[WikiEN-l] Resolving conflicts and reaching consensus

[Peter Tesler]

> 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.

Many times something that's already has been concluded/proven can and
should be used in future discussions. For example, if we've reached a
consensus that there's no oxygen on the surface on the moon, we can
bring that point up next time someone suggests sending astronauts to
the moon without oxygen-carrying space suits. Other times, an existing
conclusion should not be used and an exception should be made. The
ideagraph accommodates both of these situations - you can reuse
existing statements, but you can also refute a particular reuse of a
statement. And no debate is ever closed - if you have more information
to contribute, you can jump into an exiting debate at any time.

> Also, keeping track of percentages in "voting" has a way of obscuring the
> actual arguments as not everyone's opinion is simply "up or down" on any
> issue. For example, this is why we don't simply count votes in an AFD (at
> least, we're not supposed to): We want to consider the weight of the
> arguments and get a more abstract 'feel' for what consensus is, rather than
> compiling a simple tally, because tallies aren't very informative.

There is no voting on the graph - the percentages you see represent
the fraction of the past 24 hours that the statement was green. This
merely shows if there is a "lean" in a debate. A percentage of 100%,
however, is a good indication that a consensus has been reached or is
close to being reached. The decision not to have voting built into the
software came directly from the Wikipedian philosophy you mentioned
above - i.e. tallies do not prove a logical argument right or wrong.

More info: http://thegraph.org/about

> Finally, and most importantly, sometimes we need to go over topics again to
> address evolving editorial experience and new circumstances. It doesn't
> bother me if that means occasionally re-inventing the wheel, because every
> time we invent the wheel it might be a bit better or more well-suited to the
> situation than last time. It's good to archive past discussion for later
> reference (or to "catch up" new people who joined the conversation late),
> but not because we don't want people to have to think, use their reasoning,
> and engage in discussion on topics that someone else has discussed in the
> past; we want that because the process of discussion itself is
> enlightenment, even when the topic has been discussed in the past.

Very true. Which is why anyone can jump into an old debate at any time
and refute something that was previously thought to be true. It's
important to note that the ideagraph is very much UNLIKE an online
forum - it is a network (directed graph) of logical statements that
refute one another. Refuting one statement has somewhat of a ripple
effect. Each user can focus on the local debate surrounding a
particular issue and the software calculates the truth values of
everything that's connected (which I guess one day can be billions of
other statements).

Thanks for all the feedback guys!