From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
This is not consistent with reality. The only consensus is built by and from people who like rules. Many people just go about their daily business of improving articles in the subjects that interest them, and have done so back to a time before those rules were "adopted". A person who has done this for say three years will be completely surprised and shocked when a newbie administrator suddenly attempts to impose a rule that was "adopted by consensus" one year ago. For that newbie the rule is law, and he won't hear of having the rule reconsidered no matter how inappropriate the rule. Dedicated editors do not spend their time paying attention to the nuances of rule-making; if they did they would never get anything useful done.
I've run into editors who have been editing for years (much longer than me), but haven't felt the need to abide by various newfangled rules like Cite your sources, Verifiability and Neutral Point of View, which have often been completely ignored, especially in the early days.
Jay.