Larry Sanger

Right, so number five, repeal, ignore all rules.

So yeah, in the early weeks of Wikipedia, there were a lot of people who were shy and not bold enough about making edits, which you really have to be if you're going to work on a wiki.

And so I was encouraging them by saying, be bold in updating pages and so forth.

And one of the other things that I said is ignore all rules.

If rules make you nervous and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them and go about your business.

That's essentially the original wording.

And the whole idea is a tongue-in-cheek expression of our good faith trust in people to get things right, more or less.

And if they actually do...

You know, step over the line somehow.

We're not going to get too upset about it.

At least not right away, you know.

So it was a way of welcoming the newbies.

I see.

Now, it's actually used by...

people who are very much part of the system.

And it's sometimes used simply to, in lieu of a better argument, or when an argument isn't even available, it's like, oh, you guys know what I mean.

This sort of thing cannot stand, ignore all rules.

Yeah.

So it really doesn't have a legitimate use any longer.

I kind of wish it did.