On 16/10/2007, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
An outstanding feature of on-line communities is that there are relatively few enforcement mechanisms, and thus relatively higher levels of anarchy. Back in the glory days of Usenet, people often asked, "What am I allowed to post?", and my answer was always, "You can post whatever you can get away with." And much the same applies to Wikipedia.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. We even enshrine the notion, in a way, by having an actual policy saying it's okay to Ignore All Rules.
The point is that such a modus operandi isn't what WP:Consensus alleges - even though that document is indeed pretty weaselly with concepts of consensus and explaining how things allegedly work on Wikipedia.
I'm not particularly in favour of operating by proper consensus - I don't think that it would be very workable, but I would like at the very least to see groundrules for the "whatever you can get away with" system (i.e. how things really work most of the time on Wikipedia) that ensure a more level playing field - i.e. the winners are not just the most persistent or enthusiastic or the most supporters (yes, as you say, they aren't necessarily the "winners" if the minority are more persistent).
Zoney