I would normally start by floating this on wikien-L or on-wiki at the usual places, but the time for that has passed and thus I am going to drop this on the Foundation, who I believe are responsible for the particular problem here.
On the English language Wikipedia, there has been a longstanding discussion / dispute / evolving consensus on how long is appropriately long for major site policy discussions. For varying areas, there are no limits to discussion period, a week or longer, 3 days, 2 days, 24 hrs, and so forth.
It's generally held - in my opinion - that major events or changes should be on the order of a week or longer.
I bring this up because I left town on the 10th aware of various SOPA discussions but unaware of an organized intention to blackout on the 18th, and returned to editing today to find that it's tomorrow and that it's all decided now, thank you very much, your opinion no longer desired.
It appears that this was done to match the other organizations' pre-announced Jan 18th blackouts. It also appears that this was instigated on or around the 13th by Foundation staff.
In the intervening days, someone appears to have decided without seeking consensus that 3 days was enough time to discuss and decide, announced such, had the discussion, called a consensus (with, admittedly, most of the active editing community participating) and started implementation.
It's not clear from reading stuff who decided that 3 days was enough time for the final formatted discussion and consensus to be valid. It is clear that the timing that led up to it was discussions the Foundation initiated in detail, with specified date etc, less than a week from the proposed date.
I do not see in any of that which came before an awareness of length-of-policy-discussion issues or preferences, a meta-discussion about how long to discuss, etc. It appears and seems likely (much less, assumptions of good faith) that this was simply overlooked.
That said, this is a Big Deal, and it appears that the Foundation collectively blew it on that aspect. Elements of the community also blew it.
The community has been trending downwards in acceptance of shorter discussions on things. To a degree this is useful - we need the ability to make timely decisions. To a degree this is harmful - lack of ability for all involved to see and participate due to timings; lack of depth of discussion and reflection. It's a dynamic and evolving standard. But it's a standard, and should not be casually ignored.
I would like to bring this point to the Foundation - staff and board - and ask that you understand that on the occasion that you want to push for a content or onwiki policy change and ask for community consensus on things, that you need to make proper allowances for time for discussion. Ideally, it should be enough time to frame a discussion, have a discussion within the framework amounting to a week or more, and then find consensus and implement. This would normally amount to something approximating 2 weeks of lead time or longer. This was not a policy or operational emergency, justifying either fix-first-then-discuss or a much shortened discussion. Everyone knew back in December that people at other sites were planning or discussing the 18th. If the Foundation had any inkling it was going to intervene and drive this, it should have been planning ahead of time.
Thank you.