[WikiEN-l] Another Media and Wikipedia blackout on NYT reporter in Afghanistan

[Surreptitiousness]

Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Surreptitiousness wrote:
>   
>> wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
>>     
>>> We are supposed to be community-driven.
>>> Where is the community consensus on media blackouts?
>>> Link please.
>>>   
>>>       
>> I'm amused by the idea that you can link to community consensus. We need 
>> a picture of thousands of Wikipedians sitting at their computer with 
>> either smiles or frowns, which we can link to at times like this. Since 
>> consensus is supposed to be emergent of the wiki process on Wikipedia, 
>> per foundation principles, I'm not sure what you mean.  Didn't they link 
>> to the situation and its resolution? How would that not be a consensus?
>>     
>
> I imagine he was hoping for a link to an RFC or a talk page where the
> subject had been discussed and a consensus had formed as a result. This
> sort of thing happens all the time, I don't see what's amusing or
> bizarre about the concept.
>
> Simply linking to the "situation and its resolution" doesn't show
> consensus in this case because the "resolution" was imposed without
> discussion by a small number of people.
>
>   
Hmmm.  I must have mis-imagined the foundation principle, because I'm 
fairly sure it mentioned the wiki process as the consensus making 
method, not talking about stuff.  There's no need to have an RFC or a 
talk page about everything, and quite often you'll find the consensus 
actually is the situation and its resolution. I'm amused that any 
situation where something hasn't been discussed equates to an imposition 
of will. I'm also amused we read into emails the worst possible meaning 
rather than adopt a general air of amusement.  But in all seriousness, I 
was very particular in writing that the resolution was, to quote, "a 
consensus" rather than The Consensus.  I'd also imagine that if Will's 
purpose was to challenge the consensus on media blackouts, Will would be 
doing so on Wikipedia via an RFC or talk page discussion.  Asking where 
the consensus is documented is a little backwards, because the consensus 
is actually in what we do.  RFC's and talk page discussions are just 
what we think, and policies and guidance just describe what we do.  What 
we do is where the consensus lies. If you want to change what we do, 
that's one thing, but if you want to know where what we do is 
documented, that's another.  It may be that the consensus hasn;t been 
documented yet, or it may be that consensus is fragile.  We don't know. 
I just found it amusing that Will thinks we are community driven but 
also asked for a link to consensus.  To me that is somewhat illogical, 
since you can;t link to the community.  Either we are community driven 
or we are rules driven.  We can't really be both, although there are 
obvious exceptions.