Bharatpedia:Common sense

This is an information page.

It documents a Bharatpedia process, convention, or practice. It is not one of Bharatpedia's policies or guidelines, and its contents are advisory rather than mandatory. Editors should use common sense when applying it.

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Common sense is the ordinary judgment that editors are expected to bring to their work on Bharatpedia. Policies and guidelines are written to cover the general case; articles, disputes, and editor interactions are specific. Applying a rule mechanically, without regard to the situation it was written for, often produces outcomes that no editor intended and that the rule was never meant to require.

This page describes what common sense means in practice on Bharatpedia, why it matters, and — importantly — where its limits lie.

Why common sense matters

Bharatpedia's policies are deliberately written at a level of generality that allows them to apply across millions of pages and an enormous range of subjects. That generality is a strength, but it also means the rules cannot anticipate every situation.

Common sense is what bridges the gap. It is the recognition that:

• A rule written for one purpose should not be stretched to cover a situation it was never designed for.
• The spirit of a rule matters as much as its letter.
• A technically correct action can still be a bad one if it damages the encyclopedia or drives away good editors.
• Conversely, a technical violation may be harmless, and treating it as a serious matter wastes everyone's time.

Editors who apply common sense tend to produce better articles, resolve disputes faster, and cause less friction than editors who treat every rule as absolute.

Common sense and policy

Common sense does not stand above policy. It operates alongside it.

Where a policy or guideline speaks clearly to a situation, that is normally the end of the matter, and common sense is not a reason to depart from it. Where a policy is silent, ambiguous, or produces an absurd result in a particular case, common sense informs how it should be read.

Bharatpedia:Ignore all rules is the policy that formally permits editors to depart from a rule where doing so improves the encyclopedia. Common sense is closely related to it, but they are not the same thing. Ignore all rules is a specific permission, to be invoked deliberately and rarely. Common sense is the everyday judgment that shapes how editors read and apply rules in the ordinary course of work, without needing to invoke anything.

Where common sense applies

Common sense is relevant across nearly every part of Bharatpedia:

• Article content. Deciding whether a source is good enough, whether a detail belongs in an article, or whether a section should be split requires judgment, not just rule-checking.
• Notability and deletion. Assessing whether a subject is notable, or whether a page should be kept, is rarely a mechanical exercise.
• Dispute resolution. Deciding how much weight to give an argument, or when a discussion has run its course, requires reading the room as well as the rules.
• Editor conduct. Distinguishing between a blunt comment and a genuine personal attack, or between persistence and disruption, is a matter of judgment.
• Administration. Applying blocks, protections, and page deletions sensibly requires understanding why a rule exists, not merely what it says.

The limits of common sense

Common sense is easily abused. The phrase "it's just common sense" is sometimes used to shut down discussion, to assert a personal preference as if it were universal, or to justify departing from a rule without good reason.

For that reason, common sense on Bharatpedia has limits:

• It is not an argument in itself. Saying that a position is "common sense" does not explain why it is correct. Editors should give reasons that others can examine, not appeal to a shared intuition that may not in fact be shared.
• It is not a substitute for consensus. Where editors disagree, the disagreement must be resolved through discussion, not by one editor asserting that the matter is obvious.
• It does not override policy. A policy that was adopted after broad discussion reflects the community's judgment. An individual editor's view that the policy is unreasonable is not sufficient ground to disregard it.
• It is not a licence for disruption. Invoking common sense to justify edit warring, page blanking, or ignoring a consensus is not a use of common sense at all.
• It varies between editors. What seems obvious to one editor may not be obvious to another, particularly across cultural and linguistic differences. Appeals to common sense should therefore be made cautiously, and with an awareness that the other editor may genuinely see the matter differently.

Common sense and dispute resolution

Where an editor believes that a rule, applied literally, would produce a bad outcome, the appropriate course is usually to:

1. Explain clearly what the problem is and what outcome they believe is correct.
2. Give reasons that others can evaluate, not merely assert that the answer is obvious.
3. Discuss the matter on the relevant talk page, and seek input from other editors where agreement is not reached.
4. Accept the outcome of the discussion, even where it differs from their own view.

In rare cases where the situation is genuinely urgent — for example, where applying a rule literally would cause immediate and serious harm to the encyclopedia or to a living person — an editor may act first and explain afterwards, citing Bharatpedia:Ignore all rules. That is an exceptional measure, and it should be treated as such.

See also

• Bharatpedia:Ignore all rules — the policy permitting deliberate departure from a rule where doing so improves the encyclopedia
• Bharatpedia:Consensus — how disagreements are resolved
• Bharatpedia:Policy — the status of policies and guidelines generally
• Bharatpedia:List of policies
• Bharatpedia:List of guidelines
• Bharatpedia:Assume good faith — the related expectation that other editors are acting in good faith