[WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

[Ken Arromdee]

I'm no Jimbo of any sort, but let's not kid ourselves about there being
consensus on WP:ATT.  I had several objections to it, many of which were
answered very poorly.  (I'm still scratching my head over people saying that
false information will not in practice be attributable even in the face of
examples where it was.)

And it definitely seemed as if the policy was rammed through.  There were two
phases.  During the first phase, there was discussion about fixing
inconsistencies between policy and practice.  This got nowhere; there's too
much resistance to any and all change.  There was a second phase where the
goal was to combine the policies without fixing anything, and attempts to
get fixes made were answered with "we're just trying to combine the
existing material".  I'm sure a lot of people forgot about WP:ATT after it
became clear the first phase was dying, and never even realized anyone started
up a second phase.

I'm also not convinced that it means anything that WP:ATT was accepted as
policy so soon.  It takes a certain level of Wikipedia-bureaucracy
sophistication to even realize that WP:ATT is not a done deal and rejecting
it is not just spitting against the wind.  Most Wikipedia editors would
accept it as a policy merely because it looks like a policy and is presented
as one; they'd *never* think "hey, they need a consensus and if enough people
like me don't think it counts, then it won't count".  And most Wikipedia
editors probably wouldn't be in situations where the difference between
WP:ATT and the previous policy matters, anyway.