Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Feb 24, 2007, at 3:28 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
That absence of consensus alone contraindicates any kind of speedy action. When who shows up in a "speedy" situation that hour (not just that day) makes a difference there is just too much room for abuse. What happens with Brandt or any other person that wants an article about himself removed is only one little corner of the problem. A truly collaborative environment has no place for debates that depend on some kind of win/lose paradigm. Speedy deletes should never be a weapon for winning a POV war. Unless something is _immediately_ dangerous it can afford the time for due process. Immediate gratification is not important.
This gets at another very, very fundamental problem, though - one that is increasingly ripping the project apart at a foundational level. (I am not, it should be noted, speaking here on a community level. I'm talking about the encyclopedia itself.)
Our due process is capricious and based on who shows up. This is most obvious on AfD, where articles are serially renominated until they get deleted. The renominations are justified under the slogan "consensus can change," but in practice it's not consensus that changes - few of the people who voted keep the previous few times even show up to weigh in. That's not consensus changing - that's the equivalent of asking daddy if you can have a cookie because mommy said no.
-Phil
I agree that this is a troublesome development. The more active users, the more of an issue this becomes. Finding a good way to fix this is not easy.
[brainstorm] How about if there is a list somewhere of AFD participants. Anyone can add their name to the list, but an AFD can only be closed when a quorum (TBD) of those participants have made some comment on the deletion proposal. Someone will be de-listed if they have not commented on any proposal for a defined period. Of course, they can immediately re-join the list of participants at any time. [/brainstorm]
NB: A "brainstorm" in this context means a relatively unfiltered idea, intended primarily to stimulate thought, modifications, and other proposals. Seldom will an initial brainstorm idea be accepted as is.
-Rich Holton