On 7/31/06, Matt Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. With the
exception of core
Wikipedia policies not subject to debate, you can't use policy to
force things through without broad support.
It's both: Policy prescribes that everyone must follow what consensus
has agreed on.
The use of diacritical marks in page names for people,
when the name
is fully recognisable even by those not familiar with the diacritics,
and where appropriate redirects exist, does not (IMO) have that broad
support. It may have a majority, but I doubt even that when it comes
to (english-language) Wikipedia contributors as a whole. Straw polls
and the like just show how many people are rabid about the issue.
Certainly I think that neither extreme point of view has a majority,
and that it's hard to even find a point-in-the-middle that could gain
overwhelming support.
One of the weaknesses with the Wikipedia model that is becoming more
apparent. There are just some issues where consensus can never be
gained, so a consistent policy can never be achieved. Which is a pity:
It means our encyclopaedia will never have any kind of broad
consistency, and will instead have different articles following
different rules which reflect the local consensuses that have been
achieved.
Steve