Consensus in this case = no economically-significant opposition, not majority support or whatever. There is still significant opposition, so there is no consensus. (BIP 101 is very strongly opposed by many experts, so if consensus on BIP 101 is possible at all, it won't happen with any speed.)
You previously mentioned a 90% threshold for "consensus" (on reddit), and have mentioned a number of times that economic players.
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This wouldn't actually last for long in the scenario where 75% of miners switch but no big economic actors do because the miners who switched will switch back very soon after they realize that they're mining coins that no one will accept.
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Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin. The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.
Bitcoin is not ruled by miners. In a hardfork, miners barely matter at all. (Softforks are different.) What's important is what the economy does.
If I wanted to spend my bitcoin, then chances are I would need to spent it at one of the companies that signed this letter. The same is true if I wanted to buy/sell bitcoin (although not to as large of an extent).
You said to get a consensus of the major economic players of Bitcoin, and the major economic players of Bitcoin formed a consensus. If you don't think this is a cosensus then which economic player(s) are you waiting for to agree to BIP101?
Sure there are some core devs that are opposed to BIP101, although all that a
core dev is, that they have git hub commit access to bitcoin core. There are also allegations that the devs/experts that are opposed to BIP101 have conflicts of interest, and regardless of merit, this should be taken into consideration (provided the claim is not absolution without merit).
It should be noted that even with the support of these economic players, at least 75% of the miners also need to support BIP101 in order for it to be implemented.
In other words, without consensus, XT needs to utterly defeat "old" Bitcoin (including bitcointalk.org, etc.) on the market before I could recognize it as Bitcoin. This is messy, but it's the only reasonable approach as far as I can tell. It's not reasonable to go along with what a handful of what are essentially banks say we should do -- that's the sort of thing that Bitcoin was designed to stop.
This is where I strongly disagree with you. It is my understanding that there are no plans for BitcoinXT to continue to be supported if a (forced) consensus is not reached. If the network is forked and XT is not ultimately adopted as the next/new Bitcoin, then it will not be supported by it's devs and miners will have strong economic incentives to start mining on the "real" Bitcoin blockchain. This is very different from litecoin, or DASH, or name coin (or any other scam/alt coin) because none of them intended, nor had any realistic chance to replace Bitcoin.
The fact is that BitcoinXT has a non-zero chance of replacing Bitcoin upon implementation. Some people could put the chances at 1%, others might put it at 10%, others at 50%, others at 85%, although you apparently do not think it's chances are >90%. No other altcoin matches this criteria.
As you have argued, there is no consensus on if BIP101 should be implemented or not (I think there is an economic consensus with the Bitcoin related companies agreeing to support it). I do think that the current moderation policy is only going to make it
more difficult to get consensus one way or another. I also think the current moderation policy is making people
more polarized in the BIP101/no BIP101 debate and that each side is having more difficultly in listening to the other side's arguments.
I will say that I started off being strongly opposed to XT but in favor of a max block size increase. I will also say that I always have been and always will be opposed to any change in protocol that is without consensus.
I do believe that in order to reach a consensus, there needs to be a debate out in the open and that both sides need to be able to present their arguments. I do believe that the current moderation policy is preventing a
constructive debate from taking place regarding BIP101.
I think that without consensus on the max block size debate, Bitcoin will fail. I believe that without consensus that major economic players will stop accepting Bitcoin altogether until it is more clear which of Bitcoin or BitcoinXT will succeed. I think that now more then ever that Bitcoin needs a leader to neutrally guide major stakeholders of Bitcoin to make a decision on what to support.
I ask you theymos to please get us consensus regarding the max block size debate. I ask you to do so as neutrally as possible. Please bring the community together to reach an agreement as to what is going to be best for Bitcoin over the long term