Thread:SavageOpress1138/@comment-104549-20151215121224/@comment-104549-20151216003506

I agree that the instant article falls squarely within the crossover policy if strictly interpreted. Per the above, I think something only ceases to be "crossover" when it's canonically or Legendarily incorporated. Legends is a closed set now, so things are either incorporated there or they're not; new canon is open, so that can change as we go along, but articles can always be assessed on the spot for whether they're currently incorporated.

I appreciate the stare decisis argument—the whole point of stare decisis is that the system is unfair if people can't predict how the rules will be applied because the rules keep changing. That said, I also would not have come to the decision the community did in the Soul Calibur discussion, and I agree it was wrongly decided. But that said, I think it's a personal question for you whether, as a Bureaucrat, you feel comfortable reversing a policy decision made by community vote.

The way I read the Bureaucrat restrictions, Bureaucrats can't violate the policies...but I looked, and I'm not sure we have a Policies Policy that says policies can only be adopted by community consensus. I think precedent is pretty clear for actual policies being adopted by community vote rather than by fiat, and the existence of the Consensus Track seems to back that up. Consider, for example, Brandon's Consensus Track proposal for streamlining the editing policy as recently as two years ago, and Ataru's Archivist changes two months ago. Of course, the existence of a policy and the interpretation of a policy are different questions.

In sum, I think whether you, as Bureaucrat, have the power to unilaterally change the way a policy is interpreted, when there's been a community consensus on interpretation, is unclear. Even if you do, though, I think it would be unwise, because on a brief search I can't find any other instances of it being done. I think Bureaucrats and Admins do have the power to interpret policies which have never been interpreted—we don't need a community consensus vote every time somebody comes up with some new way to break the rules ("The malicious ingenuity of mankind is constantly producing new inventions in the art of disturbing their neighbors," Commonwealth v. Taylor, 5 Binn. 277, 281 (Pa. 1811))—but since the community has adopted a view on the exact question in this case, I think a better approach would be to put non-canon-but-official crossovers to a renewed community consensus. While this could still change the rules, it would do so in a transparent manner, giving all interested parties a chance to voice their opinions and win the agreement of their fellow fanoneers. I think policies should be "set in stone" the same way laws are—not subject to change at the drop of a hat, but not divinely ordained either. I personally would support the revised view of crossovers (unacceptable unless canonically/Legendarily incorporated).

And if the Crossovers category bothers you by itself, wait until you see Pikachu in the Star Wars/Halo crossover! Crossoverception! Pikachu isn't written as a true crossover, but still...