Consistent declarations and why they matter more than clever ones

Consistent declarations and why they matter more than clever ones — setting out what I have, and where I think it stops being reliable.

A follow-up question about consistent declarations that I did not know to ask the first time.

The earlier thread answered what I asked. What I should have asked is below, and I think it is the one that matters.

I read post #7 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.

Peak periods and public holidays affect this more than any other factor and are entirely predictable in advance.

I checked the source rather than the summary, and they differ.

On post #41 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.

Anyone deciding whether a delay is a problem should ask what would change if they waited another week. Usually the answer is nothing.

Since consistent declarations keeps coming up, it should probably be a maintained page rather than a recurring thread. I am happy to draft it if someone with more direct experience will review it.

One caution on consistent declarations: everything above assumes the underlying documentation is what it claims to be. That assumption is doing real work and is rarely stated.

I changed my mind about consistent declarations after someone here asked me for the source and I could not produce one. That is worth saying out loud because it is the ordinary way it happens.

Everything in post #104 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have.

I think the consistent declarations question is answerable and has not been answered, which is a more optimistic position than most of this thread.

What I want from this consistent declarations thread is the list of things that would need to be true for the claim to hold. If we can write that list, we can check it.

That is the distinction I keep failing to hold on to. Written down now.