"John Lee" wrote
I think this is a rather good point being made -- consensus isn't scaling, at least when it comes to policy matters and meta issues, like wheel warring. On nearly everything else -- hell, even AfD (as a once-regular AfD closer now taking a break, I think much of the problems with it are overhyped) -- consensus is working great. But on policy, things are moving at a glacially slow pace.
A non-scaling idea of consensus is what we call 'not a consensus'.
There used to be a fairly relaxed view of policy. That is, there was the newbie version, which was fairly aspirational, and the 'old lags' version, which tested the limits, but took various good things like 'be bold' and 'assume good faith' and 'ignore all rules' (when the situation warranted it) as central - rather than assuming there was a theory test and manual of style handed out as you came in.
Have things moved on? Yes. We (metaphorically) shot the Old Bolsheviks, by banning User:Wik and annoying User:RickK and busting User:Ed Poor so far back into the ranks that his eyes watered. There may be one or two OBs left, but not many. It's a newish world out there.
And we now have to plan for 'The Eight-Figure enWP'.
When? Four years from now. That's compound growth of 1.2% per week, extrapolated.
Policy is going to be tighter. Wonkery is here to stay. Exegesis of policy is going to matter (I've just sent a Verifiability case study around, which was of course not aimed at SlimVirgin, who knows all this.) 'Unexpected consequences' bedevil us. For example, make people log in to create pages, and you get more logged in users, wondering about ... userboxes. Hah.
Glacial is about right (geese, golden eggs). Remembering that 2005, which the media are delighted to call a tough time for WP, was in fact a breakthrough year of huge achievement with a few blemishes on the face of things. Must have been WP's adolescence.
As they say, though not always of wikis - so cute when they're young, shame they have to grow up.
Charles