[WikiEN-l] Policy adoption (was Jayjg: Abusing CheckUser ...)

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 18 Jun 2007 at 01:54:36 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> 
wrote:

> The entire policy adoption process is remarkably fucked up. It favours 
> the policy wonks with private agendas who have the time and tenacity to 
> ensure that their favorite views will prevail.  The corpus of our 
> policies (including guidlines and other pseudo policies) is so huge that 
> it becomes easy for anyone to plant a policy virus whose infective 
> nature will not be noticed until much later.  At that point the 
> supporters of a change can offer nothing but a glib response to the 
> effect that you should have said something about it earlier, because now 
> that it has been here so long it can only be changed if a consensusto 
> change  is first achieved.  If it can then be transferred to meta ...

"You hadn't actually gone out of your way to call attention to them, 
had you?  I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display..."

"On display?  I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find 
them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But, look, you found the notice, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did.  It was on display in the bottom of a 
locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the 
door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'"

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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