On 4/8/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher(a)student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
1) Policy is descriptive --- it *describes* what we
already do, it
attempts to document consensus. When we look to policy, it's because
IMHO, "policy is descriptive" is misleading. It's actually
descriptively prescriptive. That is, it describes what people think we
should do. It does not only describe what people actually do. Nor does
it prescribe what people should do, without evidence that people
actually want that (with a few rare exceptions like WP:OFFICE, that
come "straight from the top").
Steve