarmory(talk •contribs) 00:09, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed by 137a ExclusiveEditor Notify Me! 08:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)