On 08/02/2008, The Mangoe the.mangoe@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.)