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Complaint: Priority Inversion Specifics: Pseudo-Consensus Overturning the Big Three (and the Five Pillars)
JA = Jon Awbrey MB = Matt Brown
Continuation --
MB: So I have some questions:
MB: 2. Do you think the editors should be forced to discuss the issue with you before removing this block quote?
JA: Again, the issue not the presence or absence of a single quotation. I once started out a routine copyedit of an article and found myself in the middle of a personal essay, with no citations but the author's own blog, that turned into a not so [[desultory philippic]] against some of the author's former colleagues at a university named in the indictment, and ended by giving their email addresses and home pages. I deleted the personal aspersions and personnel data forthwith and moved the essay to talk with a request for anybody that still cared about it to clean it up and cite a few reliable sources or forget it. I think that any sensible editor would do that.
JA: But that's not what we are talking about. We're talking about a series of deletions that made the following total difference to an article:
Total Difference: 23:51, 10 June 2006 (edit) --> 08:13, 12 June 2006 (edit) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Peirce&diff=58174814&a...
And it was no personal essay or unsourced content that got deleted in the process.
Jon Awbrey
MB: 3. Do you think consensus should not be used to guide decisions regarding Wikipedia content?
MB: 4. If so, then what decision making process should replace it?
MB: I hope I'm not putting words in Jon Awbrey's mouth by stating that he thinks the problem is that when consensus can be defined as "Me and three of my friends I IM'd to come and agree with me", there's a problem. Especially when a "consensus" among like-minded people on the same side of an issue can be used to trump core Wikipedia policies and standard Wikipedia ways of working.
MB: Part of the issue is that there's always tension between deciding an issue for good on the one hand, and having every single opinionated person coming along to any article being able to re-open things for which an adequate conclusion has already been reached.
MB: Standard Wikipedia policy / practise here is that there are no permanent decisions on Wikipedia apart from core policy, but that if an issue has been decided by strong rough consensus, we're resistant to re-opening the issue unless the one wishing to re-open it can convince enough people that the previous rough consensus no longer holds.
MB: "Strong rough consensus" in my opinion means an issue that for the vast majority of contributors has a result they can live with - even if not outright approve - and that has been reached after a satisfactory discussion, a satisfactory attempt at compromise, a respect for policy, and with sufficient editors involved that are representative on the issue.
MB: IMO, a rough consensus is not a strong one, a good one, if it has been arrived at without discussion, without attempts to find common ground, without regard for over-riding policy, or without sufficient numbers of contributors or variety of points-of-view to be truly representative.
MB: There are many editors on Wikipedia who want to truly do the right thing and achieve good results. There are enough others, however, who want articles to say exactly what THEY wish them to say, and who will game the rules and do everything they can to get their way. (There are probably other categories of editors, of course, but this is simplifying).
MB: I have a feeling that another issue Jon has is that some contributors are too willing to remove things from articles if they don't like them, regardless of the work that went into them, the usefulness of the content, or in any way trying to achieve consensus for that removal.
MB: Jon, do I have your positions right?
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