" 
 :::::::It would be ludicrously - OK, totalitarian - to suggest that people who agree (or disagree) with each other shouldn't talk. Equally obvious, I'd have thought, is the fact that that was not the gist of my post (I am disappointed that you have chosen to represent it that way). It simply referred the OP, who exhibits a great fondness for directing other editors' attention to WP:THISTHATANDTHEOTHER, to a core concern of the WP:CANVASS guideline, which is that the practice of recruiting people to a discussion in order to add weight to an opinion you are arguing there, when your criterion for selection is that the recruit shares your opinion, is regarded as ""inappropriate"". Thank you for clarifying that the co-founder of WP, no less, does not regard it as so. It's good to learn that WP:CANVASS is trumped by the infinitely more precious principle of free speech, and that it's yet another strand of WP red tape we can safely ignore.   "