Ignore all rules

"Ignore all rules" (IAR) is a policy used on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. The English Wikipedia policy reads: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." [emphasis in original].^[1] The rule was proposed by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger to encourage editors to add information without focusing excessively on formatting, though Sanger later criticized the rule's effects on the community.

The policy is discussed on other pages on Wikipedia, such as the essay "What 'Ignore all rules' means".^[2] It allows Wikipedia users to use a policy to occasionally work around the site's rules without rejecting the entire rule system. A study in 2012 found that in "Articles for Deletion" discussions, which determine whether a Wikipedia article should be deleted, comments were given more weight when they used IAR as justification. Critics of Wikipedia have variously opined that the rule is abused in practice, or should be used more often.