In general, I think that policy changes should be discussed here
before changes are made to the policy pages. One reason is that many
newcomers will visit the policy pages to find out what the consensus
is, and so the policy pages should be 'stable' (not permanently fixed,
but stable, changing conservatively over time to reflect emerged
consensus). We can hash things out here, and then make non-drastic
changes there.
If people want to have a say in policy, the most effective tool is to
subscribe to this list. This is not particularly burdensome, as a
person could easily set the list to 'nomail' and read the list via the
archives.
I would be supportive of the policy pages making this clear.
--Jimbo