82,882
edits
Template:Boilerplate capsule: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
“Working” means “going in easily” — without argument — and “being commonly understood”; at the limit, being able to withstand scrutiny before the [[King’s Bench Division]], though categorically ''not'' being [[written for a judge]]. | “Working” means “going in easily” — without argument — and “being commonly understood”; at the limit, being able to withstand scrutiny before the [[King’s Bench Division]], though categorically ''not'' being [[written for a judge]]. | ||
That quality is not intrinsic to the boilerplate itself, but is a function of ''what the community thinks it means''. There is an | That quality is not intrinsic to the boilerplate itself, but is a function of ''what the community thinks it means''. [[There is an emergent strength in consensus]]: if everyone uses it, it is more effective, by itself, regardless of the cleverness of its engineering. Law is a sociological phenomenon, first and foremost. Everyone knows that “in the [[public domain]]” means “public”. No-one would ever take that point.<ref>The [[doyen of drafting]] is ''not'' no-one, obviously.</ref> Not, at least, as far as court. | ||
We should therefore regard boilerplate as a ''public resource''. A utility. Not special sauce, not an ''asset'', not “part of the magic”. We should not [[Rent extraction|extract rent]] from it. Lawyers don’t help anyone, or nourish their own souls, by acing boilerplate. | We should therefore regard boilerplate as a ''public resource''. A utility. Not special sauce, not an ''asset'', not “part of the magic”. We should not [[Rent extraction|extract rent]] from it. Lawyers don’t help anyone, or nourish their own souls, by acing boilerplate. | ||