Ignore all rules
"Ignore all rules"(IAR) is a policy used onWikipedia,an online encyclopedia. TheEnglish Wikipediapolicy reads: "If aruleprevents you from improving or maintainingWikipedia,ignore it."[emphasis in original].[1]The rule was proposed by Wikipedia co-founderLarry Sangerto encourage editors to add information without focusing excessively on formatting, though Sanger later criticized the rule's effects on the community.
The policy is discussed on other pages on Wikipedia, such as theessay"What 'Ignore all rules' means".[2]It allowsWikipedia usersto use a policy to occasionally work around the site's rules without rejecting the entire rule system. A study in 2012 found that in "Articles for Deletion"discussions, which determine whether a Wikipedia article should be deleted, comments were given more weight when they used IAR as justification.Critics of Wikipediahave variously opined that the rule is abused in practice, or should be used more often.
History
[edit]Wikipediawas launched on January 15, 2001,[3]with few policies, the intention being that users would determine rules via consensus.[4]: 318 "Ignore all rules" was proposed by Wikipedia co-founderLarry Sangeron a "rules to consider page",[4]: 318 and became one of the first formal guidelines of Wikipedia.[5][6][7]Sanger later said that his intention was to convey that "people should not worry about getting formatting right and getting every single detail of policy under their belts before they started contributing".[6]Having conceived of the rule as a "temporary and humorous injunction",[4]: 318 he rejected it in his later projectCitizendiumas "other people were taking it seriously".[6]
The original formulation of the rule was:[8][9]
If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participation in the Wiki, then ignore them and go about your business.
The current formulation of the rule is:[1]
If aruleprevents you from improving or maintainingWikipedia,ignore it.[emphasis in original]
Sanger has opined that his proposal of IAR was "ironic", as was his rejection of a formal title and enforceable authority. InOpen Sources 2.0,he describes these things as "clearly mistakes on [his] part", as they prevented him from enforcing rules. Sanger proposes that a "founding community charter" would have aided with issues in the community of Wikipedia, though he believes IAR and other early decisions did "help the project get off the ground".[4]: 329
Meaning
[edit]
"Ignore all rules" refers to the idea that a user is permitted to violate a rule on a case-by-case basis, if the rule's application could cause negative consequences. IAR providesagencyfor an editor whilst protecting the site's set of rules; it augments Wikipedia'sbureaucratic structure.It is alogical impossibility,or aparadox,as its inclusion in Wikipedia's set of rules "makes rule violation an expected behavior".[10]: 583–585 It is a variation of theBarber's paradox.[11]
The essay "What 'Ignore All Rules' Really Means" attempts to provide clarification as to the scope of IAR.[12]The policy does not justify any action or prevent users from being held accountable for their edits. It does, however, encourage people to use personal judgement and allow novices to contribute without full awareness of every policy and guideline.[13]
It has been suggested that upon conception, IAR was partially "an admission that early contributors often faced situations in which any extant rule would not make sense". However, as the project developed, this became less relevant and by 2015 it had "become very difficult to find a situation in which no existing rule would apply".[14]
The rule is closely related to "Wikipedia has no firm rules", the fifth of the "five pillars" which summarize the site's "fundamental principles".[15]It also links to the guideline which states that Wikipedia editors should "be bold",[9]an idea which Sanger proposed "in a similarspirit"to IAR.[4]: 318
A 2008 article notes that though the policy is "only sixteen words long, the page explaining what the policy means contains over 500 words, refers readers to seven other documents, has generated over 8,000 words of discussion, and has been changed over 100 times in less than a year". It evaluates the word count increases of many policies on the English Wikipedia, noting that though the word count of IAR had decreased, when including the supplemental page explaining it, this amounted to a 3600% increase in length since the rule's conception.[16]
Usage in practice
[edit]A 2012American Behavioral Scientiststudy analyzed the English Wikipedia's deletion process, "articles for deletion"(AfD). It found that IAR significantly impacted the weight of a comment: a page was more likely to be retained if a Wikipedia editor cited IAR in a" keep "vote, and more likely to be deleted if an editor cited IAR in a" delete "vote. The study also found that an article was more likely to be kept if the AfD contained a" keep "comment referring to both IAR and a"notability"policy (a rule on Wikipedia about which topics should have an article). This was not the case for" delete "comments. Additionally, if anadministratorreferred to IAR in favor of deletion then the article was more likely to be kept. The study concluded that the rule acts by "strengthening the efficacy of the individual and diminishing that of the bureaucracy".[10]: 588–590
InJoseph M. Reagle Jr.'s 2010 bookGood Faith Collaborationhe writes that "ignore all rules" is "clever" and has substance of merit, but it "is bound to require qualification", such as that found in the essay "What 'Ignore All Rules' Really Means".[13]McGrady proposed that Wikipedia's "Gaming the System" guideline is a better way to convey the spirit of Wikipedia than IAR. The former guideline forbids users from purposefully misinterpreting Wikipedia's policies in order to undermine their intent, an action referred to as "gaming".[17]McGrady criticizes that IAR is "too abstract and too often misinterpreted or misused, itself a constant subject of gaming".[18]
In his 2015 bookWikipedia and the Politics of Openness,Nathaniel Tkaczwrites that despite the policy, "ignoring the rules in Wikipedia is not an effective strategy if a contributor wants his or her contribution to stick". Tkacz goes on to say that "Wikipedia does have firm rules", but that they "are not fixed for all time".[19]
In a criticism of Wikipedia's bureaucracy,Dariusz Jemielniakwrites that the rule is "knocked over in practice", noting that there are many essays on the site which explain when to use the rule. Jemielniak recommends that a "bureaucracy-busting squad" should be founded to "actively use and educate about" the rule.[20]David AuerbachofSlatesimilarly writes that "ignore all rules" is hypocritically used by Wikipedia editors to "prevail in debates".[21]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^abEditors of Wikipedia (September 29, 2024)."Wikipedia:Ignore all rules".Wikipedia.Wikimedia Foundation.RetrievedOctober 6,2024.
