On 6/6/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
OK, I understand your terminology. Of course, then you should agree
that
every sentence of every article is a consensus among everyone who has
read
that sentence. So that pretty much makes the comment useless, doesn't
it?
That's the whole principle behind "stable versions". Once people stop editing something, it means there is a consensus on it.
But surely you wouldn't apply you comment that "BOLD is not meant to be used for going against established consensus" to that.
However, the
consensus derived from an active discussion (even if people don't comment) is stronger than the consensus derived from passive reading. You don't look at an FAC request without thinking about whether it would make a good FA, you do often read an article without thinking about every sentence.
Agreed, a few people discussing something makes for a stronger consensus. But once Tony came along, saw the result, and so vehemently disagreed with it, that consensus was broken. At that point the notion of BOLD and consensus decision making really take a back seat to the issue of how Featured Articles in particular should be chosen. On that part of the discussion I'm going to bow out, because I think the entire system of choosing featured articles is completely broken, and has been for years.