On 08/02/2008, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Well, if you don't want policy to be prescriptive,
then you will have
to give up citing it. It seems to be the policy (in sense 1) that
policy functions in sense 2 and maybe even sense 3.
Citing policy is just shorthand for citing already establish
consensus. Unless there is a specific reason to believe that consensus
has changed, it's generally safe to assume the policy page is an
accurate representation of current consensus. (This may be slightly
closer to sense 2 than sense 1.)