- ^"Wikipedia:What" Ignore all rules "means",Wikipedia,archivedfrom the original on 2019-10-26,retrieved2019-10-24
- ^Kock, Ned; Jung, Yusun; Syn, Thant (2016)."Wikipedia and e-Collaboration Research: Opportunities and Challenges"(PDF).International Journal of e-Collaboration (IJeC).12(2): 1–8. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on September 27, 2016.
- ^abcdeDiBona, Chris; Stone, Mark; Cooper, Danese (October 21, 2005).Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution.O'Reilly Media.ISBN978-0-596-55389-0.
- ^Schiff, Stacy(July 31, 2006)."Know It All: Can Wikipedia conquer experience?".The New Yorker.Archivedfrom the original on September 30, 2014.RetrievedAugust 11,2018.
- ^abcHavenstein, Heather (April 2, 2007)."Wikipedia founder rejects his 'ignore all rules' mantra in new online project: Larry Sanger launches Citizendium".Computerworld.Archived fromthe originalon May 26, 2014.RetrievedAugust 11,2018.
- ^Anderson, Jennifer Joline (2011). Kesselring, Mari (ed.).Wikipedia: The Company and Its Founders.Technology Pioneers. ABDO Publishing.ISBN978-1-61714-812-5.LCCN2010037886.OCLC767732162.
- ^"Wikipedia:Ignore all rules",Wikipedia,2002-04-17,archivedfrom the original on 2020-09-22,retrieved2019-07-19
- ^abAyer, Phoebe; Matthews, Charles; Yates, Ben (2008).How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It.No Starch Press. pp.46–47, 448–51.ISBN978-1-59327-176-3.
- ^abJoyce, Elizabeth; Pike, Jacqueline C.; Butler, Brian S. (December 26, 2012). "Rules and Roles vs. Consensus: Self-Governed Deliberative Mass Collaboration Bureaucracies".American Behavioral Scientist.57(5): 576–594.doi:10.1177/0002764212469366.S2CID147098248.
- ^ADMIN (June 15, 2016)."'Ignore all rules' paradox ".Ask a Philosopher.Archivedfrom the original on December 4, 2020.RetrievedJune 25,2019.
- ^"Wikipedia:What" Ignore all rules "means".Wikipedia.Wikimedia Foundation.July 21, 2018.Archivedfrom the original on October 22, 2021.RetrievedAugust 15,2018.
- ^abReagle Jr., Joseph M.(2010).Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia.MIT Press.ISBN978-0-262-01447-2.LCCN2009052779.
- ^Aaltonen, Aleksi; Lanzara, Giovan Francesco (2015)."Building Governance Capability in Online Social Production: Insights from Wikipedia".Organization Studies.36(12): 1649–1673.doi:10.1177/0170840615584459.hdl:10535/10559.
- ^"Wikipedia:Five pillars".Wikipedia.Wikimedia Foundation.July 31, 2018.Archivedfrom the original on July 7, 2022.RetrievedAugust 11,2018.
- ^Butler, Brian; Joyce, Elisabeth; Pike, Jacqueline (2008). "Don't look now, but we've created a bureaucracy".Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.p. 1101.doi:10.1145/1357054.1357227.ISBN978-1-60558-011-1.S2CID15211227.
- ^"Wikipedia:Gaming the system".Wikipedia.Wikimedia Foundation.July 24, 2018.Archivedfrom the original on June 28, 2024.RetrievedAugust 15,2018.
- ^McGrady, Ryan (2009)."Gaming against the greater good".First Monday.14(2).doi:10.5210/fm.v14i2.2215.
- ^Tkacz, Nathaniel(2014).Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness.University of Chicago Press.ISBN978-0-226-19244-4.
- ^Jemielniak, Dariusz(June 22, 2014)."The Unbearable Bureaucracy of Wikipedia".Slate.Archivedfrom the original on September 10, 2016.RetrievedAugust 11,2018.
- ^Auerbach, David(December 11, 2014)."Encyclopedia Frown".Slate.Archivedfrom the original on December 13, 2014.RetrievedAugust 11,2018.
