Wikipedia:When rules conflict

Wikipedia has a lot of rules. Sometimes, editors find themselves in situations where those rules seem to give contradictory instructions. When this happens, here are some guidelines to follow:

1. Review the rules: Check to make sure that you have remembered the relevant rules' scope correctly. If it turns out that at least one of the relevant rules only applies to a narrower set of situations than you thought, there may not be a conflict after all.
   • Review the rules' importance: If the rules actually conflict, but one rule is just a guideline instead of an official policy and the policy page for the other rule has an instruction to comply right away without waiting for discussion, the correct choice is clear.
2. Review or figure out the rules' intentions: Following the spirit of a rule is more important than following the rule itself (although one should still review what the rule exactly is even if one remembers the general idea). If the page for the policy or guideline states its motivation, one should go by that, but if not, one can often make educated guesses. For example, the prohibition on clearing categories while they are under discussion is probably meant to prevent unilateral action that would be disruptive if the consensus ends up being keep, move, merge, split, or listify. If the consensus turns out to be keep, all of the removals will need to be undone by someone else, which is time-consuming (whereas if the consensus turned out to be delete, all of the removals would have been done by a bot, so clearing the category in advance does not actually save time), and if the consensus turns out to be split or listify, it is more convenient to do this if the articles are all listed in one place (the old category) than if no one remembers what all of them were, so the old category should not be cleared until the splitting or listification has been completed. However, if a category is listed for discussion for being an underpopulated category with only one or two members, then it is later found that all of the members clearly do not fit in the category, removing them would not violate the spirit of this rule.
3. Consult with other editors: If you still aren't sure, it is likely that neither rule is urgent, so it is often better to ask for help than to just guess. Article talk pages and WikiProject talk pages are good places to start. The template {{Help me}} is another option.

Suggested priority hierarchy

Here is a recommended hierarchy of the importance of various rules, policies, and guidelines. Things near the top of the list (smaller numbers) take precedence over things lower in the list (larger numbers). This list is just a guideline; there may not be a consistent order for any two rules, and even if there is, there may be a cyclic reaction where policy A always trumps policy B, policy B always trumps policy C, and policy C always trumps policy A. Also, this list does not excuse violating the rule with a lower priority if there is not actually a conflict, so it has been ordered with possible situations where the rules may conflict in mind and therefore is not designed to reflect importance in other situations. For example, while an uncited statement on a biography of a living person not distorting the article's point of view will on average be a bigger problem/more important to remove than nonneutral language about the significance of some minor chemical, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view has been placed above Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons in order to not excuse a hypothetical edit of the article about a hypothetical Israeli hostage held in Gaza who eventually became a right-wing politician after being released made with a mindset such as, "The statements of the released hostages and the Israeli doctors who treated them cannot be trusted because Zionist occupiers will lie and say anything to get away with their colonialism, so this section about the person's time in captivity is poorly-sourced and therefore must be removed."

Also, one should not overinterpret the extent of the conflict. If Wikipedia:Assume good faith has been placed above some policy, that does not mean that one may not revert edits violating the lower policy but rather that one should not refer to the edits one is reverting as vandalism, POV-pushing, or anything else negative in one's edit summary. Similarly, the fact that Wikipedia:Categories for discussion ha been placed above Wikipedia:Manual of Style does not mean that style violations in category titles may not get corrected but rather that one should go through the established channels and wait 48 hours instead of fixing it as quickly as possible by making a new category with the correct-seeming title and manually moving the pages from the old category to the new category.

1. Wikipedia:No original research
2. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
3. Wikipedia:Biographies of living people
4. Wikipedia:Assume good faith
5. Nonspeedy Wikipedia:Categories for discussion, including not clearing categories with an open discussion
6. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy
7. Wikipedia:Manual of Style

What to do when someone makes the wrong choice

First off, if you disagree with someone else's decision about which rule was more important in a particular situation, verify this before continuing on. If you cannot find anything to back up your point and you have no reason to suspect that the other person is more likely to be wrong than you are, initiating a discussion is better.

If you are sure that the other person made a mistake, just like with any other type of mistake, you are free to revert it. However, the rules applying to other instances of reverting, such as not starting an edit war and not being a lone wolf against clear consensus, still apply. As with any revert, it is recommended to explain yourself in the edit summary, including linking to the page that explains why this other rule is more important if appropriate. Also, during discussions with someone who you feel prioritized rules incorrectly, remember to assume good faith. Do not assume that other users all know the complete priority hierarchy. Also do not assume that things like prioritizing the spirit of the rules should just be obvious; some people are deontologists or may make different interpretations about the intention of the rule if it was not explicitly stated.

This section should not be construed to justify repeatedly invoking a lower-priority rule to rationalize violating a higher-priority rule. Users who repeatedly do this even after being reminded of which rule has higher priority should still be dealt with accordingly, including blocked if necessary. For assessing good faith the first or second instance, unnaturally restricting the decision to only two options so as to create a conflict where there originally was none may be a sign of bad faith.

See also

• Wikipedia:Ignore all rules