Wikipedia:Policy fallacy

Policy fallacy is the concept that when editors make clueless edits it's because the policy/guidelines aren't clear enough, and adding more words to them will improve things in the future. (At best, they won't, at worst, they'll make things worse per too long.)

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

People just don't read everything on a webpage.^[1][2] We train ourselves to skip over material by things like EULAs – "I have clicked through hundreds of EULAs. I haven't read a single one. And neither have you."^[3] – and banner ads.^[4] Instructions are read like "a billboard going by at 60 miles per hour".^[5]

There are always going to be editors, no matter how clearly something is spelled out, who will interpret in a way that seems to come out of left field. There is no such thing as a policy, rule, or law that is immune to being misapplied or misunderstood. We don't need policies that cater to the rare exceptions because we "should" have mechanisms in place to deal with those issues.^[6]

The best we can do is make directions as clear and short as is practical, and accept a priori that many Wikipedia users aren't going to read them, or read them well. To expect otherwise is to be ignorant of human nature – frustrating to yourself, and annoying to others.