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