On Thu, 19 Apr 2012, Charles Matthews wrote:
If someone tells you to drive at 5 miles under the speed limit rather than
to drive at the speed limit, he may be trying to keep you from getting too
close to a line.
If someone tells you *not to drive at all* rather than to drive at the
speed
limit, that no longer has anything to do with "getting close to a line".
He's just making up his own rules.
Or he may have noticed that you are off your face or otherwise not fit to
drive, and is applying common sense. Good metaphor.
If I'm not fit to drive, he can tell me "you're not fit to drive." Claiming
that it's because it has anything to do with getting close to the line is a
lie.
And the analogy doesn't work with drunkenness because there's no conscious
action you can do if you're drunk that will make you fit to drive. The
analogy would require that he thinks I'm unfit to drive because I never
learned how to drive, but he ignores that I passed the driving test.
But you do seem hung up on "rules". Without the required understanding that
there are indeed sub-sub-clauses, such as the requirement to "edit for the
enemy" that is written into WP:NPOV, that are implicit in WP:COI, and
without the idea that WP is a purposeful activity and has aims that should
be appreciated (which is there in black-and-white in WP:COI), there is no
way some people can do what we want.
Rules can cause trouble, but they have one benefit: at least ideally, it's
clear when you have or haven't violated them. (Many Wikipedia rules are not
ideal, but that's a discussion for another day.) It's a lot harder to
inject personal prejudice to the issue when the rule spells out what you're
allowed to do.
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