Ownership

I believe this to be one of the central challenges that Wikimedia faces today. The notion of "consensus" is often used as a crutch, because it's impossible to define "consensus" if you don't first define from whom you're trying to get consensus. This often serves as a paralyzing force: People are afraid to act, because they're waiting for consensus, when it's impossible to know if you have consensus.

I think the underlying question is: What can we do to empower individuals? In a way, the original principle of IAR (Ignore All Rules) was in the spirit of empowerment, but as the person who started this thread pointed out, we seem to have lost that spirit.

Hmmm, sociologically/pathologically interesting: I've never thought of IAR that way, but of course you're right. I've always considered it a "safety net" to prevent lawyering ourselves to death. It naturally follows that it's about empowering people to do the right thing... interesting pondering. :)

I think there's a relationship between consensus and IAR. Both were supposed to be good. But it's reached a point where both are used to undermine each other.

Ignoring all rules meant that you could be bold, and that you wouldn't have to wait. And that you were always allowed to pursue the "exception to the rule", where people had agreed upon the rule and the rule just didn't make sense. Meanwhile, consensus meant that you couldn't just do this recklessly. Consensus was what kept people talking to each other, trying to work out differences, and collaborating.

Now the consensus rule is used to stonewall and prevent discussion. "No consensus, sorry, you're not allowed to do it." And in the rare situation where there is some kind of consensus, where a bunch of editors have been able to hammer out a generally agreed principle, IAR is used by a vocal minority to keep the conflict going until there is no end.

It used to be that IAR and consensus caused the community to come up with newer and better ways of doing things. But now IAR and consensus are almost always used to prevent any change or compromise.