User talk:Andrewa/The primary purpose of the MOS

Why this page

Discussion at WT:MOS has generated a lot of heat but no light IMO.

Rather than further try people's patience there, I'll develop my thoughts here.

In that all pages belong to the community, everyone is invited to contribute here. Andrewa (talk) 08:14, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

It is of course possible that nobody else will ever even find this page, let alone edit it. And that's OK too. It's not hidden, if I wanted to hide it I have a password-protected wiki all of my own, with page-level access control. Or if I wanted to publish it on the web but off-wiki for whatever reason (there are some valid ones but none apply here), alderspace would be the place for that.

I've put a heads-up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#To promote archiving diff. Others may follow on that page or elsewhere. It's definitely not a secret.

It may grow. It may not. Time will tell. Andrewa (talk) 09:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Phrasing that reflects "good faith"

In previous discussion there's been some discussion about whether or not proposed changes to the lede of WP:MOS change the meaning. This has generated much heat.

I think part of the problem is, meaning is not the whole story. The phrasing also conveys mood, hints at the back story, lots of things that are important especially in the lede to such a fundamental page.

One of the important uses of the MOS is to guide all editors, including but of course not only newer editors, in the way we write and edit. Not everyone uses it in this way or at all, and that's OK. All editors are encouraged to be bold. See my personal take on this at User:Andrewa/creed#bold.

But I believe that this guidance is the primary purpose of the MOS, and all other purposes (and in particular dispute resolution) are secondary. I accept that not everyone agrees with this. (And discussing even what it means could go around in circles and sometimes has, so just take it as an expression of one view.)

This view affects how the MOS should be written (the phrasing), but not what it says (the meaning). That I think is an important distinction, and one which has been sometimes overlooked. Both what the MOS says and how it is said are important.

And here's my most radical suggestion: The MOS will be most effective at both avoiding and resolving disputes if it's written as if none will ever exist. This encourages its readers to assume good faith and work towards consensus. On the other hand, writing it with dispute resolution in mind will encourage a legalistic way of writing, and legalistic interpretations.

And that's plenty for now. Comments? Andrewa (talk) 08:14, 31 December 2016 (UTC)