User talk:Andrewa/The MOS is neither optional nor compulsory

Why this page

There's a rather involved discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Removal of clarifying phrase from lead which inspired this essay. Andrewa (talk) 22:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Overstating the case

"To deliberately and repeatedly ignore the MOS is disruptive and may result in not just reverting but also in sanctions." In reality, no one has ever been sanctioned for this, and probably never will be. As long as people are writing within the bounds of the core content policies and their English is at least borderline competent, we want them to keep working on the encyclopedia.

Where "I hate MoS" stuff becomes sanctionably disruptive are when it's any of the following patterns, over an extended period of time, and after warnings:

1. Tendentious attempts to change the gudieline to say something that better matches one's personal preferences.
2. Changing complaint text to be non-compliant
3. Interfering with other editors changing non-compliant material to be compliant.

Such behavior patterns with regard to any guideline or policy are sanctionable.

MoS is not a required read for anyone; people are expected to begin editing without even being aware that MoS exists. We like people to read it and follow it, but it's primarily a WP:GNOME playbook for post hoc cleanup. We don't even revert non-compliant material but just fix it (though we'd revert an edit that did nothing but make existing text non-compliant).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:44, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

You've written this better in another page :-)

@Andrewa: Please integrate what you wrote at User:Andrewa/Policy or guideline#The Wikipedia Manual of Style into this page; it's the key point, but is missing here, leaving the impression that option 1 (ignore MoS) is at least equal to if not better than option 2 (follow MoS). You're clearly making the point that going against MoS is largely fruitless, but only in the page where this is less pertinent. PS: I would also reverse the order in which these options are presented, at both pages, per "don't bury the lead" and the principle that one gives the advice to follow before giving the thing to not [usually] do.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:23, 3 January 2018 (UTC)