Improving the newcomer experience

The rules are a tool to predict the behavior of other users who follow the rules. In a collaborative system like Wikipedia, predicting what other users will do is how we get our edits to stick.

If someone does not care whether their edits will stick, then they can safely ignore all rules.

Reading the friendly manuals is not the only way to learn the rules. We can (and do) also learn by observing the behavior of other users. Watching what people do helps us predict what they will do next.

Having detailed manuals actually makes Wikipedia more open because it allows any new user, who will make the effort to read the rules, to predict the behavior of other users almost as well as an experienced user. That is, most people who are capable of learning Wikipedia will learn it faster by reading the rules, in addition to learning by experience, than they will if they approach Wikipedia only by observation, trial, and error. This allows newcomers to get on an even footing with established users as quickly as they want to. When rules are not in writing, then experience becomes an extremely powerful advantage, which the new user cannot overcome quickly.

It's the same with almost any knowledge domain. For example, you can learn science a lot faster by reading science books in addition to observing nature. When humans learned science the first time, before they could just read about it, the learning took centuries.

Computer programmer types tend to understand this - anyone who has coded in several computer languages understands the fastest way to learn a complex new system is to read the friendly manuals. The manuals on Wikipedia are the best I have ever seen for any complex system. So it could be a lot worse.