User:El Sandifer
Wikipedia:Policy trifecta makes it sound so easy...
So I figured why not try it? After all, I've been here for two and a half years. I've got a pretty good idea of what we're doing here. Why not just stop worrying about what all the policy pages say today, and about what the process to list something on AfD is?
So I'm not anymore. I understand WP:NPOV, WP:DICK, and I especially understand WP:IAR. I understand what an encyclopedia is. I understand how to do good research. (I'm a professional academic - I teach people how to do good research. I know this stuff.)
So as of today, I'm just going to go ahead and edit. Lord knows the rules are making me nervous and depressed. So I'll follow all the stuff I can remember, and not try too hard to learn the other stuff. If I can't remember how to list something for AfD today, I'll just use PROD. If I can't get it deleted via PROD, I just won't delete it. Someone who remembers how to use AfD can do it. If I can't remember how many warnings a vandal gets, I'll just zap 'em for 24 hours two warnings early, and call it a day. If I can't remember the status of blogs and personal websites as they apply to a specific topic, well, I'm a professional researcher. I teach people how to research. I'll trust my judgment.
Note that this means that if you cite a policy page to me and expect me to carefully divine the meaning of section 14, paragraph 3, clause 2 of it, odds are I'll just say "Yeah, but what's wrong with what I'm doing?" "It violates policy" isn't enough. If it's against policy, it must be bad for some reason, so just explain to me what it does that's bad.
Otherwise... well, you might drive me off the page, but you sure ain't gonna convince me.
In the meantime, I'll be keeping User:Phil Sandifer/Process blog updated with anything I run into that's just impossible to handle without checking lots of policy pages. I'm doing this not so much because I'm trying to find the essential policies as because I'm trying to find the broken ones. I figure anything so complex an admin who's been editing for two and a half years can't do it is fundamentally broken.
Not that I'll be the one to fix it. I've got an encyclopedia to write.