Thomas Dalton wrote:
There is no
such consensus. The RfA system works for you because you
use it, as do all the others who participate. There are far more people
who just wash their hands of it, and just limit their activities to
some narrow topic.
On Wikipedia "consensus" is used to mean "consensus of people that
decided to express an opinion". We don't hold referendums on policy
decisions. Every time a proposal for a new system of selecting admins
has been discussed, it has been rejected. That is a consensus to keep
things pretty much as they are. It's possible that some new proposal
might gain approval, but none have so far.
I made no mention of referenda. Your highly questionable interpretation
of "consensus" should probably have the words "at that time" added to
it. In many of these decisions the attitude is, "If you didn't know the
discussion was going on, too bad, you've forfeited your right to
participate anyway."
It's no wonder that any attempts at improving admin selection are
rejected. Those who have a vested interest in the way things are, or
who participate regularly in the RfA cabal keep a close watch on the
current rules. Those who would like improvement include many who
consider the present state of things hopeless, and thus never bother
looking there. If a good rule change is proposed they simply don't know
about it, even if there are more of them. Any suggestion that the
decision making process that happens there is consensus is a load of crap.
Ec