[WikiEN-l] Resolving conflicts and reaching consensus

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 11:46 AM, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> A common way to stifle discussion about nuance in any situation is to refer
> to old discussions on similar ideas and say "we already discussed this and
> got consensus". Keeping an ancient history of all past debates could cause a
> single discussion to echo forward in time indefinitely. I don't think we
> should feel bound by previous arguments, and there is never a point where
> discussion cannot be re-opened.
[snip]


But the opposite approach is as bad or worse:  If every issue must be
argued anew when someone brings it up then the ultimate outcome is
that by sheer pigheaded persistence you will eventually get your way
once everyone saner has tired or repeating the same argument, — or
even ignoring a single persistence force — that we'll always
eventually conduct things according to the initial impressions of a
typical uninformed person (because, again, the informed people will
drop out).

I don't think the regular references to old discussions are a
prohibition against a new discussion, but you certainly shouldn't spin
up a new one without a reasonable understanding of what has been
argued before.


Going back to the software and pulling in Martijn's comments— I
actually see something of an opposite effect here.  It looks to me
like this system would leave people in a position of having to
perpetually continue and maintain an argument for fear that a slow
drip of based counter-opinion won't erode the standing of the
position.

For example,  as a community we might think really hard about the use
of, say, ellipses in article text and after careful analysis and
vigorous debate come to a widely held conclusion that they shouldn't
be used.   As far as I can tell every time some newbie bumps into this
rule— before they've had a chance to calmly consider their position—
they'll head over to the page and vote down the decision.

Eventually the page reflects a conflicted (or opposed) state, even
though that may not accurately reflect the project consensus at all,
it may not even reflect the current views of the people who opposed it
now that they have some distance from the incident that first brought
them to the rule and additional experience with the project.

I think it's important to for discussions to have closure, so that we
can count on the most sane and considered people being willing to
invest significant time making excellent arguments, but the closure
ought not be absolute because situations and opinions change.  I can
think of no way that software could systematize a balanced system like
that.