Don't be dense

Don't be dense. If people abided by this, other policies would flow naturally and be intuitive.

"Don't be dense" is the basic underlying message of every editorial and meta-policy in a social space. All rules are an attempt to define the boundaries of density.

Although there is a vast amount of space on the Wikimedia servers, it is still insufficient to provide a detailed accounting of density and its various flavours (stupidity, obstinance, dickery, utter lunacy). If, after explaining their point in twelve different ways, people still point out a wealth of well-established policies that contradict them, the dense will reiterate their point a thirteenth time, while others will contemplate changing their mind.

The nature of density is such that the dense are rarely aware of their density, and so it is probably more helpful, albeit more frustrating, to explain the specific problem to a dense user rather than simply citing this policy and assuming they'll figure it out.

Remember: "Assume good faith" is a nicer restatement of "Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice." Try not to be stupid either.