David Gerard wrote:
A note from a dev. If you rant about their evil enough, you can successfully get them to say "fine, you do it" and leave. Then you can feel a real sense of achievement at your good work for Wikipedia.
- d.
No-one is calling the dev "evil" - there work is very much appreciated. All that is being said, is that a little more care is needed when making a call on consensus in an obviously contentious area in our community. One decision here, made no doubt in good faith, by a good guy, has resulted in a disproportionate amount of drama - and the nature of these decisions is that they are effectively (although not theoretically) irrevocable.
All that was needed was a quick e-mail to an arb, or other established community member who didn't have a huge axe to grind, and I'm sure he'd have been told:
"hm, we've been debating this without resolution for years, so a six-day poll at Christmas is not really indicative of anything much - wait a bit"
Anyway, it is a done deal now. I guess all we are looking for is some assurance that next time there will be a little more checking.
And I /would/ suggest this is a role that arbs could take on (who else?), NOT as policy makers or adjudicates after the fact, but as people trusted by the community for sane unbiased judgment - who tend to know what's going on - who can give a developer a sanity check as regards where the consensus on en.wp lies.
Doc